Let us eat cake!

I have always found February a difficult month, after all the excitement of Christmas, Easter and Springtime still seem a long way off and the fresh fruit and veg that I enjoy are in short supply. So it was a lovely surprise when friends brought me this box of home grown vegetables, all organic and beautifully fresh.

The cauliflower is really cute! I shall enjoy making soups and will cook the red cabbage slowly with apples, raisins, onions and a couple of cloves to serve with roast pork.
There are also some delicious Sicilian lemons on the market this week. They still have their glossy leaves showing how juicy and fresh they are. This means that the skins are full of tangy oil that sprayed out when I cut the thin slivers of zest.

Time to make a lemon tart with crisp almond pastry.  I used frozen raspberries because they go so well with the tart.

The Galettes de Roi are finished now, and a couple of weeks ago we celebrated the 'Chandeleur', time for pancakes, these are nothing to do with Shrove Tuesday, but to celebrate the lengthening days and the return of the sunshine, represented by the round pancakes. I thought I would struggle with this one, but a friend made me some made from buckwheat flour, they were absolutely delicious.
Now we are in the time of 'Bugnes', small morsels of dough that are deep fried and dusted with sugar.

They certainly have a sweet tooth here, from gatherings of friends to official meetings, they all seem to begin with cakes.