Veggie Burger from scratch

Yesterday I made bread rolls, nothing fancy, but I have finally reached the desired result after may fails in the past.  I used dry yeast.  I used to mix everything in the food processor but sometimes the bread won't rise, because the yeast didn't "come alive".  The best way to see if the yeast is "alive" is to mix the dry yeast in a glass with warm water with a table spoon of sugar.  Once it will start to thicken, you will know that the yeast is alive and ready to be used.

I won't give the recipe, because I just don't know the exact quantity of ingredients, but I only used 250g of flour, 8g of dry yeast, water (50 ml or less?) and a little bit of oil.

 

Veggie patties: a block of tofu, 1 eggplant, onions, and 1 small can of bean, and 3 table spoons of flour, and 50g of mix nuts. You can use any vegetable you like.  I used what was left in the fridge.

Sauté the vegetables for 5-10 minutes, leave out the tofu.  Mix all the rest the ingredients in a food processor with the flour.  The tricky part is to form patties with the mixture.  Then cook in a pan until brown.

Voilà, guilt-free veggie burger! 

A Meal for One

The weather is finally warming up here in North of France, but only for today.  We had 30°C and expecting thunder storm. I hope my vegetables won't be destroyed.  I don't think I will get a return on investment this year on gardening, with all the spending on the plastic containers, bamboo sticks and spade and so on.  I have spent on courgettes plants, melons and eggplants and they were all eaten up by a mysterious insect (snail?) or animal.  So I have not been successful with the "ground garden".  I have put a net a couple of days ago because all my pumkins plants were eaten except for the big one, that sprouted in my compost.

My garden looks ghetto with the net

However, my vegetables grown in containers did great and no snails can climb in.  I have harvested Roquettes (arugula) twice.  I hope I won't have to buy lettuce and roquettes this summer.

Some of the roquette seeds were given to me a long time ago.  I'm hoping to collect the seeds as well so I don't have to buy any.  This kind is the round-leaf variety.  Not really peppery tasting like the "wild variety", with the serrated leaves.

Yesterday, when using the roquettes in the salad, my husband said : make sure to wash them well.  I replied : There's not even an once of chemical on them! 

He also said that I didn't post any recipe for a while.  But I'm not going to, photos speak for themselves. Since he's away for a training in Paris for one more day, it's going to be a meal for one.

 Sorrel, chives, dills and roquettes

  Pasta, ham and roquettes, and some other herbs from  my "mini-garden".

On a totally different subject, we found a kitten on June 7th in our warehouse, in the afternoon.  A visitor was there to inspect the solar installation on the warehouse, and the kitten won't stop screaming while he was there. It is unlikely that the inspector brought the cat with him.  So we just don't know how she landed in the farm.  She is too small to escape from her home.  The only thing I can think of is that some woman rang at my door during that afternoon, asking if she can buy me some pork (not me, the neighbour!).  Maybe she dropped the cat in the warehouse while we weren't looking.  The kitten is 2 months and a half, and is too friendly to be a farm cat.  It's a shame that people would just throw out animals like that.  Looks like she will stay on the farm with the rest of the cats here.

She enjoys to be on our desks, next to the screen and distracts us.

She wants to blog too.

Watching a tennis match

I was watching the Roland Garros on France 2, and didn't really understand why the match was interrupted.  Guess who disturbed Nadal and Ferer? 2 people who were against gay marriage.  France 2 choose not to film this but other media did.  Take a look:

http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/06/09/mariage-gay-roland-garros-finale-perturbee_n_3411709.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

This is not the place to protest and people would kill to have a ticket, this is showing lack of respect. 

Updates on the garden

I really enjoy gardening but I haven't been successful with courgettes and other vegetables.  The little plants have been eaten by snails so it's back to square one.  I've planted radishes, salad from seeds, in plastic containers.  Can't wait for them to grow, at least the snails can't go in them.  I've given up on gardening a couple years ago because the cats were digging the dirt.  So I've taken extreme mesures, plastic wrap. I realize that trying to grow organic is not easy.  I've put coffee grounds to keep away to snails.  Let's hope it will work.

I made compost with peels and vegetable wastes, and pumpkin seeds sprouted. Today I have transplanted it in the garden. A couple of hours later, the the leaves are wilted.  I'm not sure it will survive.

The things I don't like here

I read with great interest a post from one blogger.  She made a list of things she didn't like about Denmark.  I am tempted to do the same with France.  I am here because of professional reasons but I miss Canada a great deal.  To be fair, I would say that France has some qualities too, like culture, food, shares borders with 7 different countries (if I include Monaco).  But hey, you know me, I am the queen of criticisms and when it comes to bitching France I am unstoppable.  When I see books in English, blogs about idolizing French culture or how French women are so sophisticated, it infuriates me.  I don't know the exact title of those books, but "bringing up bébé" or other random stuff about how French women being thiner than others are  so far from the truth.  It's a shame that some people are making good money out of myths, but they sell books....and people will be continuing buying them.   Sorry if you are obsessed with France but it's not as idyllic as you think it is.  I have written this post few months ago but never published it because I'm too damn critical and so politically incorrect.

 Here are some of the things I've heard :

Myths vs reality:

French women (Parisians) are thin : get real, French women have weight issues like any other women in developed countries.  I don't live in Paris, but here in North of France, they are not thin at all.  Problem is that we never ever find sizes like 42-44 (size 12-14 in Canada or U.S) in the clothing stores, they are all gone first.

French kids eat so much better and eat everything:  we had several employees that are fairly young in the Company.  They are in their 20's.  I can say that all of them don't eat vegetables or cheese!  Their parents fed them meat and fries and as adults they only eat junk food.  I was pretty shocked when I learn that pretty much all of them don't care for cheese, they can't even stand the smell when we eat cheese in front of them.  They prefer beer to wine, which is something I can't understand either.  (North of France is more about beer than wine though).  Eating at Mc Donalds is not as shameful here.

The School system is good in France: I don't agree with that. They have a system based on Elitism.  If you fall behind at school, you are left out and you would have to go through a technical route.

At our company, we hired young employees a couple of years ago, some didn't have a high school diploma.  For example, you are 15 years old, and you are not really good at school, chances are you will have to follow a technical training, such as baker, plumer, etc. I'm not saying that those trainings are bad, I just find sad that those who are not good enough at school are left without general knowledge.  When I studied in Québec, in high school, we had to get our high school diploma before choosing any further training.  General saying in Québec : you need a high school diploma even for garbage picking.

So those guys we hired had very low knowledge of things.  I'm sad to say this is how social cleavages are made.  The less educated are left aside and the educated ones get the good jobs.  I am convinced that this academic elitism plays a big part in the social disparities in France.  Did you know that most of postsecondary education is almost free in France? well guess who get to go to universities and good schools? not the poors but the already fortunate ones.

Les Grandes Écoles, those schools are the top here.  Those universities (they don't even want to say universities because it is not prestigious enough) are for the ones who made through a long process : Prépa, concours.  Most of the students are from upper middle class or higher.  When they wanted to facilitates entries for regular candidates who are from "poor parisian districts", some students were not happy about it.

Health care system is good in France : True, but really expensive for the government.   I can only compare this to Canada, where health care is free.  I found some differences between Ontario and Québec, but I can say that when I walked into a medical centre in Canada, I only had to show my health card and I never bother to know how much it costs to see a doctor.  In France, you need to pay your doctor, then you get a reimbursement from la Caisse primaire d'assurance maladie.   So 23 euros for a consultation and you get a reimbursement of 70%.  Meds are also reimbursed.  The caisse primaire also pays a certain percentage for sick leave when an employee is off for a couple of days.  A lot of abuse is made due to pharmaceutical lobby and lazy employees who are not sick but don't want to work.  


Racism
Being a visible minority is not easy, especially in France.  I was discriminated against a few times.  Some where "in my face".  We wanted to get married in the village where my husband grew up and I was told to go to Lille because they don't know how to organize it for étrangers.  And the Mairie employee said : who knows if this is a Mariage Blanc.  (to get papers to live in France).  The nerves. Racism is common and nobody seems to be shocked or ashamed of it, even my in laws....

My list is not completed, but lots of things are not working in France and I don't know if they will ever change.

Fêtes des voisins

Warning : Topic against religion

Last Friday there was a get-together with the neighbours of our street for la Fête des voisins.  Since we live in a long street and the next neighbour is at 500m, we just don't know them and most of them are farmers.  When our neighbour invited us, the one who breeds and sells porks invited us, we reluctantly agreed.  We are just not social people. It was a pot luck and everybody brought salad and dessert.  I made 24 muffins and they were all excited about them : ce sont des coupe-cakes! I said no muffins! there's no icing on them.  I don't understand the fuss about them.  It seems exotic to them.  Another neighbour brought organic radishes.  And of course, the pièce of resistance : the BBQ pork.  We had so much crémant (sparkling wine) and beer, people were starting to talk very loudly.  We stayed up until 1 am.

One neighbour was asking if we can get together for various activities, like forming a group to speak in English or rural catholic gatherings.  I was thinking to myself how I could dodge from the religious stuff.  In Canada, we are not catholic, well not openly.  Quebecers rebelled against religion during "La révolution Tranquille".  In the North of France, catholicism is still present.  When I first arrived here, all I can hear from my sister in law is : "ils sont habillés catho, ce sont des cathos....". (they are dressed cathos, they are catholics).  I thought she was judgmental and I just didn't get it.  But she was sent to catholic private school so she knew a great deal about them. I don't want to ruffle people by saying this, but Cathos are almost a distinctive social class of  its own.  Most of them go to catholic private schools, they have at least 3 children and they speak a certain way.  And of course, they have well positionned jobs.  They have their own network and in the North of France, some of them are descending from rich textile industrial families. Some of them are bourgois, and inherited family fortune.  Some are financially comfortable farmers. I think they are a minority but are very influential in politics, mostly right-wing. They were the ones protesting against gay marriage.

So I was surprised when the neighbours talked about the rural catholic gatherings.  I just nodded and kept quiet. Aside from the age gap, I don't see myself hanging out with those women.  They are in their own bubble. But the neighbours don't seem too rigid.  They are farmers and they are doing the catholic stuff out of habits. During the get-together, nobody talked about politics or religion, well aside from their catholic gatherings and their private schools. It's not something  you want to discuss with almost-strangers. But we had fun and are planning to see each other next year for la fête des voisins.