Sunday, 3 May 2015

3 May 2015 - Stinging Nettle soup for lunch - delicious



For those familiar with the delightful French TV series, “Miniscule”, you would love this area of France.  On our walk today, Luke was in full investigation mode.  Today’s subject was insects and mini-beasts.  We were in for a treat seeing them all through Luke’s eyes.  There was no hurry and we saw so much!

Slug Videix
Forget Me Not Bug

Beetle a la Videix

Good to see a bee!

Best find of all!

We went down to the pond, checking on our baby calf, who was up and trotting after his mother.  She is a gentle mother who licked him and nuzzled him so lovingly.  Aaaaw!  There were no coypu or as they are locally known as rangotin this morning so I think we only see them when they are grazing in the early evening.

Baby  Limousin calf - doing well.

 
Can't get enough of morning reflections

That's our river!


So very French
Checking for more bugs!

Homeward bound
Getting close!


Although the air was humid, and rain would have been welcome, it was quite pleasant to walk in.  We turned right in the direction of La Chassagne, a village we had walked through on the way to the lake.  Approaching it from another direction led us through a few cute little roads and beautifully restored houses with country gardens.


Luke could nearly touch the walls!


Can I have this one please?!


So very lovely!


Poppy

So very tasteful on the old wall - time not quite right - barometer on the reverse side.

The local bellowing donkey

There are plenty of great spots to pose!

 Luke had been requesting that we make stinging nettle soup ever since I mentioned to him that we could do so.  Now that the internet is working reasonably well, we googled a recipe and as it happened we had all the ingredients already.  Armed with gloves, and Luke, Sasha and Daniel (the kids here), we headed out to the patch of nettles and selected a nice colander full of the prickly leaves.  I did get quite a few stings, but succeeded in putting them all in the soup pot along with olive oil, chicken stock, onions and rice and simmered the brew for 30 minutes.  I borrowed a stick blender from Maelisa (our host) and whizzed it all to a bright green delicious smelling soup.  Luke was keen to eat it and so was I and Karl also had some.  It really did taste nice and I would be keen to make it again!  How’s that for home grown organic food!

Stinging Nettles...just right  for soup!

Serious tasty Stinging Nettle soup for lunch.

Lunch at our lovely gite
All went a bit chaotic mid-afternoon so it was time for pancakes!!  Always nice to cook pancakes with the kids.  Luke loves it and Annika was soon at the stove side wanting to help.  It seemed to settle him for a while but he is in a wild phase at the moment.

Before we knew it was dinner time so our pre-dinner walk plans were put on hold.  So it was after dinner that we headed out for our walk and were delighted by the lovely sunset.  The red-orange sky shone on the woods and turned the foliage such vivid colours that for ten minutes of so, all looked like Autumn.  The darker green of the woods soon returned as the sun dropped lower.  It was already after 9PM and still there was good light.  Such long lovely evenings here.  What a nice way for Garry and Alex to spend their last evening in France.
Evening stroll


Tempting!
It looked like Autumn because of the setting sun.


Sundowners!

Sundown!


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2 comments:

  1. Oh, really nice post, this one! (except for the maggots picture I mean). :-)

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  2. Love the sound of the stinging nettle soup!

    ReplyDelete