French Cuisine Friday - Mousse au Chocolat

French Cuisine Friday, I will show you a French cuisine item I made during the week. I will post pictures as well as the recipe and some background on the item and possibly including some French vocab in the process.

While my mom was here, she kept complaining that she wanted chocolate mousse (mousse au chocolat). We had planned on making it several times but we actually never got around to doing it. I think it was all the prefecture visits (posts to come soon!).

One Sunday morning when she went to church, I decided to make her some as it was a few days before she was leaving and it would be a nice surprise.

I didn't use a French recipe for this. Julia Child has a good one, but I don't have access to her book. So, I ended up using the recipe off of Joy of Baking.


According to Joy of Baking,

One spoonful of this Chocolate Mousse and you will be hooked forever. It is what you could call a grown up chocolate pudding. A simple yet elegant dessert. While it uses only a few ingredients, its chocolate flavor is rich and its texture is silky smooth, airy, almost foamy. And foamy is an apt description as "mousse" is French for 'froth' or 'foam'.

Read more: http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateMousse.html#ixzz2hxd3Vgdl

I experienced one problem, the cream wouldn't whip.  So I just ended up pouring the semi-whipped liquid in and the chocolate mousse was a little liquidy. But it received a 10/10 from my mom.
 

 

Live the Language : Paris

I stumbled across this video on Pinterest, my new obsession. I hope to post other videos or images particulary in regards to French vocab soon.

The story in the video is similar to my Parisian adventure back in 2008.  Enjoy!



I did meet my husband during my study abroad experience but not how the girl meetsthe boy. The school looks familiar and it might actually be L'Institut Catholique where I studied, because it wasn't that far away from Jardin du Luxembourg.
 

Pregnancy : Paperwork

12.12.12 was a good day, it was the day I discovered I was pregnant and so my adventure began.

First, after confirming my pregnancy with a blood test, I found out that I would have to declare my pregnancy to my health insurance and the CAF. The declaration would need to be sent before my 14th week of pregnancy. Interesting fact : In France, a baby is not considered an official pregnancy until the woman is 14 weeks pregnant. Because of the risk of miscarriage and I guess the woman has 14 weeks to decide if she wants to keep her future baby (which in itself is another post - sidenote I am totally against abortion). The CAF also gives you a stipend of 900 euros at the 7 month mark just for having a baby, like an incentive.  This incentive helped us stock up on all those diapers, wipes and other baby necessities.

I sent my papers sometime in January to the RSI, my health insurance provider. Sidenote : RSI is for those who are independant workers. But they ended up losing the paperwork I sent, apparently there was a specific place I was supposed to send it and I had to end up sending it again this time to the right address. Finally I was declared and was able to receive full healthcare benefits at 6 months!

Also, I bought this book, French Mama's Pregnant in France which really helped make my pregnancy adventure easier. Because the book is in French and English and there is a quiz and vocab section at the end of each chapter, which helped to make doctor's visits and what to expect easier.

French vocab :

formulaire déclaration de la grossesse : pregnancy declaration forms.

assurance maladie : health insurance  - the most common form of insurance

CAF (caisse d'allocations familiale) : family allowance fund

enciente - pregnant

J'attends un bébé - I am expecting a baby

prise de sang - blood test

French Vocab Sundays - October 20, 2013

I have decided to start another series this time called  French Vocab Sundays. Every Sunday I will post French vocab words that I learned throughout the week. They are mostly random words, ones that I think of at a certain moment and others are actually important ones like parts of the body or words pertaining to paperwork.

First, because I have discovered I do not know a whole lot of vocab words. I will be in the middle of a sentence and think "Oh I don't know that word" and then I have to give the definition of the word that I was thinking of. Second, I want to learn new words and later help Fatima learn them too.

I will be using wordreference.com and linguee.com to look up these words.

Words from this week :

ribs - une côte | rib cage - une cage thoracique

gall bladder - une vésicule biliaire

arts & crafts - l'artisanat d'art

popsicle sticks - un batôn de glace

felt (the material) - de feutre

construction paper - un papier cartonné

lollipop - une sucette

wheel barrow - une brouette

French words that I had to look up their meaning

diurne - during the day

un paillasson - doormat

And lastly, because writing them down might actually help me to remember them and may help others like you learn them, even if you don't speak French. Or if you do, they can be good reminders.

French Cuisine Friday

I have decided to start a series called French Cuisine Friday where I will show you a French cuisine item I made during the week. I will post pictures as well as the recipe and some background on the item and possibly including some French vocab in the process.

This week, I am reposting items that I have made in the past :
Upside Down Apple Pie / Tarte Tatin
Crepes
Mussels / Moules
Fish / Poisson

so try one of these out this week and let me know how it goes!

Next week, is a famous French dessert that my mom was dying to have when she was here and kept complaining about how much she wanted to eat it until I finally made it. What do you think it is ?