Cheese n wine sauvages

On Thursday night, 365things and Lovely Friend rolled up to the second edition of @Axellemnn‘s Cheese n wine sauvages. Due to the frankly monsoon-like weather we gathered at Tarasloft in Ixelles (which, incidentally, is a very nice, bright, light, spacious venue for anything you happen to be hosting). 

The venue was lovely, and about a two minute walk from Pl Flagey. We actually went past the door as it is so inconspicuous. But we found the buzzer and the doors swung open, and we tottered up the path to the invitingly-lit entrance. Walking into the loft is like walking into someone’s (gorgeous) apartment. It is bright and very tastefully decorated.

The gorgeous Axelle greeted us and we were immediately handed a glass of Luxembourgish cremant. The atmosphere in the room was relaxed, and there was a distinct buzz. The people were all beautiful!

The welcome speech and the table heaving under the weight of cheese!

Axelle said that she had the idea over the summer to host these kind of impromptu picnics. The first one was held outdoors in the Bois de la Cambre. Seeing how popular the first one was, she upped the capacity to 60 people and the second session sold out almost immediately.

After a very short welcome speech, Axelle invited us to tuck into the vast array of Swiss cheese and sample the wines. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such hunks and wheels of cheese. People mingled, elbows bumped and the hum of conversation and happiness was the only background noise to be heard. There was also a very large selection of bread to accompany the cheeses, and we ate our fill. Lovely Friend even cried a little at tasting the emmental (it’s a big favourite of hers, and this specimen was rather excellent in her opinion!).

The crowd began drifting out around 8.30, and we followed suit, with happy tummies and happier sprits.

Some of the crusty bread available

The third session of the cheese n wine sauvages will take place on 25 September. Keep an eye on Axelle's Twitter account for more details. I highly recommend it!

Cutting out the white stuff – two weeks in: calorie-free baking

I wrote a post about three weeks ago about cutting out processed sugar from my diet. So far, it’s been going pretty well. I am still eating fruit and dried fruit and drinking the odd glass of wine or beer. I’ve just stopped eating cakes, biscuits, sweets, and I’m starting to read labels and cut out some of the hidden added sugars in foods like ketchup and mayonnaise. I deviated slightly one weekend – I had the opportunity to try a pancake with salted caramel apple purée (like, who is going to miss something like that?), and I definitely was a little bit jittery afterwards. I’m noticing too that savoury food is a lot sweeter.

I had my first sugar craving about two weeks in and it lasted 24 hours. Like a lot of grown ups, we have a goodie cupboard and nothing in it appealed to me. Instead, I satisfied my craving with some things that did appeal to me: almond purée, dried dates (medjool dates are like Scooby Snacks to me now) and a yummy mix of sunflower seeds, raisins and pine nuts from Colruyt.

Side effects hit around that time. I’d had an active weekend, and then spent six hours cleaning and ironing. I was wiped for about a day. I was exhausted! Thankfully I’m over that now.

As I said, I’m eating dried fruit, which you’re not really meant to on a sugar-free diet. I’m going to cut this down this week (down from four pieces every day to maybe one) and see how I get on. I’m really surprised at how few cravings I’m having and my utter lack of enthusiasm for biscuits, cake or sweets.

Saying this, I’ve been looking at baking. Many of the sugar-free recipes I’ve found are paleo and/or gluten free. I was very taken with these chocolate truffles from Peachy Palate and these cinnamon rolls. Both recipes use ingredients I knew I wouldn’t find in my local Carrefour. So, list in hand, I went to my local bio-planet (which is owned by Colruyt).

I found everything I was looking for. The staff were very friendly and helpful when I couldn’t find a couple of the ingredients. I added a jar of my beloved almond purée and a couple of other things (honey and almond milk). When I’d got everything – almond flour, coconut flour, coconut oil, coconut sugar and cacao powder - I did a quick mental tot-up. And the lot came to nearly €60! Now, I don’t know about you, but this is a significant chunk of my weekly food budget! And this is before I bought the pecan nuts, raisins or the avocados. To be perfectly clear, I wasn’t going to use the whole lot of what I was buying, so for example, the coconut flour was one of the most expensive items at about €10 for 500g, and I’d only need about 30g of it, so I’d have a lot left over to use in something in the future. But I was still looking at very expensive pastries. So, I put all the baking ingredients back on the shelves and stocked up on nuts and cheeses when I did the family grocery shop an hour later. I haven’t had cravings for sweet stuff so far, and cheese can satisfy any post-dinner stomach holes.

And that, my friends, is calorie-free baking.

Homemade pizza, attempt 4,726*

Over the years, I've made a big effort to produce the perfect pizza at home. I've tried lots of recipes, in search of that perfect base. The results have been mixed so far. I've even tried the pre-made ones, using the Herta and Delhaize/Carrefour raw pizza bases. The only thing I haven't tried is buying and using a pizza stone. Maybe that is the next step. 

Anyway, this weekend, I tried this one from 'Love Baking Bread' magazine (more about the magazine at the end of this post). It was pretty good, as bases go. Shame about the topping. The recipe was for a 'pizza bianco', or a white pizza, so there was no tomato sauce We all found it a bit too dry.  

The base had a nice texture, smooth dough, bready and chewier than others I've made. It also coloured really well. 

If I were to try this base again (and I might), I would definitely have to make some sort of tomato sauce to go on top. My tomato-free pizza of choice will remain the flammkuchen though. 

Pizza base, pre-oven

I even went to a cheese mongers (Chaussee de Bruxelles 244, Waterloo) to find the cheese mentioned in the recipe (taleggio). That's how dedicated I am to making the perfect pizza at home! It didn't make a difference. 

and post-oven

For the dough, you will need 500g of strong flour plus extra for dusting, 7g of yeast mixed with 150ml of warm water, 1 tablespoon of clear honey, 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 teaspoons of salt. Mix all of these in a bowl with a dough hook for a couple of minutes. If you need more water, add a drop or two. Cover the bowl and leave it to rise for 2-3 hours or until it doubles in size. Once it has done so, knock it back a bit on a floured surface. Divide the dough in to two balls and roll each one out into a roundish shape and transfer to a sheet of greaseproof paper each. Leave these to rise for another 30 minutes. 

When you're ready to cook, heat your oven as high as it will go and heat a baking tray for 20 minutes. Once hot, remove it from the oven and slide your base onto it, cover it quickly with the toppings (I used lardons, onion and the taleggio cheese) and cook for 12-15 minutes until the base is browned. 

One very important lesson from my wealth of pizza making experience is to always put something under the pizza base. I had the brilliant idea one time to put the pizza dough directly on the oven self - yes, the grill one - as this would result in a crispier base. I figured the base would cook before the pizza would fall through. It was a brilliant theoretical idea that didn't work in practice. A few minutes after I put the pizza in the oven I heard a "flllummmpppphhhhhh", and I had what looked like an inverse nuclear mushroom cloud of dough on the rack and the rest of the pizza in a heap on the oven floor. I regret so much that I didn't take a photo, but I knew the in-laws would be around any minute and I wanted to cover my tracks.

So, have you ever tried a homemade pizza? Any secrets to share? Do you use a pizza stone? 


* may be a slight exaggeration. But not much. I've tried lots of pizza recipes. 


About Love Baking Bread magazine: a colleague shared this magazine a good couple of months ago now. I looked to see if it was monthly or quarterly, but I couldn't see a publication date. It has lots of information for the novice and the more experienced baker. It seems to be made up of recipes from other sources, so it would be a good alternative to buying a bread book.

Scallops and mashed potatoes

This is a simple, light dinner and a good way of sneaking some vegetables into your daily diet.

Scallops and mashed potatoes

For two people:

200g potatoes

a knob of butter and a dribble of milk

100g lardons

one leek, sliced into thin rounds

one chopped onion

100g scallops (fresh or frozen)

Peel and chop the potatoes into chunks, and boil them until they are tender enough to mash. In the meantime, fry the lardons, with the onions and the leeks over a medium heat, until the vegetables soften. The fat from the lardons should be enough to lubricate the pan, so you don't need to use oil. 

Once the potatoes are cooked, drain the water off them, add the butter and the dribble of milk and mash them. Add your vegetables and the lardons (keep the residual fat in the pan for cooking the scallops in a moment), with a little salt and pepper and mix them well.

In your frying pan again, fry the scallops for about 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second.

Switch your grill on. Put your cooked scallops into an individual, shallow dish and cover with the mashed potatoes. Pop these under the hot grill until the top crisps up, so about 3-4 minutes.

If you don’t have leeks, you could add some carrots or other vegetable to the potatoes. If you have some cheese lingering in the fridge you could also add that to the mash. 

Aubergine, spinach and ricotta rolls

I made these vegetarian rolls for dinner last night, and they went down a treat.

Oozing cheesy spinachy yummyness

For four people, you’ll need:

2 aubergines

a bag of fresh spinach (I’m sure that frozen will be fine ;-) )

a tub of ricotta

a jar of tomato sauce – I think I used a Scala one

some parmesan cheese (or whatever is festering at the back of the fridge)

Turn your grill on. Slice the aubergines about 1cm thick slices down the length and lay them on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Brush the aubergine with a little more oil and grill for about two minutes on each side.

Switch your oven on to 200° and boil the kettle.

Wash your spinach well (the amount of meals I’ve ruined from finding grains of sand in the fresh spinach here is unreal. I find the best way is to fill the sink with water and shake handfuls of spinach through the water). Put it on a large colander and pour some boiling water over the spinach to wilt it. Squeeze the spinach well to get rid of the excess water.

In a bowl, mix the ricotta with a grating of nutmeg and salt and pepper. Mix the spinach through it.

Get a large oven-proof dish ready beside you. Take one of the aubergine slices and put a good spoonful of the cheesy spinach mixture in it and roll the aubergine around to close in all the cheesy goodness. Lay it closed-side down in the dish. Keep going until all the cheese and aubergines are used up.

Pour the jar of sauce over the aubergines and sprinkle with the cheese. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until piping hot and bubbling and golden.

Devour.