Puppies and twin pandas

The puppy is just standing here barking at me. I don't know why. I think she's ready to go out for the morning walk, but I'm not ready yet. I have to say, she was very good this morning. She was awake at four, but I made her wait until five before getting up. She stayed quiet.

We are on such an early schedule that not only am I tired all the time, but I can't really take many good pictures on our morning walks because the light is so dim. Mornings are cloudy right now anyway, and the sun is coming up later. At six or six-thirty, Natasha is ready to go. So it's either go or listen to her shrill bark.

Anyway, here are a couple of recent photos. I just learned from the news on Télématin that the giant panda at the nearby Beauval zoo is having twins. How did that get by me until now? I guess my attention isn't very focused these days.

Courgettes farcies au poulet

Yes, it's still courgettes (zucchini) season. Yesterday I took some of the yellow "lemon squash" to our neighbors. They said they haven't had any luck growing zucchini this summer. About as soon as a courgette forms, they said, it shrivels up and dies. That's not happening on this side of the road.

So we made and enjoyed zucchini "boats" filled with chicken breast that we put through the meat grinder. I found a recipe on the web for zucchini stuffed with chicken cooked in Buffalo wing sauce. I was skeptical, but I thought it was worth a try.

If you don't know what Buffalo wings or Buffalo wing sauce is, well... I think most people in the U.S. do now. It's made with Louisiana hot sauce, butter, and a few other flavor ingredients. Buffalo chicken wings were first made at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo in western New York state decades ago, and now there are chains of restaurants that specialize in them. Besides the hot sauce, the recipe calls for vinegar, butter or margarine, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce, among other flavor ingredients. Here's a link.

Now, I have to say that it's not easy to find Louisiana hot sauce here in the French countryside. But we've discovered a really good, affordable substitute. It's called harissa and it's the hot pepper paste that is served with North African couscous, which is one of the most popular foods in France. It costs less than one euro for a big tube of the pepper puree. Harissa is 80% to 90% pureed hot red peppers with the rest of the ingredients being pureed garlic and powdered carraway and coriander seeds. It works great in the wing sauce.

Procedure: grind the chicken — I noticed recently that SuperU sells packages of ground (minced) turkey, but I didn't buy any — and cook it in a frying pan. Make the wing sauce and then pour it into the pan with the chicken. Cook for just a minute or two.

I like to steam or blanch the zucchini, cut in half lengthwise, so that it's at least partially cooked before it goes into the oven. Then scrape out the pulp and seeds to hollow out the boats. You can put some of the pulp and seeds in with the chicken and sauce.

Fill the zucchini boats with chicken mixture and sprinkle grated cheese (mozzarella) over all. Cook in the oven long enough to heat everything through and melt the cheese.

Try it — you'll like it. It's not necessarily as spicy as you might think.

Vineyard scenes at sunrise

These three photos are ones I took last Saturday morning. The weather was improving, warming up, though we were to have a few rain showers over the rest of the weekend. The last part of July was disappointing because it was chilly and gray, but the last three or four days have been pretty nice.

Natasha, our Shetland sheepdog puppy, is barely visible here. She loves the walks in the vineyard and has chased several deer over the past three or four days. This dirt road runs for a mile out through the vines before it meets up with a little paved lane.

As I mentioned in a post with some close-up photos a few days ago, right now the vineyard is full of the wild carrot plants that we call Queen Anne's Lace. The vineyard landscape is all green and white right now.

The first photo above was taken looking west, out across the vineyard. When I turned around and looked back east into the sunrise and toward our house, this is what the camera saw. The tall pointy tree in the middle of the scene stands in our yard, just a few feet from our house.

Over on the north side of the Renaudière vineyard, across a ravine that is an often dry creekbed, there is more land planted in vines. I'm not sure if these are considered to be part of the same vineyard, or if this land has its own name. The hamlet over there (8 or 10 houses) is called Grand-Maison because it's centered on a big old house, and the paved road (not actually visible here) is called la rue des Bas-Bonneaux. From where I'm standing you can enjoy a view out over the Cher River Valley. I was focusing on the green grape leaves and the pretty morning sky when I took this picture.

Today's chore...

...and yesterday's. Walt went out yesterday morning and picked these haricots verts that he has grown in the 2017 vegetable garden. Today they'll have to be processed for cooking and/or freezing. Some chores are not unpleasant to tackle, however, and make you feel productive. This is about 1.2 kilos of beans, or slightly more than 2½ lbs.

Yesterday afternoon was not a time for doing chores. We went across the river for lunch with friends C. and M., who live about a mile from us as the crow flies. Our mutual friends Sue and Leon are visiting from Australia and staying there. We spent the afternoon, until about 7:30 p.m., having a fine "lunch" and some fine wine together. A good time was had by all, I think, and the weather was perfect. C. & M. are very generous and hospitable hosts.