Parlez vu francais? We don't, but we DO cuisiner de la nourriture française!

February was the month and French food was on the menu. Evonne planned a great menu, and as usual, cooking with these friends was such a fun, delicious, and encouraging time.

Not surprisingly the two most used ingredients were butter and heavy whipping cream. You know you can't go wrong with those two items!

Casey was on the Green Beans Provencal- a simple and fresh dish that would be great in spring and summer.

                               

Green beans were blanched, then put in cool water

Green olives, tomatoes, red onion.

Finished with parmesan, olive oil, seasoning, and garlic

Amy took on the Chicken Dijon, which included mixing up a version of Herbs de Provence, slightly modified due to the fact that we live in Branson, Missouri. 

None of us had ever bought chicken from the butcher!
White butcher paper just makes meat seem more sophisticated. 

We may have added a little too much of the herbs. :)

Finished with a heavy cream, dijon mustard,
 and mushroom sauce. 

Now this next recipe was definitely the MVP of the night! If I said, "Would you like some onion pie?", your response would probably be, "No thanks!" But what if I told you it tasted like a buttery, caramelized oniony, creamy, quiche from heaven? Eh? 

This was the dish we cold NOT stop eating, and Evonne was the lady who put it all together. Tarte a Poignon!

chopin' chopin'

The buttery, caramelized oniony goodness.

And the heavy whipping cream

Eggs added and in the pie shell, ready to bake!

I wish you could smell right now how this smelled
baking. We think it would be perfect for a holiday meal.

I have been thinking about this pie all morning!

Finally, for the desert. This was, in fact, our first ever desert that turned out perfectly! For some reason, deserts have been hard for us to get right previously, but the Tarte au Sucre (Sugar Pie) was a victory!

First pie crust I've ever made!

After making it, it had to rise for a while, then it
was pressed into the pie pan. I saw another
recipe that said to press into the pie pan, and
THEN let it rise. 

By the time we were done eating the meal (i.e. Finally made ourselves stop eating the onion pie!), three of us had retired to Evonne's living room to stretch ourselves out, and hopefully make some room for the Sugar Pie coming up! Evonne mixed up the filling and baked it, so I'm not sure of the exact ingredients, or how she got the layered effect, but this pie was magnificent! Rich, but not too rich. Sweet, but not too sweet. Creamy and just downright delightful with a cup of coffee. I think it was just as good the next day when I shared a little piece with Rob. (That was nice of me wasn't it?)

The finished product had delectable layers of buttery, shortbread-like
crust, sugary-sweet filling, and a creamy, custard top.
It got better with every bite.

I just love...

time spent together...

with these precious girls. 

Bon appetit!