Chard gratin and chicken for supper.

I love chard, I honestly do, my father grows it every year in our garden ! The thing is I like chard only one way : in a gratin ! So since we have to use up all this chard from the garden we end up eating many, many, many chard gratins !

Here's how I make it :

 First you start by preparing the chard, separate the leaves and the stalks, wash it all (dah...of course), then you want to remove the stringy bits of the stalk the same way that you do with celery !

You then cook the stalks for about 10 minutes and the leaves for about 2 .

Then you have to make a white sauce :
 Melt 50g of butter in a pan, than stir in 50g of flour.
You end up with a roux.

 Slowly stir in 50cL of milk.

Whisk until it becomes thick.

Add salt pepper and a bit of grated nutmeg.

 Cover a pan with oil and butter.

Then alternate chard stalk, leaves and white sauce.

 And this time I also added tomatoes on the second to last layer.
Finish with white sauce, and top it off with grated Emmental cheese.

Put it in the oven at 180°C until gold and crispy on the top.

I also cooked a chicken to go with the gratin.
I simply covered it in olive oil and butter , I also put butter between the meat and the skin on the top of the chicken (so the skin gets very crispy) and stuffed it with peaces of garlic bread (just peaces of baguette that you rub a bit of garlic on).
Then I put it in the oven at 190°C at first and then 180°C after 10 minutes. A normal chicken takes about 45 minutes to cook.

The tricky carving session (curtesy of my father).

And voilà, yumsters ! 

A bowl full of minestrone.

What is the nicest thing to eat on a stormy night ?

Soup.

And what soup is the most flavorsome and comforting ?

Well it has to be minestrone !

What is minestrone ?

It is basically a lot of vegetables cooked together in water with small pasta and at the end you add tomatoes, basil, parmesan and olive oil.

Here's how I made it :

- chard (both stalks and leaves)

- leeks

- carrots

- celery

- mange tout

- green beans

- peppers

- potatoes

- alphabet pasta

- lardons

- basil

- tomatoes

- parmesan

- salt

- pepper

- olive oil

 Chop the celery.

 Chop chop chop.

And chop chop choperou.

 Fry in a casserole until lardons are cooked then add water and bring to the boil.

 Chop the peppers.

 And guess what you do to the potatoes ?!

Rince the beans (finally something that doesn't need any chopping).

 After 20 minutes add the potatoes and peppers for 30 minutes.

 Then add the beens for 10 minutes, and then the pasta for another 10.

 Prepare bowls with crushed tomatoes, CHOPPED basil and parmesan.

Serve the soup with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of salt and pepper.

















Basically if you're in the mood to do some chopping then this is the recipe for you !