A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 18 – What Interesting Things Are We Learning This Lockdown?
November 20, 2020
Day 18 is called “Learn something” in Fiona Ferris’s book, 30 Chic Days At Home. She writes about the fun she had with her “learning projects” while her home nation of New Zealand was in its CoVid-19 lockdown, Spring, 2020. She focused on, among others, retaking/rereading on-line courses that she has purchased in the past and trying more difficult sewing patterns. She encourages us to find a project that has always interested us and take advantage of this enforced “free” time to dive in.
I am definitely following Fiona’s advice right now! France is in their second national lockdown so I can’t go traipsing about exploring Paris like I did this past summer. What I’m learning about right now is Zoom tele-conferencing and Keto-style/dairy-free cooking.
With Zoom, I have learned how to schedule and host meetings and I am currently learning about Zoom break-out rooms.
The Keto cooking adventures are the most interesting to me right now. I’m motivated not only because I fallow a Keto meal strategy (sugar-free/low carb) but also because two of my daughter’s friends get very sick when they eat gluten and dairy. My daughter and a group of her friends walk here each day for lunch. (Note: Schools in France have a full hour for lunch.) They are happy participants in my various experiments.
I’ve perfected the vanilla Keto dairy-free creme brulee (adapted from the Swerve creme brulee recipe on their website) and a tasty dairy-free holiday-spice cookie (adapted from ruled.me website. I wrote about trying the original dairy-full recipe here.) I’ve adapted the recipe to use some oat bran fiber and substituted refined coconut oil for the butter and thick coconut cream/milk for the whipping cream. I also use a metal madeleine cookie mold on which to cook the dough – the small “muffins” look very Paris to me!)
Today, I experimented with another ruled.me recipe (here) – their 90-second Keto mug bread which I use as the base of a toasted ham&cheese sandwich. When I make it for me, I use shredded Emmental (swiss-type) cheese and add bacon bits and whatever dried spices look interesting like crushed red pepper flakes, dried celery or cilantro. Today’s impromtu lunch project comprised 2 experiments. In one experiment, I replaced the cheese with refined coconut oil and the butter with Maille mayonaise and added 1 teaspoon of psyllium husk powder to give the bread some more “fluffiness.” In the other experiment, I kept the dairy-free substitutions and swapped out the almond flour for flaxseed flour. I didn’t add any flavorings or spices – so the flavor of both breads was quite bland. I just wanted to see if I could build a dairy-free/nut-free, somewhat fluffy toasted sandwich delivery vehicle (which I did accomplish.) When I try the breads again, I’ll try adding to the dough a little bit of a diced sauteed onion and red pepper mixture, dried spices plus maybe some bits of a spicy dried pepper and see what the girls think.
Now that I have the dairy-full “Keto quick bread” perfected to my tastes, the next item on my personal research list is a good Keto French onion soup!
