An omelette filled with roasted red bell peppers, etc.

Yesterday for lunch we had an omelet filled with roasted red peppers, diced tomato, sautéed onion, sautéed mushrooms, a chipolata sausage (pre-cooked), and grated cheese (Cantal cheese melts well, as does Cheddar). With it, we had sautéed potatoes cooked in the air fryer. It was fittin'.

Roasted bell peppers again

I made another batch of air-frye roasted bell peppers over the weekend. Walt bought the peppers at the supermarket. There are red ones and yellow ones. I just wanted to show you how they fit in the air fryer, which the product specs say has a capacity of five liters. After the peppers have collapsed and started getting slightly charred, the skin peels right off. Then the peppers have to be cut open and all the seeds and need to be removed. Save the juice they release and pour it over the peeled and seeded peppers. Follow this link to read an old post I did about the process.

Yesterday's party

I've mention the neighbors' cousinade a couple of time over the past few days. A cousinade is a family reunion for a group of people who are cousins, including their spouses, children, or grandchildren.

Look how many cars there were parked in the neighbors' yard. I can count between 20 and 25, and there may have been some parked over on the other side of the neighbors' house. We watched the cousins arrive and get out of their cars, so we know there were some cars with two people in them and others with four or more.

The hosts and guests were lucky, because even though it wasn't very warm and dark clouds looked threatening, the rain held off. We only had a couple of light showers over the course of the afternoon. The neighbors' house isn't big enough to accommodate a crowd like that. They had put a big barnum (party tent or marquee) up in their yard under which they could sit and not get wet if the rains came.

A sit-down lunch was served outdoors, and I imagine there was enough food for a light outdoor dinner too. The last guests left at about 11 p.m.

Approved!

I found this message from the U.S. State Department in my Gmail inbox a few minutes ago.

Application Status: Approved

The U.S. Department of State approved your application for your passport book. We're now printing your passport book and preparing to give it to you.

You requested routine service when you applied. Routine service can take 6-8 weeks. Our processing times begin the day we receive your application at a passport agency or center, not the day you mail your application or apply at a local acceptance facility.

You should receive your passport book on or around 05/23/2024.

Whew. I gave you the good news first. Today's bad news is that I've noticed a new leak from all rain we've been having for the last six months. Now we're going to have to find a roofer. The last one we contracted with has gone into retirement, as far as I know. I'll have to call him and see if some other roofer has taken over his client list.

Saint-Aignan : the old and the new

I got busy this morning and forgot to publish my blog post before now. The pictures here show the oldest part of the Saint-Aignan château complex. The white stone donjon (keep or tower) is about a thousand years old. The building with its roof burned off was an 18th century (I think) convent. The roof has now been replaced (as at Notre-Dame de Paris).The weather is beautiful right now and our neighbors who live in Blois are having a party tomorrow. It's a cousinade (a kind of family reunion) and somewhere between 70 and 80 people will be in attendance.

Saint-Aignan miscellany

I'm posting miscellaneous pictures today. They are still photos I took in May 2017. A lot of things have changed since then, but as they say in France: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same). For example, the bridge in Saint-Aignan (above) is being refurbished. I'll be interested to see what it will look like when the work is finished in a month or two. The shop below used to be a charcuterie, and then it became this shop,  and now it's changing again. Because of the Beauval zoo the the crowds of tourists it atracts, businesses are constantly changing.

Saint-Aignan shops and restaurants

Above: Le Mange-Grenouille (un restaurant) — Au Bigouden (une crêperie) — une boucherie/charcuterie

Below: La Pâtisserie du Château — Sur le Pont (un restaurant/pizzéria) and its menu

Roasting red peppers in the air fryer

I'm interrupting my Saint-Aignan photo series and posting an air fryer recipe with pictures.

The other day, I made a batch of roasted red peppers using the air fryer. All I had to do was wash four whole red peppers under cold running water and then dry them off with a towel. They fit perfectly in the fryer basket. I cooked them for 7 minutes at 375F. Then I turned them over and cooked them for 7 more minutes at the same temperature.

I repeated that process, using tongs to turn the peppers over so I always had a side of the pepper that hadn't yet been browned or lightly blackened by the the air fryer's hot, fan-blown air facing up. When all four sides of the peppers were browned and the peppers had started to collapse, I turned on the fryer's Keep Warm function and let them sit in the basket for another 7 minutes to make sure the pepper flesh was completely softened and cooked. I then took them out of the air fryer and put them in a bowl to let them cool down.

When they were cool enough to work with, the cooked pepper skins just slipped right off the pepper flesh. I pulled out the stem from each pepper and most of the seeds came out with them. Then I cut each pepper in half and removed the rest of the seeds. I saved all the liquid that was in the bottom of the fryer drawer and in the bowl. I seasoned the roasted peppers with the cooking liquid, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and olive oil.

Le château de Saint-Aignan

 


I took about 20 years worth of photos in Saint-Aignan on one day in May 2017. There are more than 350 of them, all taken exactly 7 years ago today. Here are some photos of the Château de Saint-Aignan, the main part of which was built in the 15th century, during the French Renaissance, Other parts of it, mostly ruins, date back to the year 1000 and others only to the 19th century.

I heard an interesting statistic on Télématin a few minutes ago. Do you know many restaurants there are in France? Two hundred thousand. It seems also that fewer and fewer people as a percentage of the population eat in restaruants on a regular basis. Younger people, especially, don't eat at traditional mealtimes, and they eat a lot of street food.

Saint-Aignan shopping, and the château with views

Shopping for produce and seafood early in the morning at the Saturday morning market

The front, south-facing façade of the château de Saint-Aignan, and a wing of the building that faces east

The grand staircase that leads up to the château, and the views over the town from the top

Around the church in Saint-Aignan

 



These are just a few pictures that I took of and around the church in Saint-Aignan back in May 2017. Saint-Aignan is about 120 miles south of Paris, 50 miles southwest of Orléans, 30 miles east of Tours, and 24 miles south of Blois. There's a TGV station in Tours and their are good train connections to Paris from Blois and Orléans. The town of Saint-Aignan itself is not really growing, but the area surrounding it is, with the construction of many new houses. Our house is relatively new (about 55 years old) and it's located just 1½ miles from the church in Saint-Aignan.(As always, you can click or tap on these photos to enlarge them.)