Last week was my French week and I loved it. I didn't stick to all of it, I missed the tuna nicoise salad, because the supermarket didn't have fresh tuna on the day and I skipped the French onion soup, because there were leftovers to be had. But I did some pretty lovely French meals. The one I enjoyed cooking and eating the most was the Bouillabaisse and I can't wait to do it again. Coq au Vin was lovely and I got some bread baking done as well in the form of a Provencal olive and rosemary fougasse.

Bouillabaisse - French fish soup

Coq au Vin - French red wine chicken stew

Fougasse

Saturday we celebrated step-son's 18th birthday. I could have freaked out about the fact that I have a grown-up step child, but seeing that I could easily and quite legally be a grandmother, great-grandmother if it was the Tudor times, I chose to remain philosophical and bake a cake.

Three layered angelfood cake with vanilla cream and fresh berries

And yesterday we finished our French week with a ratatouille and pissaladiere, a Provencal anchovy and olive pizza type tart. The winner of the week's last French meal was surprisingly the humble ratatouille, it was gorgeous.

Ratatouille

Pissaladiere

Week's food bill came to £84 not taking into account the Saturday's meal out. Merde.

This week I'll focus on healthy and light meals with lots of vegetables and heart-healthy fish. I am trying to put off wintery comfort foods as long as I can, although I am really missing ragus, stews, slow cooked lamb and the like and the weather is getting definitely autumnal. But knowing that there are way too many winter months ahead to stew my way through I want to stretch the more summery menu as long as possible.

I lost the fight to ponchos and pashminas though. I love them, but have tried to not start wearing them too soon, but caved in last week. I scandalously even had a pair of boots on one day.

So this is what our early autumn meal plan looks like:

#meatfreemonday            Classic Italian Minestrone soup, home-made wholemeal seeded rolls
Tuesday                           Baked falafel and home-made wholemeal pitta bread
Wednesday                      Sardine with sweet potato, new potato and peas
Thursday                          Leftovers of the above
#fishfriday                        Lemon, trout and squid spelt pasta
Saturday                           Riso al Forno alla Siciliana, lemon and herb roast chicken
Sunday                             Mum's Finnish salmon soup

Hooking up with Mrs M and the Organizing junkie and all the other lovely meal planners and junkies (organizing junkies)!