Croque Monsieur, oui Monsieur !

I consider myself pretty lucky when it comes to food. I was raised in a family of great cooks and have had the chance to taste some amazing French meals. I think to this day I have always had a soft side for bread and cheese and this recipe is one of my favourite. My mom used to make it when she was pressed for time as it is pretty quick and easy, but don't worry it is incredibly tasty !

Credit to kimberlykv's

Croque Monsieur

4 servings

Ingredients

-8 pieces of fresh French bread sliced medium-thin.

- 8 tablespoon butter

- 2 tablespoon of butter

- 1 cup of milk

- 1/4 cup parmesan

- 2 1/2 cup of gruyere or emmental or Swiss

- grainy mustard

- salt and pepper

- 200 gram of sliced black forest ham or prosciutto

- nutmeg and clove

Recipe

1- Prepare the cheese sauce ! In a small saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon for about 1-2 minutes. This is called making a roux. We will use this to thicken the cheese sauce and create a béchamel.

2- In a separate saucepan bring the milk to a small boil. Immediately incorporate the milk to the flour-butter mixture and whisk for 2 minutes without stopping. Add a pinch of salt, pepper, nutmeg and clove. Add 1/2 cup of the gruyere and add the full amount of parmesan. Whisk well.

3- Toast your bread in the toaster.

4- Lay one baking sheet with parchment paper. Turn on the broiler at 500 degree.

5- Place one piece of toasted bread on the parchment. Brush the top side of the toast with grainy mustard. Add a few slices of ham and 1/4 cup of gruyere cheese. Top with another piece of toasted bread.

6- Brush 1/4 cup of the cheese sauce on the top of the sandwich and finish it off with some more gruyere.

7- Repeat step 5-6 for the remaining pieces of bread.

8- Broil for 5 minutes on the top rack of the oven or until the cheese is bubbly.

I  had an image coming to my head this week-end. I love the holidays and I love Christmas. I was cooking, enjoying a glass of white wine and listening to Christmas music (yeah I am aware that we are in November) I remembered when I was young and my grandmother made doughnuts. It's a long time ago, well over 20 years, and yet, I can still remember how she gently put each one of them on layers of paper towel and slowly covered them with powered sugar. I decided to share this very traditional recipe to you and I hope you family will enjoys it over the holidays.


French Canadian old fashioned doughnuts



Thanks Debs for the picture



- 5 cups of flour
- 5 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1/2 cup of butter
- 2 tablespoon of vegetable shortening
- 1 1/3 cup of milk
- 4 egg whites
- 4 egg yolks

 Recipe

1- Use a large copper, stainless steel or glass mixing bowl, and make sure it is clean and chill for 10 minutes.

2- Place the egg whites and salt into a large , tall bowl and set your mixer to medium-high speed and continue beating egg whites on high speed until they form peaks with tips that stand straight when the beaters are lifted. Insert the spatula into the meringue along the side of the bowl.

3- Mix the egg yolks, sugar and shortening together until smooth. Slowly add to the meringue one tablespoon at the time.Do not stir. Stirring will deflate the egg whites. Lift the meringue from the side of the bowl and fold it over the ingredients. Work around the bowl, lifting and folding, until the ingredients are incorporated into the meringue.

4- In a separate bowl mix the flour and baking powder. Gradually add to the meringue mixture alternating with the milk until it creates a smooth and thick dough.

5- Refrigerate for a day or minimum of 3 hours.

6- Pat out bread dough and use doughnut cutter to create your doughnut.

7- With the help of a deep fryer at 375 F , deep fry a few doughnuts at the time until they are floating and golden brown then turn them to the other side. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.

8- Let sit on paper towel to absorb the remaining oil. Dunk in powdered sugar ! 　
　

Ingredients



Baked beans: the traditionnal French Canadian way

You will find these at any breakfast restaurants in Quebec. This recipe was traditionally for the hunters and travellers. It is made of slow cooked beans and a piece of pork lard. The best restaurant to enjoy the French Canadian version of baked beans is in Montreal, at "La binerie Mont- Royal". Binerie mean "bine", which is not an actual word but the phonetic of beans in French Canadian and "rie" for an institution that specialized in this particular dish. This recipe is made in the crock pot.

Thanks to Alex Shuktz's for the photos

Ingredients

- 3 1/2 cup of white pea beans
- 1/2 pound of pork lard or salt pork cut in cubes
- 1/4 cup of molasses
- 1/4 cup of brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon of dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper
- 7 cups of water
- 1 onion finely chopped

Recipe

1- Add the white pea beans in the crock pot along with the pork salt.
2- Add the onions, salt and pepper to a pan and slowly cook on low until lightly brown.
3- Add the onions and 6 cups of water to the slow cooker.
4- In a separate bowl combine the molasses, brown sugar and dry mustard.
5- Pour onto the beans and pork salt mixture and using a wooden spoon mix well until fully combined.
6- Close the lid hermetically and cook 9 hours on low.

The best bananas and chocolate ice cream, without ice cream !

I recently learned that you can get the same texture as vanilla ice cream without actual ice or cream. The recipe is extremely easy to make, it really takes only 5 minutes.


Picture by Sweet on Veg



Ingredients:

2 almost too ripe bananas

1 teaspoon of organic pure vanilla

1/2 tablespoon of agave nectar

2 tablespoon of dark chocolate chips

Recipe

1- Freeze the bananas overnight

2- When ready to use let slightly defreeze on your counter for 10 minutes.

3- Remove the skin and cut the bananas in 2 inch coins.

4- Put the bananas, vanilla, agave nectar and chocolate chips in a food processor and pulse for 1 to 2 minutes until creamy.  

  

My French Canadian version of the Apple Chutney.

I had a recipe that I wanted to try tonight. It consisted of shrimp, orzo and a mixture or plain yogurt, mayonnaise, mango chutney and curry powder. Usually when I want something to eat really bad, I usually either make it from scratch or go to buy the necessary ingredients. I did not have any mango chutney, neither did I had a mango in my house. It is not something readily available in my small town of Quebec and I did not grow to have them in my house but this might inspires I had apples thought! I thought how hard can it be to make chutney, ill just replace the mango but the apples. Well, I ended replacing the sugar by maple syrup and adding some ground clove by mistake! Wow, at the end it was so good I could have eaten it by the spoon! I thought I would share this recipe with you and this might inspires you as well! I tried to take some pictures: to tell you the truth, try to take a close picture of chutney, and it did not look really appealing. Therefore I would like to thanks Ella's Kitchen Company LTD to allow people like me, who are in dear need of a good picture, to use theirs ( and thanks to Flicker new creative common as well).
This chutney can be used with pasta salad, with a plate of cheeses and crackers, with chicken kabobs and even in hot dog served with a turkey sausage!

Ingredients 　
- 5 cups of granny smiths apples peeled, cored and finely chopped.
- 1 large sweet yellow onion, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
- 3/4 cup of maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon of fresh grated ginger roots (peeled).
- 3/4 teaspoon of dry mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground clove
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
-1/4 teaspoon of kosher sea salt
- 2 Tbs Olive oil
　
Recipe 　
1- In a saucepan add the olive oil and cook the onion on medium heat for 2 minutes.
2- Add the garlic and cook for an extra 1 minute.
3- Remove from heat, add the apple cider, lemon juice, maple syrup, spices, ginger and salt. Mix well.
4- Add the finely chopped apples and simmer for 30 minutes at low heat.
5- Remove from heat, cover and chill for a minimum of 2 hours before use

Maple syrup ice cream at Anny's ( Not kidding)

New Westminster , British Columbia, is notorious for being the oldest city in British Columbia. I discovered something else that made me REALLY happy last Friday. A bit lost in among two stores, live a small restaurant named Anny's. Well it so happen the owner is also French Canadian and serve the best French Canadian fast food in town. She makes a pretty exact replica of the poutine and smoke meat sandwich. You can have a steamy hot dog like they do back home. The thing is that you can even buy the curd cheese by the bag, same thing with the maple syrup or Montreal smoke meat! The best of all, they have this soft ice cream and instead of being twirl with chocolate, it is combined with maple syrup in the middle so in each lick you have the taste of the maple syrup! So next time you have the blues, head down to Anny's for a poutine and an ice cream, you will feel better right away!

Find Anny's on Google Maps

How to find my old recipes ?

I have pretty much the entire content of http://www.atasteofquebec.ca/ on this site. The only things I was unable to do is to create a specific entry for each recipes. I recommend that you use the right inside SEARCH button and search for the ingredient or recipe you are looking for. As an example you could search for peas or maple syrup !