Green Lentils and Potatoes

I rarely cook meat. It's not usually a conscious choice to avoid meat; it's just that pasta, sandwiches, rice, or eggs are cheaper and easier for me. I'm not becoming a vegetarian by any means (I love bacon too much for that) but I have recently realized that my carb-heavy, meat-light diet might be missing a few nutrients.

So this week, inspired by a post on From Scratch, I decided to make Lentil Burgers. And I felt it wouldn't be fair to leave you all out of this cooking adventure!

From Scratch is a "personal recipe journal" by Emma. If you like cupcakes (and who doesn't?) you should pop over to her blog; she makes cupcakes in delicious flavors (like tiramisu or peanut butter and honey) and also features plenty of other recipes and fashion. Someday soon, when I take my road-trip across America, I want to stop in Springfield, MO at Red Velvet, the vintage and cupcake shop run by Emma and her sister Elsie (Elsie's blog, A Beautiful Mess, was one of the first I ever read regularly).

To my knowledge, I've never eaten lentils before this year. But the French eat them frequently, the cafeteria at my school serves them often, and I've found them palatable. So when I ran across Emma's recipe for lentil burgers, I thought "what's the worst that could happen?" She made it look easy.

I bought myself some lentils, and set to work.

However, when a recipe says to use a food processor to mix up all your ingredients, I would recommend actually owning a food processor.  If you don't, your arm is going to be very sore before your lentils are squished up enough to be made into burgers.

My bulging (hah) biceps eventually got the lentils, breadcrumbs and spices to look like this:

Yum, right?  Yes, it does look a bit like cat puke.  At this point, I was nervous, but I had purchased barbecue sauce, just in case. I love barbecue sauce-I used to eat it plain when I was younger-so I knew it could cover a variety of flavor offenses.

I made them into patties and fried one up. They were a little green, but what do you expect from green lentils?

Due to insufficient food processing, my burger fell apart a little in the frying process, but a piece of cheese served to hold it all together.  It tasted really good, even before the barbecue sauce, and I have nine more patties in my freezer. Yum!

I know for some of you veggie burgers might be a little outside of your normal food scope, but I'd like to direct you to the words of a famous doctor, on the subject of another green food:

"You do not like them

SO you say

Try them! Try them!

And you may.

Try them and you may I say."

Your turn: Do you have any good recipes to share?  I'm much more likely to just make a sandwich or eat cereal than cook a real meal for myself, but once I start cooking I always remember just how much I love it and how it makes me feel like a grown-up!

I'm here.

This is not Brie. But it is giant cheese.
This quarter of it was bigger than my head.

Things that have ended up on my laptop this week:  Brie and Nutella.

I'm so in France.

Sometimes I just remember it, and it makes me smile.

It's No Use Crying...

{Someday, I'm going to post one of these on a Friday again...promise. Or eventually, I'll work my way through the week and back to Friday again.}

To continue our tour through Fun French Facts*... If you look to your left, you will see:

The Milk Aisle

You'll notice the lack of refrigeration.

That's right. It's not refrigerated. In France, almost all the milk is UHT (Ultra-High Temperature) Processed. It doesn't need to be refrigerated until it's opened.  It's magic milk, created through science that I don't fully understand, but which involves heating the milk way above boiling for a few seconds.

Then it can live on the shelf for 6 to 9 months. I know what you're thinking because it's the same thing I thought at first: eww. Most people in the United States are used to connecting milk with cold. But with all the microbes killed, it's perfectly safe.

But this processing method hasn't caught on in the States, probably because most people there share this presumption about milk.  Some people in France say it tastes just the same as pasteurized milk, and it is very similar, but I'm ridiculously picky about my milk and how "thick" it tastes.

Things I have used my UHT milk for: tea, cereal, cooking.
Times it made me gag: When I tried to make chocolate milk.
(However, it was also not skim milk, which might have played some part in the gagging.)

So I shop for my milk in the tiny refrigerated milk section:

But this means I miss out on the fun of buying milk in boxes.

Think how much easier this must be to transport. Also, you can buy five or six boxes at once, keep them in the pantry and never worry about running out of milk after the stores close at 7pm.

What do you think? Would you ever drink this milk? Or at least try it?

*Credit goes to my good friend, B, for the non-Friday alliterative title.

Some Scenes from a Thanksgiving in France

{Source}

The Pilgrims didn't come to France.

So there's no Thanksgiving here. 

Unless you happen to be an American ex-pat. With a craving for pumpkin pie.
My Thanksgiving in France was a little different, but wonderful.


I worked on Thursday, spending the day telling French children that Thanksgiving is a day for family, food and thinking about all the good things that have happened in the past year. 

I'm thankful that I have a job that I enjoy, 
with students I love.

Thursday night (or rather, very early Friday morning) I Skype-ed with my extended family at my grandparents' house. Best moment? My grandpa's surprised face when my cousin put the computer in his lap. "Can she hear me? Well, isn't that the darndest thing." This is a man who doesn't even use the telephone. I can't say it enough: Skype=Magic.

I'm thankful, SO thankful, for my wonderful family. 

Their support and love are so important to me.

I'm also thankful for the technology that lets me stay 

in touch with  family and friends.

Friday, I celebrated with most of the other Americans I know and a British friend, who we introduced to Thanksgiving. Poor girl. We might have put her in a food coma. We all made so much food. It was delicious, and we piled it all on our plates. No French-style courses for us today!

I'm thankful for my friends: the old, 
whom I miss like crazy, and the new.

{Yum. Yum. Yum.}

The one thing I had to have for my Thanksgiving was pumpkin pie. But there is no canned pumpkin in France, and most of you know that I'm not much of a chef. I managed, however, to make my mom's wonderful pie crust by myself for the first time, to buy a pumpkin and to roast it up. 

I'm thankful for pumpkin pie and comfort food. 

And learning to cook.

{Hey, what's this on my shoulder?    Ahh, it's so big!
Boom-boxes are so last Thanksgiving. Pumpkins are my accessory choice }

{I think it knows what's coming. }

And it actually turned into a pie!

{Kirsty had her first pumpkin pie!}

The next day, I had my very own "Black Saturday" at IKEA with Kirsty and Brad. IKEA had almost all the crowds and none of the sales of a Black Friday. But I didn't have to get up at 3 in the morning. And I now have a cutting board!

I'm thankful that there are countries where 

the words "Black Friday" have no meaning.

I'm also thankful for the Swedish.

These are just some of the things I'm currently thankful for. What about you? Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

À la Foire!

{Or in Search of Fried Foie Gras on a Stick}


I found no Fried Foie Gras, or Escargots on a stick.

But there were beignets (donuts), 

{Filled with salted caramel butter...I overdosed on the Nutella last week.}

churros (with Nutella, of course),

{Thanks for modeling the churros, Kirsty!}

Taffy? Marshmallows? (we didn't try this one, and we weren't quite sure),

{This carnie knew I was snapping a pic, so he put on his happy face}

and, finally something on a stick, Pommes d'Amour.

(Note: Doesn't "Apples of Love" sound so much better than "Candy Apples?")

{I promise, not all my pictures in France will be of food. Just most of them.}

And yes, the Fair, which is one of the biggest in France, also had rides and games:

And hamster balls:

I might just have to go back and try those.