Summer fruit jam and Madeleines !

You know what helps the medicine go down more than a spoonful of sugar ? A spoonful of jam !
My go-to jams are plum, apricot, peach, and quince. I had a lot of fruit leftover and they were rotting in a corner, so I decided to make jam, luckily for me all those fruit were my favorites (except the quince unfortunately).
I cut up the plums, apricots and peaches and put them in a bowl with sugar and rum to let them give up their juices for a little while.
I suggest using 40% of sugar for 60% fruit, but 50/50 is also good if you've got a very sweet tooth.
Then you put it on a medium heat until it's ready.

The ultimate test : drop a bit of jam on a cold plate and check that it's not runny

Put the pots upside-down to sterilize them :

I made Madeleines to go with the jam, for me that's how you go straight back to childhood on an express train !
Here's a good recipe for Madeleines : http://www.anneshealthykitchen.com/madeleine-cakes/
It's the Paul Bocuse recipe, because if you're going to make a traditional french dish he's your best bet !

YUMSTERS !

Juice dance

In order for you to understand what I did in Paris after I returned from Italy, I need to take you back to 2013... (i.e. last year)
Paris had been invaded by a man that already ruled over North America. He called himself Juice, Healthy Juice.
Yes, it was all about the healthy juices : made from all sorts of green cabbages and other vegetables mixed with different fruit, these potions all contained different minerals and vitamins essential for our well-being and survival.
I loved these juices, well to be honest I always got the "easy" ones, made from lots of different fruit and NO vegetables, except the occasional carrot. Basically I liked my juices sweet, no I loved them ! I would force my mum to go to this restaurant where they made these glasses of magic, and I would go on and on about them, so much so that she bought me a juicer for christmas.
At first I used it all the time, every day I would have a home made juice. But my mum was tired of buying lots of fresh fruit that I wouldn't always finish and I hated cleaning this huge machine that, of course, doesn't go in the dishwasher. So it ended up in a cupboard...
Except when I came back from my trip in Italy, after having eaten pasta, pizza and cream for 7 days, I felt like having a cure of vegetables. So we bought loads of fresh ones and I decided to give the juicer another go, and I'm glad. It turns out vegetable juices are delicious, and after all that grease and starch I can tell you it really hit the spot, it felt amazing.
So here's what I did :
My very first juice contained cabbage, cucumber and apple.

 Here's what I do to save the apple in the fridge to avoid it going brown.

 And this for the remaining leaves of cabbage.

















After cutting all the veg:

Juice the hard ones...

Here's the monster in the flesh : 

 Then the soft ones...

I put ice cubes sand lemon juice in a big glass.

I add salt and pepper.

 The wonderful spoon to stir if you're cool like me and don't have the proper utensils...

As a snack to go with the juice i spread some cream cheese and tomato concentrate on a rice cracker :

Voilà ! 

I continued my juice making the next day with an apricot, apple and carrot juice : yum.

Basically you just put vegetables and fruit in the juicer and enjoy !