Having been away for the last couple of months I was a bit behind with chores. Fortunately we had cleared away all things Christmas before we left but the there always seems to be Stuff to be sorted and dealt with. It was while doing some of this sorting / chucking I came across this little gem!

Apparently, there are several traditions associated with Valentine’s Day. In Germany, the day before Lent is Rosen Montag, the day on which women can do the marital proposal . Likewise in the UK on Valentine’s Day, girls could draw lots to choose their lover! Hence this little poem.

Roses are Red,Violets are Blue,

Flowers are sweet and so are you,

Thou art my love and I am Thine

I drew thee for my Valentine.

Therefore I am about to update this but am still making a Coeur à la Crème and the flourless chocolate cake, both of which were always on hand for birthdays and dinner parties, but have long since been forgotten about !

Coeur à la Crème is decidedly Yummy just don’t think about the calories and in fact the chocolate cake falls into the same category ( to be avoided if on a diet,like me, I’m always on a diet!)

To make this desert it is not really necessary to have an official mould a tin foil takeaway pan will suffice, just simply poke some holes in it, as there will be some drainage from the mixture, so needs to be placed on a plate in the refrigerator.

Ingredients

• 6 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp powdered sugar ( icing sugar)
• 1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp lemon zest

sauce

• Small packet of frozen fruit/ raspberries /blackberries or mixed fruit
• Tablespoon caster sugar sugar
• 1 tablespoon water to dilute if necessary

1. Beat the cream cheese sugar until smooth and creamy. Scrape this into another bowl and set aside.
2. Pour the cream into a bowl, and whisk until soft peaks Add the vanilla extract and lemon zest, then whisk again.
3. Pour this into the bowl of whipped cream and whisk until completely blended. Line the mold/molds with cheesecloth or a paper towel or a clean J cloth. Pour the mixture into the mold and smooth the top and cover with cling film
4. Refrigerate the coeur à la crème for at least a couple of hours, (preferably overnight)allowing it to chill and firm up.

To make the sauce

1. Add all of the frozen berries into a small pot over medium heat. Allow the sauce to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring the sauce every now and then, add some sugar if desired. Once the fruit has softened up, pour the sauce into a glass bowl or measuring cup and cover with a sheet of plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cool, or allow it to cool at room temperature.Strain if necessary.

Serve

1. Unwrap the cheese cloth or paper towel from the top of the molds and flip the molds over onto your serving plates. Lift the mold up, then peel the cloth or paper towel off the coeur a la creme. If you want, you can use a spatula or butter knife to tidy your heart shape and make it look tidier.

1. Spoon the sauce over the coeur a la creme, and pour some around it too if you like. Obviously, another sauce can be used, passion fruit springs to mind, especially as it can be bought ready made!

Moving on the other Valentines dish I made back in 1983 was a chocolate cake. A very special cake, it contains no flour, but good quality chocolate, butter, eggs, sugar, rum or Brandy And ground almonds., easy to make, patience in the cooking and cooling. I used a 7 inch tin with detachable base.

• 200 grms good quality dark chocolate
• 175 grms each of unsalted butter, caster sugar,ground almonds
• 2 tablespoons of rum or brandy And black espresso coffee
• 6 eggs with whites and yolks separated

Put the chocolate, alcohol and coffee in nonstick pan and melt gently, when melted add the butter sugar and almonds, stir over a low heat until all blended, remove from heat. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the chocolate mixture. Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks and add to the chocolate mixture and fold in. (NB whites will not whisk if there is any yolk present).Grease your pan and pour in the mixture. Bake at 150 C for about 45-50 mins, it will have formed a slight crust on top. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling tray ( still in the tin) and leave to totally cool. When cool carefully remove from the tin and place on a serving plate.

To make a chocolate ganache to coat the cake. Very gently melt 100 grams good quality dark chocolate, in a pan along with1 tablespoon of caster sugar and 3 tablespoons of of water. Stir until melted and smooth and then add about 25 grams of unsalted butter,again stir until melted and smooth. Pour over your cake and smooth out with a spatula and push any excess over the sides and smooth all around the sides. Decorate as you wish. I added almonds as the cake contains ground almonds, but again it is a matter of choice.

We decamped to the Mountains, where the temperature -16 C( 3F). We decamp generally this time of year, cold and damp, golf course closed in the UK, for Himself to ski ( I have long abandoned this sport, 5 knee surgeries is enough for me, after all I am not Lindsey Vonn). However, this year he is Hopalong, having broken his leg, where else but on the golf course! So being confined to barracks we are doing jobs sorting out stuff which accumulates and having friends and family to stay.

Although there are some very good restaurants in the mountains, they are few and far between. Mostly they cater for the tourist trade, ranging from Crêpes ( savoury and sweet), and to all things Cheese and Ham. The most common being, Fondue, Raclette, Tartiflette, Cheese plates with charcuterie, Berthod ( smaller version Tartiflette), and not forgetting Burger Savoyard.

In our village ( up a mere 7 hairpins) we are lucky to have a small café. Apparently once upon a time there were 5 cafés, presumably as it was a farming community, with less ready access to other parts of the mountain. Even now, the cows are driven up the mountain, in early summer to the summer pastures where the cow herders sleep in primitive accommodation to tend to their herd!And down again in the autumn!

In town however, there are now numerous bars and restaurants, but apart from Pizza it is mostly local fare. There was, a good ( sadly no longer)restaurant that looked more like an antique shop than a restaurant. It was run by Madam and her husband. But call to make a reservation and madam might say” oh I haven’t decided if I will be open tomorrow, please call in the morning “ And now the morning hasn’t come! Now. Chocolate Shop!

We usually make little side trips whilst in the mountains, to the local markets, the best of the area are Chamonix on a Saturday morning and the Annecy, they have a food market on most days, but Sunday is by far the most popular, with general items as well as food. Usually there is someone demonstrating the latest ( probably useless) plastic kitchen gadgets. In the summer the place is absolutely heaving, always made considerably worse by baby buggies ( I feel sorry for the little ones surrounded by the masses) and even worse are the designer dogs, which are in danger of being trodden upon ! But fun none the less!

These markets are definitely the place to buy local products, especially cheese and charcuterie, along with local fruit and vegetables.

Onto, Tartiflette ,apparently, it was not always an alpine dish, or indeed it was revived in the 1980’s by the promotional efforts of the Syndicat Interporfessional du Reblochon, to increase the sales of Reblochon .Tartiflette is made with potatoes, cheese garlic, onions, white wine and Reblochon cheese. Variations on this Croziflette, which is made with Crozets de Savoie ( small buckwheat pasta instead of potatoes) , Morbiflette, made with Morbier Cheese and Tarniflette which is made with Tarn Raclette cheese.

Tartiflette is a very satisfying and filling dish, and also very calorific, which is why I almost never eat it, but himself is a lover and so, when in the mountains, eat what the locals eat.

• kg Charlotte or other firm salad potatoes
• 2 tbs olive oil ( or duck fat)
• 200 g smoked bacon lardons
• 1 large onion sliced
• 1 garlic clove finely chopped
• 100 ml dry white wine
• 200 ml double cream
• 300 g Reblochon cheese cut into slices, but leaving the the rind intact on som rod the slices as this forms the crust on top of the dish
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make

• Preheat oven to 200 C/400F/Gas 7
• Peel the potatoes a wash, put in pan and bring to the boil, simmer gently for 10 – 15 minutes or until they are cooked but still firm. Drain.
• Fry the bacon lardons, onion and garlic until golden-brown. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and continue to cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and stir in the cream.
• Slice the potatoes thinly and put a layer of them in a greased oven proof dish. Layer this with the rindless cheese, onion/garlic/cream mix along with the remaining potatoes and cheese with rind. Season with salt and pepper
• Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is golden-brown and bubbling.

So the weather has been dire ( in the UK and Europe nothing but rain, the eastern Seaboard of the USA frozen, but the Rockies not much snow) . Himself can still not hit the slopes so we headed off to the Sun, golf and beach.