Zucchini boats « au fromage de chèvre »

A while back we saw a French cooking show on which the host prepared zucchini ‘boats’ — courgettes farcies — stuffed with ricotta and parmesan cheese, along with pine nuts (pignons de pin). We had a good crop of zukes this summer, so we made those, and they were delicious.

Zucchini boats stuffed with ricotta, parmesan, and pine nuts

The zucchini kept coming and we were having a hard time keeping up... isn't that the eternal story of growing summer squash? You almost always end up harvesting many more than you know what to do with. We had a surplus, as we had a cucumber surplus too.

I had an idea for a variation on the ricotta/parmesan stuffing for squash. What about goat cheese? Here we are in the Loire Valley, where some of the best goat cheeses in the world are produced: Selles-sur-Cher, Valençay, Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine, and more.

Our local Intermarché has a whole refrigerated case full of locally made goat cheeses at all stages of ripeness and in all sorts of shapes. The cheeses go from spreadable, cream-cheese-like chèvre frais, to slightly riper and more crumbly chèvre demi-sec, and all the way to nearly rock-hard dry, Parmesan-like aged chèvre sec (with « Je suis sec ! » stamped on the label).

Here's my goat cheese and walnut version of the stuffed zucchini, ready for the oven.

I figured a soft fresh goat cheese could stand in for Italian ricotta, and a hard dry goat cheese, grated, could stand in for grated Parmesan. The soft cheese gives consistency and background flavor, and the hard cheese gives a stronger but pleasant up-front flavor to the stuffing. Instead of pine nuts, we decided to use walnuts, and rather than mix them in we studded the top of each stuffed courgette with them.

Here's the recipe I based the goat-cheese stuffed zucchini boats on:

Zucchini ‘boats’ with cheese stuffing

3 large summer squash

250 g ricotta or fresh goat cheese

1 medium onion

80 g parmesan or hard goat cheese, grated

Toasted pine nuts or walnuts to taste

1 egg

Salt to taste

Olive or walnut oil for the baking dish

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / 350ºF.

Wash the squash and cut them in half lengthwise. Scoop out the center of each squash half to make 'boats' out of them. Chop the scooped-out flesh and dice the onion. Sauté that mixture on low heat for 5 to 10 minutes to evaporate some of the moisture in the vegetables.

Toast the pine nuts or chopped walnuts if you're going to mix them into the stuffing. If you plan to put them on top, they will toast in the oven as the stuffed zucchini cook.

Mash the soft cheese and mix in the grated hard cheese. Add the egg and mix well. When the sauteed onion and squash flesh has cooled down, mix it into the cheese stuffing.

Fill each zucchini boat with the cheese stuffing. Film a baking pan with olive or walnut oil, and drizzle some over the top of each stuffed boat. Put the dish in the oven for 30 minutes or until nicely browned. Serve hot.

Tasting Touraine-Mesland and Touraine-Amboise wines

We had our picnic with friends J. and N. after all yesterday, and we didn't exactly have it indoors. We set ourselves up out on the front deck, where if rain fell we would be sheltered. The rain didn't fall, but the sun hardly peeped out from behind dark clouds all afternoon.

We needed the predicted rain but will have to do without. According to one local source, we're not supposed to get any rain for the next two weeks. Everybody is talking about how dry the weather and the ground is, apparently. It's true that our grass and the neighbors' is completely brown, parched by the sun.

After our semi-indoor picnic, we set off to accomplish a mission we had planned about two years ago. It had never worked out before, but yesterday it did. We went wine-tasting. What a surprise, eh? Our destination was the village of Limeray, on the north side of the Loire River, about 45 minutes from Saint-Aignan by car. Limeray (pop. 1,100) is near the big and famous town of Amboise and within the Touraine-Amboise wine-production area.

Actually, our first stop was in Mesland, closer to Blois. Mesland is a wine village that has its own appellation — namely, Touraine-Mesland. We stopped in at the Château Gaillard winery, which practices bio-dynamic, organic grape-growing.

We tasted several wines — one white, one rosé, and two or three reds. I thought the white was interesting and I learned something about the appellation that I hadn't known before: the Touraine-Mesland white are made from an assemblage of Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay grape juices. I had always assumed that they were Sauvignon Blanc wines, as are the whites produced in the part of Touraine appellation where we live.

I liked the white and the rosé we tasted at Château Gaillard but I didn't find the reds to my taste at all. One was dry and metallic, one had only a slightly more palatable fruitiness, and the third, aged in oak barrels, tasted almost of kerosene on my palate. I passed on buying any of those.

I don't think there is an actual château at Château Gaillard — maybe there used to be one. We had friends in the village of Mesland seven or eight years ago and went there fairly often, but the people we knew moved to Nice and we've lost touch with them. Actually, they lived right across the little road from the Château Gaillard tasting room. There's no château in view.

Next, we drove not on the main highway but on along the narrow, curvy road that parallels the Loire farther north, passing through Monteaux and Cangey, before arriving at Limeray. The villages are pretty, with their old churches and a mix of old and new houses in the typical Loire Valley style. Arriving at Limeray, we stopped at the first winery we noticed, the Domaine des Bessons. It's owned by a couple named Péquin (Brigitte and François), and it was Madame Péquin who hosted a tasting for us. She said that she and her husband bought the winery, which includes their home, the tasting room, and a cave or cellar carved into the limestone bluff that rises up above the northern edge of the Loire river valley, in 1987. It was nearly a ruin and they have restored it nicely.

We tasted six wines, all of which were excellent. The Touraine-Amboise whites are made with 100% Chenin Blanc grapes, as in Vouvray, but have their own special character because the soil and climate are different from Vouvray's. The reds in Touraine-Amboise are based mostly on the grape known locally as Côt and internationally now as Malbec. Blending grapes are Gamay and Cabernet Franc, as in much of Touraine. We ended up buying a selection of all the six wines we tasted because they were all excellent.

Finally, we stopped in at Limeray's cave coopérative — the local wine co-op. That's where I took the pictures in this post. It's a pretty kitschy place and it was full of local people buying wines pumped directly from huge stainless steel vats into jugs and jerrycans that the customers brought with them. We bought some wines — a rosé and a red — in the packaging that's called a "bag-in-box" or fontaine à vin. That's wine for everyday consumption. We only buy bottles when we are going to serve the wine on special occasions

Walt took more photos than I did during the afternoon and he'll no doubt be posting some of them over the next few weeks. I might post more about the Domain des Bessons and its wines over the next few days because I really enjoyed the tasting there.

Dog days

That's la canicule in French, and you can see that the term derives from 'canine'. Officially dog days are over, but yesterday the weather wasn't paying attention to the calendar. We had what is called « un soleil de plomb » in French: a 'leaden' sun. It's idiomatic, and very different from English usage of 'leaden' — our 'leaden sky' is dull and dark gray, usually cold, while the French soleil de plomb expresses the idea that the sun is a heavy burden bearing down on the Earth and its people.

Callie, sunbathing (must be a nude beach)

Anyway, it seems to be over. This morning is blustery, and storm clouds are moving in. Yesterday at lunchtime, Walt looked off the deck down toward the front gate and was surprised to see Callie sprawled out on the gravel driveway. What was the poor dog thinking? Was she warming her bones one last time? She didn't stay there long.

No crowds on this "beach" — it is September, after all.

Later in the afternoon, Callie and I went out in the back yard and played with the hose. She loves to try to drink or bite water squirting from the nozzle. She runs around me in wide circles while I do my best to wet her down. She's in heaven. Sorry, no pictures... When the temperature outside is 90 or so, her coat dries really fast. By the time we got back from taking a short afternoon walk, she was all dry and a little bit cleaner than she had been.

You can see how deep the shadows were yesterday, with that sun beating down.

We had of course planned outdoor activities for today — a picnic in a park. We'll have to have an indoor picnic, I think. It's too windy, even if the rain holds off. Our food would be blowing all around, and the temperature is supposed to top out at 70.

Going out with a bang

Okay, it's officially too hot. It was near 90ºF yesterday afternoon out on the deck and up in the loft. Today's predicted high is 33ºC in Tours, Paris, Reims, and Lyon — between 90 and 93. Those are the spots in France that are supposed to be hotter than a firecracker on the 14th of July (Bastille Day, ha ha ha). Summer is going out with a bang.

Vines baking in the sun at 5 p.m. on September 4, 2013 — seen from the back yard

Why is it that I always end up out back digging in the dirt on the hottest day possible? For weeks, I had long been planning to go pull the weeds in the plot in the back corner of the yard, till the soil, and and put some autumn plants in there. But first we had to harvest the dill and the coriander (cilantro) we had sown there early in the summer. We wanted to gather the seeds of those plants.

I'd had these little collard and kale plants in pots for a month or two. Now they're planted for a fall crop.

So I finally was ready to till up the plot yesterday and put in the plants I had in mind. It was hot, but I wasn't out there in the hottest part of the day. The photos in this post, however, are ones I took at around 5 p.m., when the temperature was at the top of the scale and the sun was at its brightest. I was out watering, to try to make sure my kale and collard greens survive. Then I came back in and collapsed. No air conditioning here...

Somebody asked about the volunteer tomato plant that's growing in the gravel outside the back door. Here it is (two of them actually, one much smaller) surrounded by some potted plants.

With any luck, the greens will grow this fall. They're going to need more water than we've been getting, but tomorrow the weather is supposed to turn stormy. Over the weekend, temperatures are going to fall from 30+ down to 20ºC (from 90 to 70 in fahrenheit), according to the forecast. I'm looking forward to that.

You can see the holes some animal has dug at the base of these tomato plants, exposing the roots.

That marten / fouine or whatever has come back and done some more digging around the base of our tomato plants. He must be desperate for moisture and something to eat. The roots are partially uncovered. I need to go cover them this morning, before the hot afternoon sun cooks them. It would be a shame to lose our tomato crop at this point, after waiting so long.

P.S. I just came back in from repairing the damage to the tomato plants and watering them. One of them had been completely dug up (the one with shriveled up leaves in the photo). I guess we can ripen those tomatoes inside if we need to.