500g waxy potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
50g roasted salted cashew nuts
250g silken tofu
1 red onion
100g asparagas, trimmed
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C
Coarsely grate the potatoes into a sieve, rince off the surplus starch and squeese out as much moisture as possible
Brush 1 tablespoon of the oil over the base of a 20cm flan tin. Spread the grated potato over, pressing up the sides. Brush with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Brush a square of foil with more of the oil and press on top of the potato. Bake for 25minutes
Meanwhile, place the nuts and tofu in a food processor and blend until smooth. Season.
Remove the foil and spoon the tofu mixture into the flan case. Arrange the onion slices and asparagus on top and brush with the remaining oil. Return to oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
Serve with salad.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of France
A savoury twist on the famous French dish…
1 red, 1 yellow and one green pepper, deseeded and sliced.
1 red onion, sliced
1 garlic glove, crushed
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pesto
125g mozzerella
A packet of ready rolled puff pastry (here in France they very helpfully roll it for you in a nice circle)
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. The best thing we find to make this dish is one of those frying pans with a detachable handle
Heat the pan to hot, add the oil and when hot toss the peppers, onions, garlic and oil in, cook for 5 minutes or so, stiring occationally. Take off the heat and stir in the pesto. Top with the cheese and season.
Place the pastry over the cheese, tucking the edges under. Place the frying pan in the oven and detach the handle. Bake for 25/30 minutes until crisp and golden. It is easy to get the pan out of the oven without oven gloves, just clip the handle on. Invert the tatin onto a plate.
Serve warm with a lovely salad.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of France
With Paul McCartney launching Meat Free Monday, the city of Ghent declaring a Meat Free Thursday, the city of Liverpool thinking about following their example and the UK’s National Health Service also determined to introduce meat free menus I wonder whether France will ever declare a meat free day.
The motivation behind all the meat-free moves above is last years announcement by the UN that the world needs to eat less meat in order to curb global warming, as meat production is responsible for around a fifth of all greenhouse gases. Not only that but the amount of water used to produce a kilogram of grain-fed beef is 100,000 litres (for veggie production soya beans the highest consumers of water needing around 2000 litres for a kg of food, potatoes only need 500 litres). Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein, according to the Cornell ecologist’s analysis.
In Britain the meat industry is less than happy with these initiatives. One shudders to imagine what the French meat industry would do if threatened with a whole meat-less day a week.
So can we look forward to a meat free day being declared in France?
The French version of the Vegetarian society, l’Association Végétarienne de France, has bigger battles to fight. Currently it is campaining to ensure that school children, people in hospital and people in retirement homes have a right to a vegetarian meal, something many of us would take for granted.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of France
A new study, reported in the Guardian newspaper today shows vegetarians are less likely to develop cancers of the stomach, bladder and blood. Although strangly it’s findings condradicted earlier findings: in this study vegetarians had slightly higher incidents of bowel cancer. Clearly further studies are needed.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of France
Blueberry season approaches – hurrah!
1 tablespoon kirsch (optional)
225g fresh (or thawed frozen, or drained canned blueberries)
225g silken tofu
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g mixed nuts, lightly toasted
100g demerara sugar
If using kirsch, marinate half the blueberries in it overnight.
Put the tofu, maple syrup, vanilla extract and 100g of the blueberries in a bowl and blend until smooth
Reserve 8 blueberries, and divide the rest among the 4 ramekins. Top up with the tofu mixture. Sprinkle with the toasted mixed nuts and chill for an hour.
Meanwhile melt the sugar in a small pan. When dissolved and turned a caramel colour, pour a thin layer onto each ramekin. Chill again for an hour.
Serve decorated with the left over blueberries.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of FranceAndrea and Bruce from 3 Place des Arbres, a vegetarian bed and breakfast located in Felletin, La Creuse in the Limousin region of France, love it when people complement their food.
But when the complement comes from a trained chef, and co-owner of a Californian company which specialises in delivering high quality meals to peoples homes in the San Francisco area, it means a lot!
“When Jessie, Laurent and Henri arrived we didn’t know they were in the trade,” Andrea explains. “In fact it wasn’t until after they had eaten with us for the third time, that we looked them up on the internet.”
JessieetLaurent.com always has at least 2 vegetarian meals available, and if you fancy the sound of one of the other dishes they will cook one specially for you using quality vegetarian ingredients.
If you want to enjoy the cheesecake Laurent Boucher described as “the best cheesecake I have ever tasted”, as well as other delicious vegetarian and vegan food, then why not make a reservation here. Alternatively you can make it yourself, because the recipe is right here.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of France
Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) will be starting a poster campaign this autumn using the grand daughter of Che Guevara, the Guardian newspaper reports
Lydia Guevara: making her late grandfather proud. Photograph: Peta Handout/EPA
Peta has other interesting ideas for promoting the vegetarian lifestyle and is currently looking for the sexiest vegetarian over 50. Why not check out their website?
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the Limousin region of France
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into rough chunks
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and cut into rough chunks
2 courgettes, sliced
2 small red onions, cut into wedges
250g cherry tomatoes
125ml olive oil
140g fresh breadcrumbs
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
seasoning
Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the peppers, courgettes, onions, and cherry tomatoes in a large ovenproof dish.
Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and seasoning. Toss together and bake for 15 minutes
Mix together the remaining oil, breadcrumbs, garlic and parsley. Scatter over the vegetables and bake for a further 20-25 minutes until the vegetables are tender and golden. Serve hot with a lovely salad.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the heart of France
225g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (less if you don’t like much heat)
175 cheddar-like cheese
5 tablespoons olive oil
226 jar of tomato salsa (or make your own – you could try this recipe)
2 plum tomatoes, sliced
50g black olives, pitted
seasoning
Sift the flour and cayenne into a bowl, stir in a quarter of the cheese, 2 tablespoons of the oil and 6-7 tablespoons of water. Mix together to form a soft dough. Roll out to a circle which will fit the base of a large frying pan.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in the frying pan. Add the dough circle and gently cook for 5 minutes, or until the base is golden.
Turn the dough out onto a plate, add the remaining oil to the frying pan and slide the dough back into cook the other side.
Preheat the grill to medium. Top the pizza base with the salsa, tomatoes, olives, remaining cheese and seasoning. Grill for 10 minutes until golden.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the heart of France
250g dried pears, roughly chopped
300ml pear or apple juice
4 teaspoons cardamon pods
225g black treacle
225g golden syrup
115g margarine
350g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
115g light muscovado sugar
350g medium oatmeal
1 tablespoon porridge oats
Preheat the oven to 160 C. Grease a 20cm square cake tin and line with greaseproof paper. Put the pears in a pan with the fruit juice. Bring to the boil, and remove from the heat. Leave to cool in the juice.
Grind the cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar to release the seeds. Discard the pods and put the seeds to one side. Heat the treacle, syrup and margarine in a pan and stir until the margarine has melted. Leave to cool for a few minutes.
Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon and cloves into a bowl and stir in the sugar and oatmeal.
Add half the pears and all the fruit juice to the bowl, adding the cardamom seeds and the margarine mixture. Stir until combined.
Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and scatter the remaining pears and porridge oats over the top. Bake for about one and a quater hours until risen and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. DO NOT OVER COOK or it will become dry.
Leave to cool before removing from the tin.
Vegetarianandveganfrance.com & 3placedesarbres.com. Vegetarian & Vegan recipes from the kitchen of a vegetarian chambres d’hotes in the heart of France
