Cold, gray, snow-filled days call for warm fires and belly-warming soup. While French onion soup always takes a while to make, what else are you going to do when you’re snowed in? So make quick work of the onions in this recipe in a food processor, and get to caramelizing! Soon enough you’ll have warm, sweet-but-mostly-savory soup topped with stringy, gooey Gruyere that is certain to warm your family up from head to toe. (more…)

Filed under:
French, Gluten free, Soups, Vegetarian by Courtney

Quite a few years ago, when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in France, I first heard of tarte tatin. And that’s all – I heard about it. Every time I tried to order it, I was told it had “expired”. The first time I was told this, I was very confused, but by the end of the trip I realized “expired” meant 86’d, or they’d run out.

Disappointment faded away, and I had long forgotten about the tarte tatin, until I had a bunch of gravenstein apples in my kitchen, just begging to be turned into a dessert. In trying to decide what to make, I stumbled upon the idea of a tarte tatin, as they seem to be having a bit of a renaissance here at the moment. The dessert couldn’t be simpler… except for flipping the darn thing. (more…)

Filed under:
Comfort food, Dessert, French, Vegetarian by Courtney

At the age of 18, I moved away from Tennessee to the midwest, and I had more than my fair share of culture shocks. Most of these had to do with food. A ham biscuit at Hardee’s was made with deli ham, because no one north of Kentucky had ever heard of country ham. White Lily flour was only sold in Williams-Sonoma, and a small bag would cost you eight dollars. Barbecue was most often beef, most often ribs. And in the self-proclaimed barbecue capital of the world, being invited to a barbecue didn’t mean you were going to get smoked meat, but that you were simply grilling out some burgers and hotdogs. And soup beans… no one knew what these were. How was I to explain it? I had no other words for soup beans – they were soup beans, cooked and served with cornbread most usually. (more…)

Filed under:
Comfort food, Dairy free, Dinner, French, Gluten free, Southern by Courtney

In honor of Bastille Day, I thought I would share one of my new favorite summer salads, Salad Niçoise. I had been pretty hung up on creating this salad as soon as my green beans started coming in. Of course, by the time they were ready to be picked, the summer heat had become somewhat unbearable, and the last thing I wanted to do was slave over a hot stove inside the house. So instead, I decided to grill most of my Niçoise components, including the salmon, which is not the traditional fish for Niçoise, but given its freshness, was probably much more delicious than tuna ever thought of being. (more…)

Filed under:
Dairy free, Dinner, French, Gluten free, In the Garden, Lunch, Salad, Wine pairings by Courtney

One of my all-time favorite dishes is mussels with cream sauce, which I discovered when living in Kansas City. A favorite French restaurant of mine, Le Fou Frog, almost always had these on their menu, and I loved nothing better than sopping up the cream sauce with some crusty French bread.

After leaving Kansas City, not only did I have a hard time finding a French restaurant I love as much as the Frog, but I also hadn’t run across a good recreation of this recipe. So the other night, I was determined to recreate the recipe on my own. (more…)

Filed under:
Appetizers, Dinner, French, Gourmet, Lunch by Courtney