This weekend, I spent some time building a small bird house for the garden.
It is all laser cut and then I added a small 3D printed feeder, which looks like a BBQ next to the chalet….
Enjoy…
Flat Sheet Drawing. ([download id=”2″])
Today I had a productive day :
Trip to post office to pick-up package. Stop at coffee shop fro breakfast. Clear-up garage and trip to the dump. More clear-up of garage and sorting out winter things. Stop at the hobby craft place to checkout the “new things”. Bought only a couple of things. Run a washing machine, Dishwasher, clear-up. Eat Chinese left-over for Lunch. Update software on my recent “Barometre”, electronic thing. Clear-up of garden rubish and weeding of vegetable garden. Painted a door and the suspended garden with “Ronseal”. Check fish pond for PH/GH/Etc…Pond needs water to be less “hard”. (London is a dirty air town…). Did not change the light bulb of the front of the house, :(.
I deserve a beer and playing with my new 3D Printer…
The perfect recipe to lift the spirit when on the 23rd of March it is snowing in the UK…!!
Ingredients : (Makes about 20 boules)
500g Flour
120g Melted Butter
50g Sugar
1 tea spoon Salt
50g of “Levure Fraiche” diluted in 250ml of cold Milk
4 egg yolks and 1 full egg.
Recipe :
Mix all ingredients together using the Kenwood.
Adjust the flour if required to obtain a dough ball slighty wet.
Leave ball of pastry in a bowl in a warm away from drafts. (oven)
Leave to rise for 1 hour
“Abaisser” with a rolling pin to 3/4 cm thick.
Cut Pastry in circles with a glass
Roll into balls with hands. Do not crush the balls.
Leave balls on a floured tray
Let rise again for 30 minutes / 40 minutes
Cook in a deep fat fryer at 160 degres (4 at a time)
The balls will cook on one side and then turn on their own (or you might want to help a little bit) once that side is cooked.
Take out once they are cooked on both sides
put on absorbing paper to cool down
Fill the balls with “creme patissiere” (or use this ready made mix Imperial) or Home made Blueberry Jelly (! special ! recipe to follow) and sprinkle with icing sugar
This post is to save for future reference the recipe for Bechamel sauce, the base sauce for French cuisine
Bechamel was a french financier during the reign of king Louis ivx, so I should know it by heart !!
Quantities :
The easy way is to decide first how much sauce you need, then use 1/10th of flour and butter.
so for 500ml of milk (enough for a small lasagna)
Butter – 50g
The same quantity of flour – 50g
salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.
Cooking:
Heat the butter until it is lightly brown, take off heat, mix the flour in one go, mix well to make a paste, and bring back to heat, cooking a little bit more until the flour is also taking on some blonde colour, add cold milk in one single go to avoid lumps (if you add milk too slowly you will get lumps), it will take roughly 3 minutes to get back to boiling.
It is very important to keep whisking the bechamel as it is cooking. The highest risk is that it will stick to the bottom of the pan. When milk and flour are boiling again, cook for approximately 3 minutes.
To find out if the bechamel is cooked. Take a table spoon and dip it into the bechamel, and make a line with your finger on the back of the spoon. If the path made by your finger stays clearly visible and the sauce does not drip to fill the path of your finger, then the sauce is ready.
We are staying at the Manoir au quat’saison…it is very very very nice !
Check the website www.manoir.com
The garden is lovely and the service impeccable , Manu is having a massage in the bedroom and I am having a glass of red wine in one of the lounges.
I can’t wait for evening dinner !!
