by: Cecile Delarue

“As A French expatriate in the United States for seven years now, I have spent hours adapting family recipes to what I can find at my local grocery store, so I hope it will be easy for you too to cook them in your own kitchen,” Cecile Delarue.

If you have been reading my blog you know that I am a tad obsessed with France and I love French cooking. I bought Voila! Effortless French Cookbook a while ago and am just now getting into all of the recipes. The cookbook offers so many recipes all of which are easy to follow. It also has a chapter called French Cooking Class which gives a lot of helpful tips and tricks to have the best outcomes from the recipes. Viola! Effortless French Cookbook is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn how to cook French cuisine.

Gratin Dauphinois

Gratin Dauphinois (potato gratin) are delicious to eat. After college I had a friend who was a manager for a high end steak house and one of his chefs made the best potato gratin I have ever eaten, I was hoping my would get close and it did.

Since I had a roast to make I decided to make these gratin dauphinois as the side. The recipe was easy to follow and doesn’t have any hard to find ingredients. I used my mandolin slicer to get the potatoes nice and thin. The recipe calls for a medium saucepan but I used a bigger one and it was definitely needed. Otherwise, the potatoes would not have fit. Make sure to watch the milk and cream mixture as mine boiled over slightly when it was ready.

This make not look like the prettiest dish but the gratin dauphinois are definitely the tastiest and would be a hit with all ages.

Quiche Lorraine

I have only had a quiche a few times in my life so I thought it would be fun to make this one at home. The recipe calls for you to first make the Pate Brisee recipe for homemade pie dough. It was a very simple pie dough to make and I really loved the tip to put the dough between two pieces of parchment paper to roll it out – it was so easy to do. Plus you than have the parchment paper to put in the pie plate.

The only ingredients I didn’t have at home were the crème fraiche (normally found in the fancy cheese section near the deli in most grocery stores) and some whole milk, both easy to find in the store.

Quiche Lorraine is an easy dish to prepare and makes a lovely dinner. The dish was flavorful and the nutmeg was the perfect amount for the recipe not overpowering, which it can be sometimes. I have to admit I did have two large pieces and I loved it. Quiche Lorraine will definitely be added to my normal meal rotation.

I am always searching for the best French recipes to make at home. Voila! Effortless French Cookbook does not disappoint. All of the recipes are easy to follow and Cecile Delarue has adapted the recipes to make sure the ingredients are easy to find in American grocery stores. I am ready to try a bunch more recipes from this great cookbook. What recipe do you want to cook first?