When there's snow in France it's the end of the world

A couple days ago, we experienced snow storms on the northern regions of France.  I don't know exactly how much centimetres of snow have fallen, but I'm guessing less than 10 cm.  Well school was cancelled, lots of workers didn't show up at work.  Our employees decided not to come 2 days ago. TGV trains were cancelled.  The government had to deploy some "emergency plan". We don't have mails for 2 days. It was that bad.

It  is really frustrating.  The government knew there was going to have a snow storm but why didn't they get their snowplows to run?  rural roads are taken cared by communes (municipalities), highways by the regions. It's like the country is crippled by the snow.  Even if it doesn't occur often, there is no budget allocated to this kind of events.  I just found out that roads of our village is "cleaned" by a farmer, who does that in exchange of a full tank for his tractor, offered by the village.  It's like there is no such thing as a snow removal company.  Even if they wanted to use private companies, they would have to make a call for tenders.  Since it seems so complicated, they choose to do NOTHING.  And of course, French people don't have winter tires, except for the ones who live in the Alpes.

No need to be a genious to see that absenteeism in the workplace, no school, cars accidents on the road, are much more costly than spending a little on private snow removal companies once in a while.  I really wonder how the French government spends the tax revenues. My Canadian self can only shake my head. 

Quinoa

As I said on a previous post, I really want to reduce my meat consumption.  With all the meat scandals in France and Europe, it is a eye opener on the food we buy.  Besides, eating meat has an impact on the environment.  A prof at the University repeated a few times that it takes 16 000 liters of water to produce 1 kg of beef and those animals are fed by genetically modified soy beans from Brazil.  Every purchase we make has an impact.  I'm not saying that I will go vegetarian but I'm aware that meat can no longer be part of my everyday meals.

So where can I get proteines if I eat less meat? How about quinoa.  Since I've been in France, I've been eating a lot of couscous, and quinoa is a great way to replace the wheat and proteine.  It has no gluten, lots of proteine and has omega 3.  What's not to like?  I'm cooking my quinoa like rice, don't know if it's the right way or not though.

I have made sauteed vegetables and tofu with curry, with quinoa.  It was delicious.  I also make tabouleh with quinoa.

 Do you have quinoa recipes to share?

Recette de crème caramel

I haven't been inspired lately, but I am always willing to blog about food.  Recently, I have calculated the amount of food I spend every week, and it is shocking : 160 euros per week, for 2 people.  It really doesn't help either to have a neighbour who sells pork directly from his farm.  We work from home so lunches are included in our weekly food shopping.  So we've decided to cut down a little bit on meat.  Our goal is to eat meat once a day, or even less if possible.  I just ate the perfect lunch : capelli with mushrooms and green lentils, with tomato sauce. 

I never buy extras, such as "transformed" food, like cookies, or ready-cooked meals, or any desserts.  But sometimes, I have sugar attacks, so here's the simpliest dessert ever, and it is cheap too.  Only 3 or 4 ingredients.

Crème caramel

Yields 7 small ramekins

3 large eggs or 4 medium eggs
62,5 grammes of brown sugar or white (I used brown sugar with vanilla flavour)
375 ml of whole milk
75 ml of cream

1. Boil the cream and milk together.
2. In a bowl, mix eggs and sugar until it is foamy.
3. When the cream and milk mixture is boiled, gently add to the beaten eggs, whisk the mixture while adding the liquid.
4. In 7 ramekins, put a teaspoon of caramel (homemade or store bought). You can add a little bit of liquor if you are fancy.  I added irish coffee in mines.
4. Pour the egg mixture into ramekins (I had 7 smalls ramekins that fit into a plate that goes into an oven)
Add water into the plate and put the ramekins in the plate.
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes at 200°C.

It is cooked in a bain-marie so the bottom won't burn.  

The fancy version is "crème brûlée" which is pretty much the same recipe but you only put the brown sugar on the top and burn the sugar with a small burner or put the crème brûlée under hot grills for a few minutes. Put the ramekins into the fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.  You can present the ramekin as it is or flip the crème caramel upside down.

Now you can impress your guests with a simple desserts and they will think you're a fancy cook.