My Dinner Last Night & a recipe for Mid-Summer Salad

I have been reading "French Kids Eat Everything:  How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters"  by Karen Le Billion 

Quiche with bacon, mushrooms, asparagus, artichoke hearts and onions with a mid-summer salad.

This book is for everyone,  not just people with babies or young children.  Here is my review:  

If you are expecting your first child or have young children, read this book NOT Dinner a Love Story. DALS will teach you how to create picky kids This book will teach you how to avoid it in the first place and to fix it if you have already made that mistake.

I have had this book on my to read list for months, but because my kids are teenagers, I knew I was not the target audience. I finally read it and I am glad I did. I have to state for the record that I agree wholeheartedly with the French approach to feeding children. I made the typical American mistakes with my first two children and did a complete flip with the following three. So, I feel like kind of an expert on this subject. Even though my kids are older, I find that my children and I are all snacking too much. This book was a great reminder of how we should all eat at all ages. The first 65% of the book is also a great memoir on a North American living in France. Of course, after reading this book, I had to make a french dinner. We had quiche with salad and berries with yogurt cream for dessert. My family was thrilled. 

If you enjoy memoirs about living in Europe, food & cooking, read this book.

For dessert Raspberries & Blueberries with Yogurt Cream

Recipes:

Pioneer Woman Quiche

Pioneer Woman Berries with Yogurt Cream

Mid-Summer Salad: from the Bonne Femme Cookbook by Wini Moranville p.39 (which I highly recommend)

Gail's commentary:  Okay, this is just a basic salad with a vinaigrette, but it is changed up a little bit (pay attention to the vinegar.)  The photo does not show the feta cheese in the recipe because I was out.  I got some more the next day (I have a daughter who LOVES the particular feta we buy and eats it plain, so it is hard to keep on hand.)

1 garlic clove, minced
1/8 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon Raspberry Vinegar *
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 cups mixed salad greens, like spring mix
1 Tablespoon snipped fresh chives
1/2 large cucumber, peeled and chopped
1 large tomato, seeded and chopped
1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1.  Mash the garlic, pepper and salt in a medium-size bowl with the back of a spoon to form a paste.  Whisk in the Dijon mustard and vinegar, and then the olive oil, whisking until well blended.

2.  Toss the salad greens, chives, and cucumber in a large salad bowl.  Add about three-quarters of the vinaigrette; toss lightly until the greens are slick and nicely coated.  Add the tomato and feta to the remaining vinaigrette in the bowl;  toss lightly until coated.  Top the salad with the tomato and feta.  Serve immediately.


Gail's commentary part 2:
*The raspberry vinegar brings out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes.  Obviously, you can substitute whatever vinegar you want.  One of these days I will do a post on how to make your own flavored vinegars since raspberry vinegar can be very expensive.  For now, this is what you do.  Put a bunch of fresh raspberries in a quart sized canning jar.  Fill it up about half way.  Pour in white wine vinegar to the top.  Cover and let it sit on the counter for a few days until vinegar is a lovely red color and the raspberries have lost their color.  Strain out the raspberries and store in the fridge indefinitely.