A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 2 – Inspiration
November 4, 2020
Day 2 in Fiona Ferris’s book 30 Chic Days At Home is titled “Inspire yourself and dream of better days.” In this chapter, Fiona writes about collecting photos and magazine articles that capture our imaginations for a beautiful and well-lived life and surroundings. I especially like her comment that with her collection of inspirational images, she has an easy wonderful and positive place to “go” when she wants to relax and feel inspired rather than a draining news site/”scandal rag.”
Today, my focus is to take advantage of some recent cooking inspiration and finish tidying up the two “clutter corners” that I wrote about yesterday. Part of my Chic Vision/Chic Plan of a well-lived life is that there is tasty, healthy food at each of my meals. This requires a certain level of daily organization and pre-work to implement on a regular basis. (PS. Fiona has a terrific book with good ideas for exactly how to think about and implement a low-key, tasty and healthy food lifestyle called 30 Slim Days.)
I choose to look at France’s national lockdown as the French government giving me the opportunity to take some “at home” time to get some “investment” cooking completed. This past Sunday, I made a big batch of chicken casserole with sauteed onions, cauliflower, and mushrooms all roasted in a sauce of Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, and parmesan cheese. There were a bunch of dried spices in there, too. This morning I decided to take the leftovers and make a big batch of “cream of chicken” soup. (Soup is a terrific “investment” cooking dish – I can make a very large amount, serve it for dinner & a couple of lunches and put at least half into 3 or 4 full freezer quart-sized ziplock bags to act as quick & tasty dinners in the weeks to come.) I shredded the remaining chicken and added it plus any remaining sauce to a big pot with some homemade bone broth and chicken bouillon. I sauteed a diced onion and a big handful of shredded mushrooms and threw those in the pot, too. It’s been simmering gently for about 30 minutes. I did pull out some meat-veggie solids (using a slotted spoon) into a bowl. I added about 1/2 a teaspoon of xantham gum to the solids and stirred well. (This is to add a bit of a thickener action to the soup). I then stirred the meat-veggie-xantham mixture into the large pot. I’m not sure if using this method will result in a slightly thicker sauce (in the past, I have added the xantham gum to the sauteed veggies, stirred well so the veggies were coated, then added a liquid to the mixture – which does yield a thicker “stew-like” texture.) Note: I usually cook using a Keto/gluten-free approach so that is why I used Xantham gum rather than the more traditional wheat flour-slurry method.
At my “cozy tea break” this afternoon, I will make some notes on a few other healthy “investment” cooking projects that I can do over the next few days while my cooking inspiration lasts!
On another “inspiration” topic: I asked my children and my husband what creative thing would they each like to explore during this lockdown? I’m still not completely decided for myself but definitely I have chosen to write a blog post each day. I am also considering learning how to play Bridge. (I have a friend here in Paris who is an avid Bridge player and has taught Bridge. I have another pal who would also like to learn. Our challenge over the next few days is to figure out how to do the lessons via Zoom/WhatsApp Video with 2 views each – a view of our faces and a view of each of our hands of cards.) If you have any advice, please share!
