Half an Hour Vegetarian Pumpkin and Potato Soup

Well this one was never truly meant to be! My shopping schedule is all off due to the kids vacations and as usual I forgot that on Sunday the shops are closed. Something that I have never quite been able to get used to. The fridge was almost bare except for some butternut squash and a few potatoes. So I decided to throw them "all" together and make a soup. I happened to have half a loaf of bread left over from yesterday and a few cheeses so I figured we could manage.

Oh and I forgot to mention it was day 2 of the girls musical performance so I only had ... yes, you guessed it, 30 minutes to prepare dinner. When we picked up the girls their first question (as always) was "what are we having for dinner?". They were not too happy when I said soup and bread.

I pretty much grew up eating soup. My mum's soup is famous! I remember my aunt, uncle and cousins coming to visit one evening and they joined us for dinner quite sporadically. My mum made soup and my aunt asked my mum what she put in it because it was delicious. The reason that this stuck in my mind was that my mum made the soup from the beans left over from lunch! Actually whatever was left over from lunch went into the pot together with onions, garlic, water and a vegetable cube. It was then boiled, put in the liquidizer and served with bread and butter. Hmmm delicious... if you only knew! Okay that's not to say that my mum didn't make soups from scratch. She did that all the time, with spinach soup being our all time favourite. Always made with organically grown spinach, freshly plucked from the back garden. And in case you are wondering left over soups really do taste good, depending on what was left over of course!

Serves 4; Preparation time 30 mins.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp.	Olive Oil
1 small	Onion
2 cloves	Garlic
500 g	Butternut squash or Pumpkin
250 g	Potatoes
750 ml	Water
1	Vegetable cube
12 stems	Thyme
	Salt & Pepper

Method:

Soup is ultra easy to make. First peel the pumpkin and potatoes and then cube them. The smaller the better because they will cook quicker and be easier to pulverize at the end. Also dice the onion and the garlic.

Then take a large saucepan and heat it on high. Throw in the oil, onions and garlic and stir fry until soft. Around 1-2 minutes. Then add the pumpkin and potatoes and mix it well. Let it fry for 5 minutes or so, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. 

Add the water, vegetable cube, salt and pepper stir it all up, put the lid on and let it boil. Reduce the heat as necessary. 

Now I have this thyme plant left over from making the caramelized leek quiche so I decided to put some of that in too. But I really could not be bothered with picking the leaves off so I just took around 12 stems of about 7 - 8 cm length and chopped them up. I picked out a few of the harder stems once I was done chopping and threw the rest of the leaves into the bubbling pot.

The vegetables didn't have to boil for more than 10 minutes and they were done. I then pulled out my Kenwood stick mixer (Stab or Bamix depending on where you live and your age!), stuck it in the pot and mashed everything up. If you want a lumpy soup you can just use a potato masher. If you only have a liquidizer your in for bad luck because you can't put hot liquid in a traditional liquidizer. Actually there is a way around it. If you prepare the vegetables with a minimum amount of water you can then add cold water to them once they are cooked. This is usually cool enough to use in a liquidizer. However, afterwards you have to heat it up again. 

The girls just looked at the soup and said "what is it?" After I explained what was in it our oldest agreed to having one soup spoon full and the youngest demanded half a spoon. But half spoons don't exist (according to my husband) so she had to make do with a whole spoon. Then they tried it and couldn't get enough of it! I had to fight to have some left over so that I could pack it up as a school lunch for the next day!!! So it was successful (otherwise I would not be sharing it here, no?).

Half an Hour Vegetarian Linguini in Creamy Mushroom Sauce

I was not planning on cooking so many quick meals in a row. After all it was the weekend. Weekends usually equal a quick lunch and an elaborate dinner. But I totally forgot that the girls were performing this weekend and would be out of the house from 1 to 4.30 pm. This meant that us adults got some time together. And what a wonderful weekend it turned out to be with bright sunshine and warm air. On Saturday we visited a flea market and picked up some CD's, puzzles and books for the kids. Then we had a huge ice-cream and went shopping. But all this meant that there was only half an hour to get the dinner on the table by 5:30 pm! Good for you :)

So this was Saturday's dish. One I have not made for ages because the spaghetti is so cheap here and the linguini, which is called Tagliatelle here (and might be different), is so expensive (comparatively). If pasta is not readily available or extremely expensive then stay tuned and I'll post my favourite pasta recipe. It's easy to make but it increases the time needed to make this dish exponentially.

Serves 4 (if you have a hungry lot you might want to serve a quick green salad with it); Preparation time 30 mins.

Ingredients:

250 g	Linguini
2 tbsp.	Butter
1 small/medium	Onion
2 large cloves	Garlic
500 g	Mushrooms
1	Red bell pepper
2 tbsp.	White wine
250 ml	Whipping cream
1/2 cup	Grated parmesan
	Salt & Pepper

Method: 

I first put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. If you want to speed up the process put a little bit of water in the pot on the stove and while this is heating up boil the rest of the water in a kettle. Once the water boils add it to the pot. I use this method when I'm in a real hurry!

After putting the water to boil I peeled the onion and sliced it and then peeled and finely chopped the garlic. 

Then I washed the mushrooms and sliced them rather thin (<1 cm). 

For the red pepper I used some frozen char broiled peppers, but you can use a regular red pepper instead or leave it out altogether. If you are using fresh pepper now is the time to wash and cut it. Next I took a large wok and melted the butter on medium heat. Once it was melted I put in the onion and the garlic and fried it for about 1 minute. Then I added the mushrooms (add the bell pepper if you are using a fresh one) and fried them until they were fully cooked. 

At some point during all this the water for the pasta boiled and I threw the Linguini into the boiling water. I then brought the water back to boiling point, stirred the noodles so that they didn't stick to each other and then set the timer according to the recommendations on the packet. I always use a timer with pasta. Hubby does not like over cooked pasta it has to be just right! 

Once the mushrooms were cooked I added the char broiled peppers and increased the heat to high. Then I added the wine. I actually don't like alcohol and that's why I increased the temperature to high. This way the alcohol will all burn off leaving just the taste of the white wine. I'm always careful not to inhale the fumes otherwise I would be drunk before dinner! 

Once the alcohol has evaporated the rest of the ingredients are added. The sauce is then done and if you are lucky your pasta will be done too. 

I always drain my pasta and wash it under cold water so that it doesn't stick together. Then I added it to the sauce and mixed it all up, tasting for salt and pepper and adding accordingly.

And I forgot to say that I happened to have spinach tagliatelle so that's why my noodles are green. 

Serve immediately! Does not reheat well.

Half an Hour Vegetarian Stir Fry (Chinese)

My husband read my previous post and came home expecting a European stir fry (although I'm not quite sure what that would look like!). Unfortunate for him it turned out to be Chinese style :( But it still hit the spot.

So I decided to do this right and I set my kitchen timer to 30 minutes to make sure that it truly took half an hour. I must admit that together with setting things up to be photographed and taking the photographs half an hour is really stressful. But at least this time I managed it!

What I love about stir frying is that the cooking is done really quickly and you can use almost any vegetable you have at home. The down side is that all the chopping and cleaning of the vegetables takes a while. In keeping with my promise to have adequate protein in these meals I went out and bought some fresh tofu. We have this awesome Asian store just down the road from us that sells super fresh tofu. The tofu sits in a big blue basin of water in the fridge and is packed in a little bag for you to take home. The stuff doesn't last more than 3 days but it sure beats the vacuum packed type. And all that for just 1 Euro 10!! My mother-in-law frequently asks me to bring a stack when I go to visit. According to her it's the cheapest tofu around (okay that was when in cost only 90 cents!).

So here goes:

Serves around 8; preparation time: 30 mins!

Ingredients:

??	Jasmine rice
2 tbsp.	Oil
1	Onion
3 cloves	Garlic
6 slices	Ginger
3	Carrots
1 small	European eggplant
250 g	Mushrooms
1 block	Tofu
1 cup	Shitake mushrooms
2 cups	Chopped napa
3 tbsp.	Soya sauce
3 tbsp.	Corn starch
1 cup	Water
1	Vegetable cube
	Salt & Pepper
2 cups	Bean Sprouts

Method:

The very first thing you need to think about is whether you are going to use dried Shitake mushrooms or fresh ones. If you are then you have to soak them ahead of time. Anywhere between 24 hours and 30 minutes would do. Wash them first and then pour boiling water over them. Make sure every one is covered and then forget about them. Of course alternatively you could use fresh Shitake mushrooms but they are way more expensive and harder to get. We use the dried ones for three reasons. The first two are above and the third one is that I don't like the taste of fresh Shitake mushrooms!!

So first of all you need to cook the rice. With a bit of luck you have a rice cooker to do this. So you just have to figure out how much rice your family will eat and then throw it in there. I think we all pretty much know how much will be consumed. My family eats between 1 to 1.5 rice cooker cups of raw rice and they all dislike reheated rice so I try to guess if it's going to be a 1 cup day or a 1.5 cup day.

Once the rice is set to cook it's time to get busy with the washing and the chopping. First peel and cut the onion into 2 cm dice. Yes, I like the onions in my stir fry to be big just like in the tacky Chinese restaurants! Then peel and mince the garlic and slice the ginger. I slice my ginger very, very thin.

Next up are the carrots which have to be washed, peeled and then sliced. The thinner the slices the quicker it will cook and the longer it will take to chop. It's a bit of a trade off. 5 mm is probably optimum. Next wash and dice (1.5 cm) the eggplant. I'm in Germany, so I get Italian eggplant. It's large and fluffy and that's why I say use a small one. If I were to use a Chinese, Japanese or Sri Lankan eggplant I would just use a regular sized one.

Finally, wash and quarter the mushrooms. As you can see I used button mushrooms. If you are in SL you can use oyster mushrooms. They need to be super fresh and you don't have to cut them too small. Just keep in mind that oyster mushrooms lose a lot more water so you should probably reduce the added water to around 1/2 cup.

For this stir fry I used the largest wok that I own. Okay, it's not humongous but it's pretty big. There are a lot of vegetables here and before they are fully cooked they take up a lot of space. So the wok gets heated up and then the oil goes in. I used to put the oil in the wok and then heat the pan, but my father-in-law does it this way and he owned his own Chinese restaurant so... go figure! I later found out that the cold oil prevents things from sticking to the pan!

Put the oil in the wok and then the onions, garlic and ginger and stir fry for around 1 minute. [While it's frying take out your tofu and dice it into 2 cm pieces]. Then add the carrots to the onion mix and stir it well. Carrots take the longest so they go in first. Make sure you stir it and cook for 1-2 minutes during which time you can finish off chopping the tofu.

Next in go the eggplant and the mushrooms and that gets stir fried too. While you are stir frying you can cut up your shitake mushrooms. Since I use the dried variety I had to remove the stems and cut the caps into halves. How you cut the caps will depend on how large they are. Mine were really, really small. Taking the stems off takes forever but luckily the vegetables now need to cook a bit.

Once you are done with the shitake mushrooms then chop and wash the nappa, which is also known as Chinese cabbage. Throw this, the tofu and the mushrooms into the pan and stir it all up.

Now comes the sauce. Well I'm a bit lazy when it comes to sauces. I don't like to dirty an extra bowl to mix the sauce unless it is really necessary. So I just pour the sauces into the saucepan. I was running out of time because my vegetables were on the verge of being over cooked so there was no time to mix and photograph, so the sauces went directly into the pan. Pour in the soya sauce and then mix the corn starch with the cold water and pour this into the pan. Crush up the vegetable cube and sprinkle it on top. Then mix it all up. Now my family likes it's gravy so you'll find that this is a bit of a gravy heavy stir fry. The amount of gravy is adjustable, you just have to add less water. If you want a thicker gravy then once the water and corn starch has boiled take out a bit of the gravy from the pan, mix in some more corn starch and add it back into the pan. Make sure you allow it to boil because only then will the starch thicken the sauce.

Finally, while you let all the juices absorb and the tastes combine, quickly wash the bean sprouts and throw them in. I like to add them right at the end so that they are still crunchy when they are served. Oh and don't forget to season with salt and pepper. I almost always don't have enough salt in my cooking!! Generally I just forget about it. I've been trying really hard lately to remember to put enough salt but unless my recipe says "1 tsp. salt" I just sprinkle some in and hope for the best. I guess less salt is better than too much!

Serve pipping hot with the rice.

Vegetarian meals in half an hour

Germany is definitely a meat eating country if ever there was one. Even today, you will be hard pressed to find a decent vegetarian meal in a traditional German restaurant. Around 10 years ago it was hard to find ANY vegetarian food here, but things have changed radically since then. So much so that people seem to feel bad when I tell them that we are vegetarian. The typical response I get is "we don't eat that much meat either, only twice or thrice a week. My husband is a heavy meat eater so we have to have some meat". Well I don't expect everyone else to be vegetarian and I certainly don't judge you differently if you eat meat. For our family the choice is personal and not dependent on health or religion. 

A full vegetarian meal: Not cooked in half an hour!

Another common response that I get is that it just takes so long to cook vegetarian food. And it is this statement that inspired me to write a series of posts with vegetarian meals you can cook in half an hour, that are protein rich and taste good. 

Peanut dip with toast and deep fried tofu

As you can imagine these are not going to be gourmet meals. They can't be. Any quick meal, even if it contains meat, cannot be gourmet if it's been cooked in half an hour. Meat has to be marinaded and you still have to cook some starch to accompany it. 

Hummus: A firm favourite!

Don't expect these meals to be vegan! We eat eggs over here and depend a lot on cream and cheese. In my view the best vegan food in the world is Sri Lankan food!

Lumpreis: No it's not supposed to be cooked in half an hour but it is vegan!

Happy vegetarian cooking and stay tuned to discover how easy it is to cook vegetarian food. I'll see you tomorrow with a vegetarian stir fry.

Caramelized Leek Quiche

Oh my, oh my! Last night I could hardly sleep. 60 page views in one day AND the discovery of a caramelized leek quiche that was amazingly delicious. So delicious that it just had to be shared.

When I went grocery shopping on Monday (restocking after Paris!) not only did the savoy cabbage look good but so did the leeks. They were massive and fresh. I've always had problems with leeks. All the recipes that I know use the dark green part of the vegetable, but in Europe and the USA most of the dark leaf is cut off leaving light green leaves and a white stalk. But I was in the mood to buy what was cheap and fresh looking so I bought two huge stalks of leek.

Somehow I had in my mind that I wanted to make them into a quiche, it just felt right. So I went to my old friend (Google!) and asked him for a recipe. This is the one that I chose:

http://www.marthastewart.com/315984/caramelized-leek-quiche

But you know how that goes, one has to modify the recipe a bit to accommodate ones specific situation! So I'll post my modified recipe here.

For all of you who just hate vegetarian food, this is for you. The final product tasted unbelievably as if it had some type of meat in it!

Feeds 4. Prep time 1 - 2 hours depending on how you do the pastry.

Ingredients:

Pastry:
	6 oz	Four
	3 oz	Butter, cold
	1/4 tsp.	Salt
Filling:
	2 tbsp.	Olive oil
	500 g	Leeks (white and light green part)
	2 tsp.	Fresh thyme leaves
		Salt and pepper to taste
	100 g	Gruyere, grated
	3	Eggs
	125 ml	Whipping cream

Method:

For the pastry follow this link http://vinitasfamilyblog.blogspot.de/2014/09/basic-pastry.html

So I made the pastry and then went out to the store to buy the Gruyere and the thyme. Here in Germany you usually buy herbs in a pot. I found this very weird in the beginning but I've figured out how to keep (at least!) my basil alive so I can reuse it over and over, so now I love it :)
Here is my thyme plant that now adorns my kitchen windowsill. Lets see how long it lasts!

Back at home I rolled out the pastry and put it in my favourite flan pan. It's an amazing non-stick pan that I bought many years ago. The pastry is always crisp and it never, ever sticks. And because it never sticks I can slide it right out of the form onto a plate so I never have to cut my quiches or flans while they are still inside and thus damaging the non-stick coating.

I pricked the base with a fork and then stuck it back in the fridge.

Then I cut up the leeks. First quartering them and then cutting them into slices around 1 cm thick.

Then I had to deal with the thyme leaves. Oh now that was a royal pain. Having first washed the thyme the tiny leaves kept sticking to my hands. But I painstakingly removed the leaves from the stalks until I had what looked like enough.

Then the fan oven went on at 180°C to pre-heat for the pastry shell. Into a large skillet went the olive oil and it was heated on medium-high heat. And then went in the leeks, thyme and salt & pepper to taste. The thyme smelt divine. The leeks need to be stirred every now and then because you want to caramelize them (i.e. make them brown) and not BURN them, which I very nearly did. You also want them to be evenly cooked (and caramelized) and stirring them will help you achieve this.

With the leeks cooking and the oven heating I took out my pie dish and coated it with aluminium foil and filled it with baking beans. Now for those of you who are looking for an alternative to those expensive artificial baking beans that you can buy in the store. I have the answer: mung beans! I first used mung beans because I wanted to roast some to make some mung kauwm (which is a yummy Sri Lankan sweet meat that requires roasted mung flour). I never got round to using the mung beans for anything other than baking beans. I've been using them for years and they work wonderfully.

By this time the oven was hot so in went the pie shell to bake for 20 minutes.

While the leeks were cooking I grated my cheese and mixed together my eggs and cream with more salt & pepper to taste. Now if you are wondering why I didn't follow the recipe here the answer is simple. It looked like I had too many leeks and the milk and extra egg would not have fit in my dish. Plus I really hate to waste egg white.
If you are short on cream I think that whole milk would work fine. I know my mum always made quiches with milk in Sri Lanka and they turned out delicious.

Once your leeks are caramelized they will look like this:

If you have time allow them to cool.

After 20 minutes take out the pie shell out of the oven, remove the baking beans and the foil and put the shell back in the oven to bake for a further 10 minutes or so.

Now the original recipe says you should let the pie shell cool before you fill it but I had to fill it immediately because I had to have the quiche cooked before I went to pick up my girls from their musical project. And if I let the shell cool, then the oven would have to be reheated again which is really a waste of electricity. And so I sprinkled half the cheese into the base of the hot pie shell, put the leeks on top of it spreading them out to fit in all the corners and then poured over the egg and cream mix. On top of that went the rest of the Gruyere and then in the oven for a total of 30 minutes.

Off went the oven, the door was propped open to let some, but not all, the heat and out of the front door I went. Off to perform my soccer mum duties!

Wirsing-Pie (Savoy Pie)

It's that time of year again when the German supermarkets fill up with super cheap cabbage. I've been here for almost 5 years and have never tried any. But at 69 cents a head I just could not resist buying an ultra fresh looking head of Wirsing (turns out it's English name is Savoy).

The big questions were: What do you do with Savoy? How do you cook it? Does it taste good?

A Google search led me to this web site:
http://www.essen-und-trinken.de/wirsing/vegetarische-rezepte-mit-wirsing-1018534.html

I decided to try out their "Wirsing-Pie", of course I modified it a bit because I didn't have the exact ingredients.
Did it turn out well, you ask? Two of us liked it, one said it was "okay" and the other was so stuffed from the snacks she had had at the musical project she is attending that she didn't get passed the salad! I rather think that the cabbage scared my kids!!

Serves 4 - 6 (as always depending on the level of hunger). If I remember correctly it took me about an hour from start to finish.

Ingredients:

500 g	Savoy cabbage
100 g	Onions, diced
2 cloves	Garlic, minced
20 g	Sliced almonds
2 + 1 tbsp.	Butter (or margarine)
2 tsp.	Flour
	Salt and Pepper
200 ml	Water
200 ml	Whipping cream (or soy substitute)
1/2	Vegetable cube
2 tbsp.	Lemon juice
	Zest from one lemon
1/4 tsp.	Sugar
2 packs	Instant mash potato mix (plus all the ingredients that the packet calls for)
100 g	Gouda (or not if you are vegan or lactose intolerant)

Method:

500 g of savoy turns out to be about half of a German head.

The 500 grams needs to be halved and the hard stem part removed. Then half it once more and cut into strips about 1 cm wide and then wash the cabbage.

Put 2 tablespoons of butter into a large pan [make sure it is large enough to hold all of the chopped cabbage] on medium heat and after it melts add in the sliced almonds and fry them until they are golden brown. Once they are browned remove them from the pan but leave the butter in the pan. As you can see I kind of almost burnt my butter and maybe my almonds were too brown. (I was cutting the onions and garlic and forgot about the almonds!) However, since they were not "burnt" I let them be and they gave a nice colour to the finished product.

Toasted Almonds

Then put the onions and the garlic into the hot butter and fry them for a minute or so. Be careful not to let the butter burn (ha, ha!).

Then add in your savoy and mix it in. Sprinkle the flour on top of the savoy, and I mean "sprinkle". If you just throw it in then you will have lumps of flour in your pie.

Mix it all up so that the flour is well incorporated and add salt and pepper to taste.

Next add the 200 ml water and the vegetable cube. I use a rather large vegetable cube. If I were to use a Sri Lankan Maggie cube then I would use a whole cube in this recipe. Alternatively you can use 200 ml vegetable stock. If you've been reading my blog you will know that I can't be bothered making/buying vegetable stock!

Then add the cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar and toasted almonds and mix it all up. By this time the savoy is probably cooked. Mine was but that was probably because I spent a lot of time just finding the ingredients. I was a bad cook and didn't prepare anything in advance. I was under time pressure.

Once the savoy is just about cooked place it in an oven proof casserole dish. Put the fan oven on at 180 C.

Then prepare the mash potato. I was running out of time and used two packs of instant mash. Each pack supposedly serving 3 people. It is a bit too much but I didn't have a choice. 1 pack was too not enough. The instant mash should be prepared according to the instructions on the package. Then I chopped up my Gouda and mixed it into the mash. This mash then went on top of the cabbage, the last bit of butter was dabbed on top of the pie and the whole thing was popped in the oven  (which was preheated to 180 degrees Celsius, fan oven) for 25 minutes. For a conventional oven use 200 C or 400 F.

And lo and behold it was done just before I had to pick up the girls from their above mentioned musical project. Cabbage never tasted so good!

5 Days in Paris!

We just got back from spending 5 days in Paris and boy are we tiered! Information overload coupled with 6 hours of driving each way. We would have loved to have taken the train but it was way more expensive and the timing just was not convenient :(
My husband brings me fantastic news! We were 200 Euro under budget :) Money to spend on another vacation, yippee!!

Our first two nights were spent at the Ibis Budget in San Cyr, which is quite close to Versailles. We had a huge room with 5 beds but everything else was very basic. There was a micro-wave oven in the lobby area and we took our kettle with us. In fact we traveled with a whole heap of food because we prefer to take sandwiches for lunch and have cereal for breakfast in our room. This decision is two fold. Firstly, of course, it is cheaper to take your food with you than to eat out and secondly it is way faster. We've spent many a lunch time trying to find a restaurant within our budget that serves vegetarian food, and other than in China we've been mostly unlucky. That's why after we vacationed in Barcelona 2 years ago we always take our food with us. Then when ever we are hungry we sit down and eat our lunch. This time we also carried two IKEA bags with us so we could sit down even when the benches were damp!

Here is my Google map in case you find it useful:

Day 1:

We drove into Versailles on our first morning and found ourselves some parking under the Cathedral. We wanted to park on the street, as one website suggested, but the meters would not take our debit cards nor cash for more than two hours. That was certainly not going to be enough. I had pre-purchased the tickets so we didn't have to wait in line but that was not such a problem because it was POURING WITH RAIN! On the one hand we were totally bummed out that we might not get to see the gardens, on the other hand we were overjoyed that the lines were not too long. We first visited the palace which was amazing. So extravagant and shiny but on the other hand sad that there were so many people going hungry while the kings lived in such luxury.

Inside Versailles. Notice the Crowds!

We took a couple of hours to see the main palace and despite the rain it was still packed. The tour groups pushed and shoved to get the best places and to keep up with their tour guides. Our kids even got shoved which was really annoying. This is the down side of Versailles. I can but imagine what it must be like on a beautiful summers day.

The Gardens after the Rain

After our picnic lunch we headed towards the gardens, because guess what, it had stopped raining and the sun was poking through. We had a lovely walk down to Marie Antoinettes little palace. No crowds or tour groups down there. Wonderfully calm, lots of time to enjoy. I really loved her kitchen, but then I'm a kitchen person. I wish I had a nice sturdy table like that and so much space. Oh and I think I'd like the maids that go with it to do all the chopping and stirring! This palace/house was our favourite place. We think it was mainly because of the lack of crowds.

We were amazed at the pulley system that was designed to cover the windows of Marie Antoinetts parlour with mirrors. I'm guessing it was for privacy. You can see the system from the room adjoining the kitchen, and the mirrors in the room above. Quite ingenious.

Notice the Lack of Crowds!

We stopped by the long lake and watched people practicing to row and swans swimming and flying over head in the bright sunlight.

Then we headed back to the hotel to watch TV and have some instant noodles for dinner.

Day 2:

Early the next day we headed out to our next hotel which was closer to Paris and very close to a RER station. Then armed with a 3 day train/metro pass we headed towards the Eiffel Tower for which we had bought advanced tickets for 2 pm.

We got to the Trocadero metro station and walked through the Jardins du Trocadero. My oh my what mayhem! There were people everywhere trying to take the perfect picture of their friends with the Eiffel Tower. Some supporting it, some holding it up by the tip. We had such fun watching them and since our girls didn't quite understand what their parents were cracking up over, we took a picture of them supporting the tower from either side! Oh it was such fun!! Then of course there were the people trying to sell Eiffel Towers. There were so many of them. 3 for a Euro, 4 for a Euro, 5 for a Euro! Why would I want so many Eiffel Tower key chains? Lord only knows.

The Eiffel Tower and Rain Clouds!

What we really wanted to see were the fountains but they were not sprouting much water. We sat down beside them and had our lunch. We were in for a treat! The fountains don't all go off at the same time. They are synchronized. We got to see the whole cycle and took a lot of pretty pictures (of which only one is here).

The Tower Behind the Fountain

But even with all this we were too early for the tower so we went to investigate the Quai Branly Museum. Truely a gem. The best place to while away your time while waiting to see the Eiffel Tower. And guess what... they had 3 (or was it 5) Sri Lankan masks on display. Although I must say they were very poorly carved specimens. Yes, they were over a 100 years old but the art of carving back then was highly developed. It looked like what they used to sell the tourists on the streets in the 80's.

One Facade of the Quai Branly Museum

No problems leaving the museum and coming back in, just hold onto your ticket! Back at the tower the kids bought some small Eiffel towers just before the vendor got chased by the police. That was a lot of fun and excitement!

Up the tower we went all the way to the second floor and then on to the top. Although we missed the line at the bottom we still had to line up for the elevator to the top. There is more than one line so take a look around before you join one, it could just save you a whole heap of time. Once at the top we looked out on the whole of Paris. It was a wonderful view. I'm so glad that the city decided not to allow buildings to be too tall. It would have spoiled it's charm if there had been high rises everywhere. Round and round we walked pointing out all the points of interest to the kids.

Where We Came From

Arc de Triomphe

Then back into line to get the elevator down to the second floor and to take a look around. Not much of interest so due to pressure from our children we walked down the steps to the first floor. It wasn't that bad of a walk and it was interesting to see the levers and pulleys that moved the elevators up and down the legs.

On the first floor we again found nothing much of interest except maybe the glass floor. The girls were first scared to walk on it but then they decided to jump up and down on it and scare their mother! And finally after another long wait for the elevator we found our way to the bottom. I do advise that unless you have a problem with your knees or a heart condition you should really try to walk down. You will save a LOT of time!

We were so battered by the wind that we craved for a hot cup of tea. Remembering that the museum had a cafe we headed back to it. Oh my were we in for a shock, 5 Euro 10 for a cup of tea! You must be kidding me. It cost the same as a cup of hot chocolate. And you're thinking well it must have been really good tea but I can assure you it was probably just a tea bag. We walked one block back towards the tower and checked out the prices in a couple of cafe's there. Nothing under 4 Euros. That would mean for us to sit down and drink something would cost a total of 16 Euro, now that was way beyond our budget so we popped into a small supermarket (corner of Rue de l'Universite and Avenue de la Bourdonnaise) and bought some biscuits and string cheese instead. Still over priced but affordable.

By and by we discovered that tea was just that expensive in Paris. The cheapest tea we found was at Starbucks for 3 Euro 25 but that was after we bit the bullet and sat down in a cafe to have a cup of tea (Lipton tea-bag nonetheless for over 4 Euro).

The rest of the afternoon/evening we spent in the museum after which we had dinner at one of the cafe's just by the supermarket. Nothing spectacular, but it was getting late and we wanted to see the illuminated Eiffel Tower, which we managed to do. Unfortunately, I missed the flashing fairy lights. The girls saw them from the restaurant but I didn't bother to turn around to see them because I thought they would continue flashing. But as it turns out they don't and from logical deduction we deduced that they only blink on the hour.

Day 3:

The Louvre, one just has to go there. I'd read everywhere about the crowds and the lines but maybe because of the weather or because it was October the lines were not that long. We did take some advice and enter through the subway and there was hardly any line getting through security. To buy tickets you just need to keep your eyes open. There were 4 counters, in the four corners of the room selling tickets and one had a long line. The others had no line at all. Everyone just tends to follow everyone else. So we got our tickets immediately.

Under the Glass Pyramid

Our first stop, the Mona Lisa. I remembered the stairs going up to the exhibit from when I was 8, that was kind of cool. The hall was packed. We felt like we were back in China. Not only because it was packed but also because it was mainly packed with Chinese tour groups. We watched the Mona Lisa's roving eyes as they followed us from one side of the room to the other and then went on to see some other paintings. My youngest and I were rather bored with the paintings which were either violent or with nude people. I like more scenery and my daughter more animals, flowers and fruit. So we walked rather quickly through the exhibits.

Crowds Around the Mona Lisa

Then we walked down to see the statues, in particular that of the slave by Micheal Angelo, and then out to have a picnic in the shade of the great glass pyramid. Back inside we decided to go to the Egyptian section with the intent of seeing Mesopotamian as well. This area of the museum was void of tour groups and in some rooms we were the only people. We managed one level of the Egyptian section and then were pooped. It was 2:30 and we could not go on anymore. The input was just too much. I think you could spend a whole week at this museum and not see everything in detail.

A Mummy

We dragged ourselves back to the metro station and on the way one child announced that they had to pee! We followed the signs in the underground mall to the toilets and found that it cost 1.50 to pee! You must be kidding me, I would not let my child go alone to the toilet so I'd have to spend 3 Euro just to pee. Well I gave the guy 2 Euro and pretended to be confused so he gave me the mother/child deal although my kid was pretty big. The toilets were spotless with little displays of all the things you could buy in the little toilet boutique. Like the coloured toilet paper and the toilet paper stand that would set you back by 155 Euro!! An experience well not worth paying for.

We metroed over to "Le Jardin du Luxembourg" to get some fresh air and relax. There was a huge playground that I can totally recommend even though my kids found it beneath themselves to play on it. Instead we sat on a park bench, munched on chocolate croissants and watched some amateurs play tennis. Then we headed over to the statue of the statue of liberty and watched some teenage girls taking pictures in front of it posing with pink plastic Disney cups as the flame and handbags as the book! Was amazingly entertaining.

After this we went back to our hotel, ate some instant mash potatoes with a spinach paneer curry, watched a movie and ate popcorn.

Day 4:

Time for the churches. We first went to Notre Dame where it didn't really feel like a place of worship. It was huge and the sculpting was amazing but there were just too many people. Too many people ignoring the signs of "silence", "no flashes" and "devotees only". We opted not to go to the treasure chamber and I over heard a guide telling her flock that they should not waste their money to go inside. The only things of importance in there were the body of some saint and the thorn crown that Jesus wore when he was crucified and that could only be seen once a month and hundreds came every month to see it. So I guess we did the right thing. We also didn't climb the towers. For one, the main bell could not be viewed due to renovations and two I was not doing very well with the stairs and would have had to stay at the bottom while the other three went up. These things together made my husband decide that he didn't want to go up either. And yes it might have also had something to do with the crowds and the drizzle.

Although we had Sainte-Chapelle on our itinerary we decided not to visit it and opted to catch the nearby RER to Sacre-Coeur. At the very bottom of the hill we stopped at a playground to have lunch and then headed upwards. There was a market at the top which was nice but it did take away any churchly atmosphere from the exterior and it turned the church steps into a garbage dump. But inside it was very nice. Nice and calm and not too many people jabbering. However, many people were ignoring the signs not to take pictures. But that made it easy to get to see things because I don't have any qualms walking in front of someone who is taking a picture in a place where they are not supposed to!

Outside the church we bought some macaroons and stared at the people eating snails! It's the first time I've tasted shop bought macaroons. They are always so expensive so we thought we'd gotten a deal at 10 Euro for 12.  Unfortunately, I must say, that I was not impressed. I thought they would taste different. And they certainly don't warrant the exorbitant pricing.

Then we found ourselves a cafe to sit in and had a cup of overpriced tea. Lipton at that, the same tea bag that was provided by the hotel for free! Oh well at least we got to use the toilets!! A quick walk down the hill took us past the Moulin Rouge whose dinner tickets were selling for 200 Euro and up. No, we were not going to go in there, just take a few pictures.

Moulin Rouge

We had so much time left over that we decided to go to little Africa to catch some dinner. It was most interesting. It reminded us of the China town in San Francisco but with an African atmosphere. Unfortunately the restaurants didn't open until 7 pm and it was only 4 so we decided to go back to the hotel and get some food around there, taking in La Defense on the way. Now that is some big, crazy building. We sat in it's shadow and snacked on twix bars and oreo cookies (or at least generic versions of them!).

Then we headed back and waited for the restaurants to open. The girls voted to eat Indian food so we went to this place http://restaurant-indien.miam.fr/ the food was delicious! It was extra creamy just like we love our Indian food and reminded us of the food we used to eat in East Lansing when we went to Sindhu's. The service was great and the tea... well it didn't cost 4 Euro's and it was BREWED. No tea bags here!

Day 5:

It was Sunday, time to pack up and go home but not without first driving round the Arc de Triomphe.

Yes, we drove one and half times around the Arc and pretended to be stuck in traffic! Given that it was Sunday morning and raining there was no traffic to speak of, but one can always pretend! And we even found free street parking so that we could go walking down the Champs-Elysees. We didn't find the Champs-Elysees too interesting. My husband said it had changed since he was last there (don't ask how long ago that was!). There are hoards of tourists and over priced cafe's. Yes, tea was even more expensive here. And I really don't see the point. Most people were carrying bags from places like H&M and Gap. Really, you don't have to go to Paris to shop at this type of store. I thought Champs-Elysees only had expensive stores and although I did see the stores I rather think that any decent Parisian would shop elsewhere for their expensive attire.

Well at least there was a "Paul"s which is where we've been buying our baguette the past 3 days. The line was long but I suppose it's because it was the cheapest place to get some food.

We drove back home, stopping on the way at a rest area to have our baguette with the left over spreads and junk food. And oh my! Look at the price of tea... it's only 2 Euro!!!