During my summer in Southern France, I was able to spend a lot of time with my sister. Since I began working on a video project, I had the idea to work on one with her. That’s how I had the idea of beginning a “cooking with kids” project. The French Chef Anne-Sophie Pic thinks that cooking should be part of a kid’s education. How true she is.

I am lucky that my sister loves cooking as much as I do. When we found these pink and white fresh beans at our local market, she fell in love with them. She is a pink-lover girl. And this just happened naturally. My parents never bought her some special pink stuff, never painted her room walls pink until she begged them to do so and never dressed her in some Barbie-pink clothes. They were more the kind to buy her some red, green, purple or yellow stuff. Any color, but pink. Elsa loves pink and it was no surprise that she loved these beans. Their French name, if you are wondering which one it is, is the haricots blancs flamboyants. They can be founded in Southern France very easily in late August.

Cooking with kids is something I have often been reluctant to do. First of all, I have no patience so waiting for a kid to be finished with something I would have needed 30 seconds to do, is clearly bothering me. Then, I am always scared that the kid is going to hurt himself or herself with a knife or whichever dangerous thing we use to cook. Finally, I always have to think for long minutes before finding what recipe is going to be easy enough, creative enough and funny enough to cook.

However, I remember enjoying cooking with my brother Nicolas, be it, Christmas cookies or chocolate éclairs. I have also cooked a bit with my sister but nothing transcendent. Finally, making this video came out of the blue. It was spontaneous and not prepared but we definitely had a lot of fun. Elsa was laughing anytime she messed something. I was getting mad at her in the beginning and finally laughing as much as I could as well.

So what did I learn from this experience? Cooking with the children around you is definitely something one has to do. It is totally worth it and you can learn a lot from it. I would definitely encourage anyone, be it a parent or a young adult like me, to cook with kids. I made a video for you to see how it was. Elsa made the whole recipe. I just helped her chopping the garlic and made sure she wasn’t hurting herself when chopping the walnuts. I realized that I could trust my sister and that she wouldn’t hurt herself at all. And the salad was delicious, perfect to fit the weather and the temperatures of the day.

You can use any fresh bean to realize this salad. We just particularly loved the taste and the color of the ones we used but we are willing to try this recipe with any other variety.

Serves 2-3

Now, onto the food subject : the chocolate macarons. Thank God, macarons are naturally gluten free so I didn’t have to go through hours of searching a gluten free alternative! I made three batches of them since I had tons of egg whites left (from making my chocolate crème). I focused on the chocolate ones for the video and in this post, but I also made some coconut and grapes ones, as well as some raspberry ones.

Now, here is the video. The recipe will be down bellow.

Makes 40 small macarons (80 shells):

As the average female student, I spent some time in a camp. Since I am a Christian, I went to a christian summer camp at an organisation called Mission Timothée. We usually like to call it “La Mission”. Any time I go there, I am always a bit anxious. Will I see my friends again? Will I make new ones? Will I be able to overcome my shyness to talk to other people? Being in a church is great indeed, but if you are as shy as I am and don’t speak much to other people, then going to camp is a challenge.

I always feel like people have known each other for years and I am the only one not being able to have long time relationships. I have come to La Mission since I was 10. I have made friends but was never able to keep the contact with them. This is not 100% true though. I have made a couple of friends whom I am really attached to. I hadn’t seen them for a while and just when I arrived at La Mission, I figured that they were there too!  I was truly happy and spent one of the best weeks of my life. God really makes miracles and He blessed me a lot during this camp. Not only did He do it through my friends or whatever nice moments I spent there, but also through His Word and His action in my heart.

After this wonderful week, I had to come back home. I was sad, disappointed but had no choice. As we came back, I thought about something with chocolate in because, you know, they say chocolate is good when you’re sad and so on. So I baked a chocolate and sesame crème. I made it healthy though, using only 64% dark chocolate, adding very few sugar and replacing a bit of the milk by some homemade sesame milk. It’s really easy to do, cheaper than if you buy it and really healthy.

Don’t forget to add some grilled sesame seeds to your crème, it makes it a bit crunchy and adds a surprising taste ;-).

Recipe – serves 8 

Prepare your sesame milk: Soak ½ a cup sesame seeds for 1 hour or more. Drain your seeds and place them in a blender. Add 1,5 cup water and blend for 2 to 3 minutes. Poor the milk in a nut milk bag or use cheesecloth to filter it.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave with half of the sesame milk.

Separate the egg yolks from the white. You can keep the whites for another recipe or throw them away if you don’t think you will use them. You can also freeze them if you want to save them for later.

Since summer began, I enjoyed having a lot of free time to exercise more. I missed sport so much during the school year that my body is somehow pushing me to grab any occasion to exercise.  Since we are lucky enough to have a pool, I have spent hours swimming, enjoying each second in the water as if it was the last one – we never know when a storm will come.

Indeed this summer is not a real summer. At least, not in Southern France. We usually have very hot days with few storms but no rain at all. The grass often grows dried and we are under water restrictions most times. Well, this year, we have a couple sunny days and then long, sad and rainy days. And even when the sun is out there shinning, the temperatures do not really go high. I am not about to complain about that last fact. I truly enjoy those sunny days because they are not too hot. We feel like it’s spring. Or autumn. But definitely not summer.

Anyways, I just wanted to tell you about these bars. I discovered a blog lately (better late than never) which is about healthy vegetarian and gluten free recipes. Just what I needed. When I like a blog, it means that I found gorgeous pictures and recipes to inspire me; recipes which I want to try. This blog has both of them and really nice stories around each recipes.

Without further ado, here is the link.

The bars I’m talking to you about right now have been created by David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl: the authors of this wonderful blog. They are full of energy since the main ingredient is dates and full of proteins as well since they are loaded with seeds. They are also yummy since they have a bit of cacao powder. I came up with my recipe. I simply changed some of the grains and replaced coconut oil by apricot oil. But anyways, they invented the original recipe and I want to give them a big thank you!

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Recipe – make 15 to 20 bars