France vs Spain

The French Plate
Chicken Provencal with slow baked pommes Anna
la religieuse (the nun)
Score
* Big M – 8
The chicken really did turn out succulent with only 1 hour cooking time. The potato bake had few ingredients but did not matter as slow cooking ruled supreme.

* Little m – 9
Dinner was fantastic. Another winning meal combination from Rhodes’ “Food with Friends”. I could easily have this meal once a week. The lady who sold me sweets said it looked more like a monk, than a nun!

Comments
This was the second time we have covered France. There are about 10 countries we have missed, but most of them have been eliminated from the competition. We will try to catch them up on the days when no-one is playing.

Sadly again we could not fill the cup with todays country.

Monday was a little disappointing to see both Australia and Switzerland (yawn) go out.

Tomorrow we are celebrating our anniversary out at a restaurant. Since no-one is playing in The World Cup, we thought it was time to also have a break.

France vs Switzerland

The French Cup
Kronenbourg 1664
The French Plate
Boeuf a la bourguignonne and baguette (French Stick)
Chocolate covered almonds and hazelnuts

Score
* Big M – 7.5
* Little m – 7
The beef casserole was supposed to simmer for four hours, but since we both work full-time it was only possible for it to stew for two hours. We found some French red wine, but the Australian version was half the price and since it was being used for cooking we had to substitute. I think we’ll have to start looking for non-alcoholic drinks, because there is no way I’ll be drinking beer/wine for 5 weeks straight!

The Valrhona chocolate was another treat I found on special. It was originally $12 for 50g reduced to something more in a reasonable price range. Valrhona is one of the top 5 chocolates in the world, but I think I’d have to have a square to get a sense of the real taste.

Comments
I bought a 5 hours tape but slammed it into a pole on the way home, and discovered later that it was all broken and unusable. So it’s back to getting up in the middle of the night to change the video tape over.

We were both tired and went to bed at 8pm so we could get up in time for the match at 2am in the next morning.