summertime

Summer  is a bouquet of wild violets catching the late afternoon sunrays

Summer is the scent and sweet taste of fresh raspberries just picked in the garden.

Summer is also the colourful sight and sound of laundry drying in a warm breeze.

Summer is the Season when straw hats  bloom under the heat.

Summer is another beautiful opportunity to play “cache-cache” (hide and seek) in the meadows with your friend.

Summer is a time for many celebrations.

In Summer roses of all shades and shapes love to blossom.

For me, Summer is also a time for living at a different pace, a slower and more relaxed one. This is not always possible, alas. When things become too hectic around me, I remember this view and moment : an old barge anchored along a large river crossing a big French city, Lyon. Its owners had transformed it into a floating house. Its terrace looked inviting and I loved its “hanging gardens”. This is also my idea of Summertime.

What is yours ?

Sweet pears

Two  dessert recipes for two pears, or a pair,  sweet pears in any case

This is my participation in  Scott Thomas Photography’s challenge whose theme is “Food”.

http://stphoto.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/assignment-11-food-photography/

Choose a not too ripe pear and peel it without cutting it in slices. Let it simmer gently in some water with  sugar,  star anise, cinnamon and a little lemon juice. In the meantime prepare a chocolate sauce (some  water and chocolate). You may add some light cream before serving, if you like it.

Here is another recipe for a dessert with pears or apples.  Cut the pear in two pieces and cook it at slow heat in a non-stick pan with a little sugar, part of a vanilla pod , a few seeds of cardamone and some lemon juice. The pears should take some colour and a lovely crust but not too much ! Then just serve it warm with a sorbet (or ice-cream). I chose a passion fruit/mango yogurt sorbet. We call this kind of dessert a “chaud-froid” – “warm-cold dessert”.

I had a “bon appétit”, thanks for asking;)  But this second picture was rather difficult to take. By the time I had finished turning around the table to chose the right angle for my picture, as suggested by Scott, the sorbet had melted and the picture looked like nothing at all. Well, not so bad after all since I had another portion of sorbet

Photo assignment

Do you think this picture is out of Season ?  In my part of the world, absolutely ! But “Food” is not.  It is a matter that concerns us all daily and everywhere.

I chose this summerly image of  vegetable gardens in a mountain village to tell you about a new photo assignment by Scott Thomas Photography  http://stphoto.wordpress.com/ at Views Infinitum.

All about it – with some very interesting information and advice  on Food Photography – is explained here :

http://stphoto.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/assignment-11-food-photography/

Have a look and join us before Midnight (your time), Wednesday, January 26th, 2011. Wish you much fun ! Et “Bon appétit”

Christmas

Stars in your eyes and in your heart.

May this happy time of Christmas bring you the joy of  spending precious moments with those  dear to your heart.

Happiness also for  sharing a  smile with someone you don’t know.

May the light of Christmas shine in your heart long after this  celebration.

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year to you and yours !

Just enough time to bake a few more cookies… Those I love : with  spices and molasses.

Here is the recipe of these delicious cookies as shared by Cindy, thanks a lot Cin ! Merry Christmas to you and yours !

http://theonlycin.wordpress.com/

¾ cup butter and 1 cup sugar, beaten until fluffy.

Add in and beat well:

2 cups flour, ½ tsp salt, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 large egg, ¼ cup molasses, 1 tsp baking powder.

You’re left with a soft dough, refrigerate for an hour until firm and workable, then form into small balls and coat with sugar.  Set on a baking tray an inch apart and bake at 180C for 10 minutes.  The biscuits will harden on cooling.

The Christmas Tree quilt, decorated with sweets, hangs on a wall near our entrance door. Everyone visiting  is welcome to try and taste a chocolate or  a biscuit as they visit. Some days are more busy than others… and the   tree looks less colourful. No need to worry though since replacement is at hand in case you want to drop in ! Welcome

“In the silent night of a white Winter

The angels will come and sing

In praise of the sleeping child.

In the middle of the night

Light is shining

In the silent night.

Peace on Earth.”

by lesmotsdelle

Autumn

What is my Autumn like ? The first sign of my favourite Season  is the light haze over the horizon. It is not a fog, just a slight mist, a hazy look that tells you for sure that Fall is there.Autumn brings  a most colourful change in nature. In the mountains the larch trees needles turn into a bright yellow-orange shade before falling down into a soft carpet.

Soft and natural carpets everywhere. The kind of carpet I enjoy walking on because of its rustling sound and ever changing colours.Autumn is a Season of celebrations in my canton (state). A family tradition is the meal where everyone, young and less so, meet around a convivial table to eat roasted chestnuts. We usually eat those with various sorts of mountain cheese, “viande des Grisons” (air-dried meat, beef, produced in the canton of Grisons), rye bread and butter, grapes, apples, all local food. On this occasion we drink must (grape). Every year we so look  forward to meeting and eating this rather simple and tasty meal in good company.Autumn is also a time for grape harvest in this particularly warm area.  Vineyards have been planted for centuries on the side of the mountains and down in the valley. Never do the vineyards look as beautiful as now ! A patchwork of hard work almost all year round. What a reward and a pleasure when the vintage is a good one !This is an ancient cellar no longer in use  but I remember that “my grand-father-from-the-mountains” (as I used to call him)  had a similar one under his house in a small village. He would take my hand, bring me to his cellar and show me proudly his  yearly harvest. What a work it meant !And what a delight to savor the grapes from one’s own vineyard !Grapes and apples, the two kinds of fruits that Autumn gives in abundance over here.Gratefulness for these many gifts of nature in this wonderful Season.

Many thanks also to Scott Thomas for having brought up this new photography challenge.

http://stphoto.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/assignment-10-autumn-2010/

There is still time to participate ! Your photos have to be posted before Wednesday, November 24.

baking and reading

One morning recently, a good friend called saying she might come and visit with a common friend of ours during the afternoon. I decided to bake a cake I quite enjoy for its flavour first and then because it is so easy to prepare. Here is the recipe in case you want to try it :

ALMOND PIE

For a round baking tray (middle size)

1 pack of puff pastry

200 gr (2 cups 1/4) of  ground almonds

2 eggs

1 cup 1/2 of sugar

1 cup of milk

1 tsp of cinamon

1 pinch of salt

Mix all these ingredients

Then roll out the pastry on the baking tray (use a fork to make a few holes on the pastry)

Spread the ingredients you prepared onto the pastry

Pre-heat the oven at 200/230 °C (400-450°F)

Cook for 25 minutes

Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving

This pie tastes even better if you bake it one day in advance.

Some of you may think my almond pie looks a bit “burnt”… Well, almost but not really. I can assure you it tasted delicious ! And why should it look like this ?? That’s the question. You see, I was reading. A specially dangerous chapter that kept me totally concentrated on the story. At the same time I vaguely smelled something just as dangerous coming from the kitchen “Oh ! mon gâteau” (my cake) ! I rushed to the kitchen, book in hand of course (in case I would forget it somewhere on the way…) and I saved the almond pie from a very hot oven. Then I went on reading waiting for my friends.

“Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow” by Peter Hoeg is the book I was reading with great interest and more as “le gâteau de Babette” (Babette’s cake) was in the oven and requesting immediate attention ! I could not have been further from my kitchen. In fact Smilla, the fascinating main character in this book, was secretly -  and dangerously -  going aboard a ship in the darkest night you can imagine.  She was persistent in doing her own investigation about a mystery death. The story takes place in Denmark (Copenhagen) and Greenland, two countries I don’t  read about enough and I thought this book would be a good opportunity. It was, definitely so. And much more than that! This reading just cut me off from my surroundings for a few days, so exciting was the story. It is not a recent book, I had heard and read about it but somehow had missed  it. Now it is done and I thorougly enjoyed its reading. I hope some of you did too or will do so soon !

Summer abundance

Time for harvest ! Thanks to a very hot Summer,  Nature has been very generous ! We are having lots of fruits.  Here is an apricot tree growing on the way up to a mountain village. You can pick the fruits  yourself in the orchard,  then pay for your precious  harvest and go back home to prepare pies, marmelades, jellies or just eat them as they are: fresh, juicy, sweet.

I made some apricot marmelade for the Winter months;  a tasty reminder of a wonderful Summer afternoon spent in a steep field facing the mountains. I love spices and in this marmelade I added  just a few pieces of star anise.In our garden there is  only a single bush of redcurrants. But what a harvest ! This year its berries are particularly big and sweet. A vanilla pod gives an exotic touch to this bright red marmelade .Wild blackberries grow on a bank behind our house. Every year more and more. Almost an invasion… but one I don´t mind.  It is quite an experience (a painful one !) to pick  those delicious fruits hiding amongst their stubborn and sharp thorns !A painful job but what a reward ! The most gorgeous marmelade for your breakfast; I like to spread butter and marmelade on a slice of brown bread for my breakfast, a “tartine” as we call it.Another delicious fruit is the “zanette” (local name). These small yellow prunes are also growing in our mountains.  Not much bigger than an  olive. The prune trees do not give such a good harvest every Summer but sometimes you can be lucky. And when you are, those tiny prunes taste so good that you just eat them as you pick them : au naturel ! And if  you can save some, the marmelade you make is a real dessert. If you like “chaud-froid” (warm and cold), you can heat it lightly and serve it with an ice cream.  Why not giving yourself a treat ?

Oil

Those are the last drops, or bubbles rather, of an olive oil from Portugal given  by a friend. A particularly tasty, fruity, mellow kind of oil. When I turned the bottle upside down to get the last drop of it,  honeycombed bubbles formed and gave the bottle an antique and precious look !

About a year ago I visited some parts of Andalusia in Spain and especially a museum of olive; visitors were led  from a garden of olive trees through the various ancient rooms of an hacienda where  the famous oil was produced. The visit ended in a shop ( very olive-minded and in a restaurant which offered numerous dishes where the delicious oil played an exquisite role !

“The olive tree is surely the richest gift of heaven” (Thomas Jefferson).  This is one of the 80 sorts of olive trees growing in this hacienda.

Those are the old  jars that had contained the precious oil years ago.

Words that express the respect and care people had for their olive trees’ plantations.

A wonderful book for the “aficionados” of olive oil (I am one of them). It will tell you all about the origins of the olive from Africa to the Middle East, from Europe to the Americas and even some parts in Australia. And last but not least,  some recipes  are shown whose pictures only make you hungry. Here is a special treat for you : Bruschetta.

It is prepared by rubbing garlic (if you like it) on toasted bread that is then covered with fresh tomatoes and basil and smothered with oil. Olive, of course

In 1889, Vincent van Gogh staying in the Provence/France wrote to his brother Theo : ” If you could see the olives at this moment… The old silver foliage and the silver-green against the blue… The murmur of an olive grove has something very intimate, immensely old. It is too beautiful for me to try to conceive of it or dare to paint it”.

Irish bread

Recently I found on a blog a  recipe for the traditional Irish brown bread. My mouth started watering as I remembered how delicious it tasted. Its  texture was very special, both rough and soft. When I lived in Dublin I mostly bought brown bread. I ate it either at breakfast with home made marmelade or local honey; I liked it at lunch too  with cheese, cold meats, salads or smoked salmon. Always so tasty. And healthy ! As I read the recipe, I was reminded of the many happy moments  on Fridays  after work.  I would meet friends for an hour or two in a particular pub of Ballsbridge in Dublin.

The working week was over, everyone was planning something different for the weekend, we felt like having a break and  enjoying a simple and tasty meal. Usually we would order brown bread sandwiches, ham, cheese or salmon. Some drank tea but most of us chose a glass/pint of Guinness. The famous and great Irish Stout. Was it the perspective of being free for two days or the pleasure of sharing this Friday evening meal with friends that made this simple dinner taste so good ? Probably both.

In any case, when I read  this recipe about  the Irish brown bread I decided to bake one myself. I tried to get all the similar ingredients and started travelling back in time. Below you see the two loaves of brown bread I baked with approximatively 800gr of flour (I had to convert the measures).

Here is the recipe :

12 ozs unbleached flour

1 lb stone ground wholemeal

3 ozs bran

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons of bread soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

about 4 1/2 dl of water

1 nob of butter

Don’t they look good ? Their smell was delicious, I tell you ! I could hardly wait to cut one of the breads and taste it ! And I when I did, I was happily surprised to find again its somewhat rough texture although my “Irish bread” was definitely  different. Of course. The flour was not the same, neither was the water used to mix the various ingredients, nor the “nob of butter”. Even the kind of heat in my oven must have been different. But the bread still tasted good and I thank the friendly baker near Tralee  and The Sand Papers  – http://sandpapers.wordpress.com/ -  who shared his recipe.

Enjoying the sun on a Sunday morning somewhere in Dublin.

Winter colours

Back blogging after some busy time. Generally nothing has changed much… Winter is still here,  not really looking like leaving soon and giving way to Spring. Snow is falling almost every day with sometimes a ray of sunshine. Real happiness ! Mostly though the main shade you see all around is  grey and white and it makes you dream of colours.  Plenty of colours !“Let the Spring come in !”

A good time for staying inside and quilt, one of my favourite activities in every season.  Through Flickr I came across this blog I visited with great pleasure :

http://calendarquiltchallenge.blogspot.com/

It inspired me to look for my scraps of  bright and colourful fabrics. Soon I started sewing my own calendar quilt. Here are the three first months of this year, Winter colours I imagined for January, February and March.Thanks to everyone on Calendar quilt challenge for their wonderful blog and creativity.

One of my favourite colours is orange. Looking around for this warm shade that would brighten up  my Winter, I spotted a basket full of  oranges, so juicy and sweet, just begging to be put into jars… Which I did ! more colours, scents, the cardamon, cinamon and vanilla adding a touch of sunshineThose are the colours of my Winter, shades that look and taste good. Colours that  sooner or later will bring back Spring  !