Monday November 9th Market Day

Woke up this morning to a crisp Autumn day in Normandy. It's market day this morning in Bourg-Achard the village just 1 km from Chateau de Bosgouet and like every Monday Pete and I visit Monsieur Levian for vegetables. This morning I bought garlic, pumpkin, ginger, shallots, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and kale. After chatting to Monsieur and getting his wifes recipe for roasted kale.....will post recipe tomorrow if it's any good...it was on to the fishmonger for those beautiful scallops that are everywhere in Normandy at the moment. I also bought some prawns and a couple of fillets of salmon which I made into the most delectable fish pie for lunch...see below
After purchasing a "petit piece" of Pont L'eveque fromage we went to our favourite bar for a cafe creme and warm coissant before heading home for a morning of chores and cooking. Chrystelle my "femme de menage" who doesn't do such a "crystal clean" had finished a neat stack of ironing, mainly linen napkins from a luncheon we had on Saturday for some local french friends. I had left her with instructions to just "cest propre" the big kitchen ....this she does well...the trick with Chrystelle is to not give her too much!
Cooked up a storm of pumpkin & ginger soup followed by fish pie. Alex our 9 year old has had a bad cold so we ate lunch on trays with her in our room....she's taken over completely.
Here's the recipes

Pumkin & Ginger soup
2 large onions diced
2 cloves garlic finely diced
2 cm piece ginger finely diced
100 grams butter
1 kg Pumpkin cut into small pieces
1.5 litres homemade chicken stock
Method
Melt butter in large cast iron pot and saute gently onions, garlic and ginger
Add pumpkin to pan and cover with hot stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 mins.
Puree soup with a bamix or food processor.
Serve with a dob of creme fraiche and freshly chopped chives!

Normandy Fish Pie


1 large red onion finely diced
2 cloves garlic finely diced
1 chilli finely diced without the seeds
100 grams butter
1 head broccoli florets steamed for 2 minutes
2 dozen sea scallops
2 dozen prawns
3 salmon fillets
250mls cream
2 carrots diced
handful of freshly chopped parsley
6 sheets filo pastry

Melt butter and sute gently onions, garlic, chilli and carrots.
Add Salmon to pan and cook, breaking the salmon up as it cooks.
Add scallops and prawns and cook for 1 minute
Add cream and bring to boil then simmer for a few minutes.
Add steamed broccoli florets
Pour all into a casserole.
Scrunch up filo sheets and place all over the top of the casserole and bake in the oven for 30 mins on 180°C
Sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve!