Les Verty Femmes

French Onion Soup

1 vidalia onion

4 cups beef stock  (we’re using unsalted organic, fyi)

1 tbsp unsalted butter

Your favorite creamy sliced cheese (a nice Gruyere from the deli is good)

Pepper/Salt to taste

Tbsp. flour

Directions

Slice onion. Melt 1 tbsp of butter in frying pan on medium high heat. Coat all areas of pan with butter so food won’t stick.  Turn pan down to medium and sautee onion for 10 minutes, stirring consistently.

Add tbsp. of flour and mix thoroughly.

Add beef stock and stir for just a moment. Cover with lid. Reduce heat to low and cook for 40 minutes.

After cooking, pour into bowls and place slices of cheese on top. Serve hot!

Famous Hot Tea Recipe

This is the coolest recipe for hot tea! No sweetener is added, yet the liquid is ‘golden’ when you swallow!

What you’ll need:

1. reusable loose-tea sachets (or a loose tea holder)

2. 3 tsp. dried peppermint leaves

3. 2 tsp. dried sweet basil leaves

4. 1 tbsp. licorice root (preferably not in stick form—fyi, doesn’t taste like licorice!)

Put ingredients in sachet and place in cup; pour hot hot water over and allow to sit for 2 to 3 minutes. Take out sachet and DRINK UP!

* For these ingredients, we first recommend Rosewood Market, but you should be able to find them at a nice grocer like Earthfare (located on Devine Street).

Midnight (or whenever) BLT

You’ll need:

Bacon; Bread; Lettuce (or Mixed Greens); Tomato Slice; Plain Yogurt (Mayo Substitute); Pepper.

Toast bread until golden. Spread one slice with yogurt and add pepper to taste. On other side, place cooked bacon, greens, & tomato slice.

Enjoy,

Les Verty Femmes

Freezing Fruits

For those interested in the tradition of freezing, I thought I’d include a short beginner’s guide.

Different methods to freezing:

Freezing with canning jars, freezer bags, aluminum foil, or thick plastic containers.

For this guide, we will be using canning jars (glass Mason jars can be found at most grocery stores in the produce or tupperware sections).

Directions:

1. In order to keep your cut fruit from turning brown (like an apple turns brown where you’ve bitten it after a few minutes), mix 1 tbsp. lemon juice with 1 quart of water and allow the cut fruit to soak while you prepare for the next step.

2. According to your own preferences, create a simple syrup by mixing sugar into boiling water.  For a light syrup, add 2 cups sugar to 4 cups water.  For a medium syrup, add 3 cups sugar to 4 cups water. For a dark syrup, add 4 3/4 cups sugar to 4 cups water.

3. Boil this down until it the sugar is completely dissolved. Don’t let the sugar burn though, REMEMBER TO STIR CONSTANTLY.

4. Allow the mixture to cool off of the burner.  Take your soaking fruit, and put them into the canning jars (or whichever of the mediums you prefer). Once the simple syrup is cooled, pour it over the fruit.

5. Close up your jar tightly and freeze!

*Note that this is not the same measures one would take when freezing vegetables. Stick to fruits for now, and we’ll post the Vegetable Canning Recipe later.

~Les Verty Femmes

Coq Au Vin

College ‘Coq Au Vin’

This traditional french dish is said to have originated in almost every province in France—the translation is Cock with Wine (obviously being Gamecocks, we had to start our recipe box with this!).  Verty Femmes have yet to find Cock being sold in any store in Columbia SC (and rightly so, if you ask us) so we will be changing the recipe a bit to include just plain chicken.

Ingredients for College ‘Coq Au Vin’:

1 whole chicken (for smaller portions try a Rock Cornish Hen found in the frozen food sections of grocery stores, but remember to reduce ingredients according to size). Another option would be to use a pre-packaged set of chicken pieces. You would want a pre-packed set of chicken pieces to total around the weight of 1 chicken—about 3lbs—unless you plan on reducing the recipe.

6 tbsp. plain flour (we love the bulk flours found at Rosewood Market!)

Rosemary; Bay Leaves; Thyme; and Parsley are welcomed herbs—but why not experiment with the herbs you’re familiar with! The fresher the better.

1 slice bacon

1 Package mushrooms (optional)

1 onion (or more if you like onions; some grocers sell small ‘pickling onions’—these are ideal for this recipe).

3 cloves garlic (cloves are traditional; powdered is easier)

3 cups of a red dry wine (we used a Chianti)

3 oz. of butter.  *When frying with butter, keep the temperature of the pan at a medium & increase heat (this will keep your foods from cooking too fast and the butter from caramalizing to the bottom of your pan—TIMING IS EVERYTHING WHEN COOKING).  A trick that Verty Femmes adhere to is to let the butter melt partially in the pan and then pick up the pan and swirl it around so the butter coats all areas that will have food touching it.

Directions for Preperation:

1. Cut whole chicken into 8 pieces (2 wings, 2 thighs, 2 breasts, 2 legs). Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Place flour in bowl and roll chicken pieces in it, covering well, and shaking off excess.

3. Cut the bacon slice into small matchstick-like pieces. The sharper your knife the better for this! Also chop whole onion into large pieces & clean mushrooms (cut into large pieces if desired).

4. Heat 2 oz of butter in a pot (not pan).  Pot should be big enough to hold onions, mushrooms, and bacon pieces.  Add these three ingredients to pot and cook until they are softened (maybe 10 minutes…). Remove from heat and set aside.

5. In a LARGE frying pan, heat the remaining 1 oz. of butter and brown the chicken pieces on all sides (10 minutes).  You are not *cooking* the chicken so don’t expect it to be taste-test-able. Also remember that the heat does not need to be ON HIGH—keep it low enough to not burn but hot enough to brown. 

6. Once done browning, take wine, herbs, garlic, salt & pepper and add to frying pan.  If your frying pan is not large enough to handle so many ingredients—try a deep set casserole dish (we used a stoneware baking pot).  *If using the frying pan, keep the heat to a medium, cover, and let simmer for 1 hour. *If using the casserole dish/stone pot, heat oven to 350F, place the same ingredients in the dish, cover with aluminum foil/lid and bake for 1 hour.

7. Add your mushroom mixture and cook 30min. longer.

8. Remove from heat and serve with rice or alone! You may need to add salt & pepper to your tasting.

Some notes:

This above dish has been modified to not include certain traditional Coq Au Vin characteristics; however, Verty Femmes wants you to know about them in case you are able to reproduce the instructions.

1. Once done browning the chicken pieces, sprinkle in 2 tbsp. of cognac to the frying pan and set ‘a flambe’ (on fire). Shake the pan gently until the flames subside and move on to adding the wine, etc.

2. The traditional wine for the recipe is a rare red from Auvergne called ‘Chanturgues’; it is now usually replaced by a red wine from Bourgogne (check at the Gourmet Shop).

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