Field Mushroom and sliced potato bake (with lots of Garlic)

As the sun innocently rose yesterday morning into the early pale liquid blue of the Provence sky, you wouldn’t have suspected a thing had happened. No apologies, no explanation for the past week’s behaviour, not a puff of wind or a drop of rain; absolute still and early winter serenity.

But we know better, so it can wipe that smirk off its face. I mentioned in my last blog that the flood gates in La Mole had been opened after a week of continuous rain which had us scurrying up the hill for dry land. The next day we bravely (stupidly) made our way back down the hill to the boat for work, via many a detour and around various closed roads. What had previously been vineyards and small burbling streams were now large lakes and gushing rivers. I’m not sure how exactly but a smattering of perfectly spoken Franglaise and we were past the Gendarmes and army barricades and successfully found ourselves back down at the boat.

Photos don't come with noise but the wind screamed through the masts

Not for long however, news came through that the flood levels were still rising as they continued to release water from the reservoirs in La Mole.  Ooops-a-daisy.

So back into George’s Landrover we hopped in the hope of heading back up the hill. Now if you’re in a Landrover, you feel incredibly safe, a bit smug and high off the ground, adequately equipped to cope with a little bit of flood water. Surely the French police would wave us through the barricades with a knowing nod and little French grunt of four-wheel-drive approval?

To cut a long story short, they did no such thing and it took us 4 hours to get home.

4 hours. It normally takes us half an hour.

But what an adventure it was! I shall resist the temptation to bore you with details but I will say that we ended up taking the ‘off-road’ route to get home to avoid hours of motorways – of course we did; we were in a Landy.

Our way home was scuppered at every turn. There were flooded roads we couldn’t cross even in the Landy. There were copious waterfalls as water dropped in torrents from the hill tops and sections of road had simply been washed away but most importantly - there were mushrooms.

We couldn’t help ourselves even in the pouring rain. We were under some kind of forest spell, like children in a sweet shop. So despite the rain and the length of our journey home, we went mushrooming. They were everywhere.

Field mushrooms are easy picking. They don’t hide, stick out like sore thumbs and they taste great. We have a lovely lady who lives in our village who is a mushroom expert. We made a quick stop at hers (when we finally arrived in La Garde Freinet) so she could examine our pickings to be on the safe side, always the way forward with fungi. After a cheerful nod of approval and a farewell gesture of ‘bon appetite!’, dinner was almost home. Thank God; we were starving.

I hope the photos at the bottom of the blog tell the story. In the mean time here is the recipe for a baked dish of Field mushroom and sliced potatoes. A most delicious and satisfying way to serve a harvest of damp, large field mushrooms.

To serve 5-6 people you will need;

A good harvest of field mushrooms or selection of woodland mushrooms thickly sliced.

6 medium to large potatoes, washed but not peeled

2 medium brown onions, thinly sliced

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

Large bunch of flat leaf parsley, leaves and tender stalks (not woody) finely chopped.

A good vegetable stock cube.

Method;

• Heat the oven to gas mark 6, 200ºC, 400ºF.  In a frying pan gently sauté the sliced onions in a little olive or sunflower oil until soft and starting to colour, about 8-10 minutes. When they have softened add half a tsp of sugar and season with some salt. Let them cook for a few more minutes then pour into the bottom of a large baking dish.

• Meanwhile, slice the potatoes, not too thin and put in a large pan. Cover with water and crumble in the stock cube. Bring to the boil and let the potatoes cook for about 5 minutes until starting to soften. When they are par-boiled, drain saving the cooking water, the stock from the pan. Now you can begin to layer the potatoes and mushrooms over the onions.

• Begin with a layer of potatoes over the onions, be careful as they will still be quite hot. Roughly layer the potatoes then cover with a good layer of the sliced mushrooms. They will reduce in size dramatically when cooked so really stuff them in. Then sprinkle over the mushrooms a good splodge of the chopped garlic and parsley stalks and leaves. Season. Then continue layering like this until you have reached the top of the dish lightly seasoning between each layer.

• Pour over 1-2 ladlefuls of the potato stock (the mushrooms will release a lot of water), dot the top with little knobs of butter and give a little drizzle of olive oil. A good grinding of black pepper and then cover with a lid or some tin foil and pop into the hot oven. Turn the immediately down to gas mark 3, 150ºC, 325ºF.

• After an hour or so remove from the oven and remove the lid or tin foil and put back into the oven to brown the top a little. About 20 minutes.

And that should do it. Serve with lots of brown, warm crusty bread to mop up all the delicious mushroomy, garlicky juices and a large glass of good red wine. You probably deserve it if you’ve been out mushroom picking.

I’ll leave you there with a load of photos of the adventure. It seems like it was a million years ago now as I sit here admiring the valley bathed in sunshine, the birds singing and the trees standing as they should – upright. I wonder how long it will last.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Our 'short cut' didn't quite turn out as we'd hoped

Flo took it upon himself to test the depth..

Much to the amusment of the rest of us

We'd already decided that it was too deep to drive the Landy across...

Taking Down The Top Mast

They opened the flood gates in La Mole today. The ground has reached its saturation limit after a week of rain and is now pouring out of the banks of rivers and streams as though on a highly important mission. We got to go home early from work though! Once they’ve opened the gates, they close all the roads so we made a dash for home in my little Clio, having been warned of the approaching floods. It was like having a day off school because of snow.

Last week, just before it all kicked off and the ground was still able to absorb what was being chucked out of the sky, we took off our top mast. It’s down for the winter for sanding, varnishing and maintenance. It takes a lot of stick up there during the racing season what with that jackyard up in all weathers and it’s good to give the top mast some loving.

A crane, some slings, a lot of rope and a few prayers are needed for the operation and preferably no wind – we had about 8 knots and building so the job was done in a very non-French manner; quickly.

George was the one to go up the mast in the bosun’s chair to tie on in all manner of specific knots, a variety of lines and straps to be attached to the cranes hook. I’m always very proud of him at times like these. Admittedly also a little concerned but mostly I just fancy him loads when he’s up there being all sailory and clever and brave.

And it all went without incident of course. Big sighs of relief all round. The top mast is now horizontal in our container in the yard in Cogolin Mariner awaiting a nice new coat of varnish. Well, we hope it’s still there and not bobbing out to sea having been swept out by the rush of flood water, a most undignified way to go for Mariquita’s top-mast I should imagine.

We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings and whether we can even get to the boat by car. Finger’s crossed. It’s the mushrooms and the poor vineyards I worry about…

I’ll keep you up to date and hope that you are not also currently seeking higher ground from floods.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers! 

Pop, out she comes.

Mariquita's now stumpy mast.

Seriously Good Christmas Mincemeat

It hasn’t stopped raining now for 4 days. It’s playing havoc with my new running regime. Which is a shame.  And though the woods in our beautiful area here are full of mushrooms ripe for the picking, you can’t pick them in the rain so we sit and wait.

Instead today I made my Christmas mincemeat. A lovely Sunday activity. A good pot of coffee, Frank Sinatra on and away you go. I remember my Mum making the mincemeat when I was a kid; a sign indeed to begin growing in anticipatory excitement for that most brilliant time of year – Christmas. The smell of the fruit, nuts and mixed spice really get the festive juices flowing, that and the cake and the Christmas pudding mixtures. I can’t remember now which one my sisters and I had to have a turn stirring to make our Christmas wish. Small hands clutched around a wooden spoon, fighting against a quicksand of currents and brandy-dissolved brown sugar, tongue sticking out in closed-eye concentration on that most heartfelt wish.

I still do it. I still make my Christmas wish and I make it into the mincemeat for the mince-pies. I try to get the guys to have a Christmas wish too but so far they have refrained. Boys. I will leave the mincemeat out for a day in its bowl so that I can continue stirring it before I stuff it in jars and reckon they’ll probably have a little go when they don’t think anybody’s watching. But it’s a sweet little tradition and if you can get your kids to do all the weighing and stirring then making the Christmas mincemeat can be great fun to do together.

My recipe is a slightly less traditional one without the candied peel that I’m sorry to say, I’m not a huge fan of and I don’t know of many kids who are either. I don’t put anything weird in it, like dried pineapple that I have seen in some recipes, I stick to the traditional Christmas flavours. But I like mine a little less tart and a bit more ‘zesty’.

Also, in France it’s a little hard to come by all the usual and traditional ingredients like suet and Brambly apples. So I have devised my own child-friendly, French-a-fied recipe. And my mince pies are the best mince pies I have ever tasted…is that rude to say?

Maybe just try for yourself. If you’ve never been a huge fan of mince pies then I’ll give you my mincemeat recipe now and then my extra special and slightly different mince-pie recipe a little nearer Christmas. I reckon I could convert you into a mince pie lover. Now, that is a bold statement but I seem to be on a roll today so going with the flow, here it is, my Christmas mincemeat;

For about 4-5 medium jars worth you will need;

1 brambly apple or 2 granny smiths

150g currents

150g sultanas

150g dried cranberries

200g glacier cherries

50g pecan nut

50g walnuts

50g ground almonds

250g dark muscovado or natural molasses sugar

1 heaped tsp cinnamon

1 ½ tsp mixed spice

A quarter of a grated nutmeg (do not use ready grated, it tastes of dust)

Zest and juice of 1 large orange

Zest and juice of 1 large lemon or 2 small ones

300g suet or 150 g grated, frozen lard

100 ml whiskey or brandy

Method;

• Peel, core and grate the apples and set aside. They might go a little brown but that’s fine.

• I like to weigh all my currents, sultanas, cranberries and cherries out and then before I put them into the large mixing bowl I either give them a brief whizz in a blender or chop them roughly with a knife. This just breaks down the ingredients a bit allowing the flavours to mingle and mix a little better. Also this works better for mini-mince-pies. 

• Finely chop the nuts but don’t blitz to a powder, you want some texture. Add to the bowl of currents and cherries with the ground almonds.

• Add the sugar and spices, the orange and lemon zest and juices and then the grated apple.

• Now add the suet of you are using but if you can’t get hold of suet, use frozen lard. I chopped mine up into pieces with a heavy knife then put it into my mini blender with a tsp of ground almonds to coat the lard to stop it from sticking together. Or simply grate straight into the bowl.

• Pour in the brandy or whisky and now is the very satisfying part where you get to use your biggest spoon to mix it all up.

• Pass around the family so that each person gets a stir and makes a wish. Or leave on the side for 24 hours so that the older chaps can make their wishes in private.

When you’re ready to put the mincemeat into jars, put 5 jars through a dishwasher cycle to sterilize. When they are completely dry, fill each with the mincemeat, top with a circle of greaseproof and screw the lids on tightly. They should keep for up to 6 months but I have used a jar after a year and it was really good.

Oh I do get excited about Christmas. A little while to go yet I suppose. And besides in the mean time there are mushrooms to get excited about. I saw so many today on a little drive we went on through the woods. I hope those little umbrellas of tastiness are still there when it stops raining… will it stop raining?

I know, I’ll go make a little wish into the Christmas mincemeat now. That should do it.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!