French Connection

Hope all the mummies out there had a lovely, lovely day.  I took my boys to the park for a bench-bound picnic lunch and a 2-hour climbing-frame fest earlier, so I feel I've earned my lovely new bubblegum-pink handbag and my rainbow-coloured necklace...they know me so well, somehow!

Dinner tonight was pretty lazy Sunday roast, a roast chicken, supplemented by steamed potatoes (although, to my mind, a loaf of good bread is just as good, if not better!) and one of our favourite sides, known to us as French Peas.  Loosely based on Petits Pois a la Française, this is another of those dishes that keeps on giving; I've already earmarked the leftovers for tomorrow's lunch...

French Peas

100g butter, preferably unsalted
1 tsp vegetable oil
200g bacon, chopped
1 onion, finely diced or 2 thin leeks, halved and thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 little gem lettuce, sliced
200ml chicken stock
900g petits pois
1 tbsp crème fraîche 

Melt half the butter with the oil in a large pan.  Fry the bacon until nicely tinged with gold, then add the garlic clove with the onion and fry the onion or leeks intil soft but not coloured.  Add the lettuce and cook until wilted, then stir in everything else.  Cook at a low simmer for 5 minutes or so, then cut the remaining butter into cubes, add it and cook until the butter is melted and the sauce is thickened and glossy.  Fish out the garlic clove (and snaffle it, cook's treat!).  Tip into a warmed bowl and serve.

Cath xx