PETIT TRESORS.. the small teasures of life, brown eggs in a blue bowl

The name of my blog is BEL’OCCHIO,  Italian for “the beautiful eye”.  To have “the beautiful eye” is to see  beauty in the common, every day things that surround us.  It requires us to pay attention.  To look for beauty  in the simplest of things.  I open the refrigerator many times during the day.  Sometimes I have a tiny bud vase with one perfect flower tucked away beside the milk.

Today two dozen lovely brown eggs were delivered to my door.  The Rhode Island Reds on the Home Farm have started laying.   They’re new hens so the first eggs were a little small, but received with great joy.  I put them in a blue bowl and they are the first thing I see when I open the refrigerator.  Petit Tresors (the small treasures of life) indeed.  Brown eggs in a blue bowl – Bel O’cchio.

PICKLED CUCUMBERS … cornichons a la francaise

Cornichons à la Française

Everyone interested in  French cuisine has, at one time or another, bought a jar of these excellent tiny pickled cucumbers.    If you can find baby pickling cucumbers, they are as easy to make as boiling an egg.

I was delighted to discover these  sweet little one pound packages of crispy  cucumbers at our marvelous local grocery store, Budget Foods.  They’re grown up the valley in Langley, B.C.   As soon as I saw them I thought CORNICHONS!  My good gardening friend Dellis and I had been discussing this very treat.

Recipe:

They should average about 1 1/2 inches and should be freshly picked and slightly underripe;  try to get them with a tiny bit of the stem still attached.  Some of the cucumbers I bought were a little longer than this but they will still work.

You should ideally have a stoneware crock in which to store them, but a Mason jar will also do.  If you are going to keep the pickles for a long time , it is a good idea to put a few fresh grape leaves into the jar to keep the pickles crisp.

To make one jar:

1 pound baby pickling cucumbers, scrubbed, soaked overnight in heavily salted water, drained and dried.

About 3-4 cups of white wine vinegar

Pack the cucumbers neatly and tightly into the jar.  To determine how much vinegar is needed, pour it into the jar to about  1 inch  above the top of the cucumbers.  Now, pour off the vinegar into a large enameled, tinned or stainless-steel pan, and bring to a boil.  Add an extra 1/2 cup of vinegar.  At once, pour the vinegar, still at a boil, over the cucumbers in the jar and let the cucumbers soak for a full 24 hours.

Again, pour off the vinegar into the pan, bring it back to a boil, add an extra 1/2 cup of fresh vinegar, then pour the boiling vinegar over the cucumbers, cover, and let them soak for another 24 hours.  Repeat exactly the same operation for the third time.  This time, however, let the cucumbers soak, covered, in a cool place for six weeks.  Take out the pickles as you need them.  Always make sure that the remaining pickles are covered by liquid.  Add more vinegar at any time, as necessary.

Now make a paté  to go with your pickles.  Enjoy!

THE PERFECT GUEST

Our perfect guest arrived two weeks ago.  A black vehicle, with tinted windows, drew up to the door.  The driver silently unloaded various boxes and cases, and then very carefully helped our guest into the house.  Our Perfect Guest, a very picky eater, had brought her own food.  She is particular about where she sleeps and had actually considered bringing her own bed.  Too much, she decided.

It has been a quiet two weeks.  Our Perfect Guest doesn’t care much for idle conversation.  She needed to rest.  Commercial plane travelling was so tiring. and most hotels were too noisy.  The quiet country life  was the cat’s meow.

We don’t see much of our guest.  She discovered my bedroom was well stocked with novels.  French novels, Flaubert and Balzac  no less.  She loves the smell of old books.  Phoebe, our guest is very much a “blue stocking”.

chut… Phoebe dort …

(Hush … Phoebe sleeps…)

PETIT TRESORS

Thoughts rest your wings.

Here is a hollow of silence,

A nest of stillness,

In which to hatch your dreams.

(Joan Walsh Anglund)

HOW TO MAKE PERFECT BAKING POWDER BISCUITS

Baking power biscuits so light and flaky they drift off the plate and into your mouth.  To have a good biscuit hand is to have a light touch and restraint – a biscuit dough is so soft that it invites poking and prodding when it should be just barely worked.  The golden rule with biscuits is to stop doing whatever you’re doing to them two beats before you have to.  So when you rubbing flour and shortening together STOP when they are still some chubby chunks.  When you’re tossing the flour-and-butter mixture with the milk and the dough looks only just moistened – STOP.  And when you turn the dough out onto the counter and knead it just to work it into a mass, count each knead, get to ten, and STOP.

PERFECT BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

2 cups flour (all-purpose)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp soda

1 tbsp.  sugar

3 1/2 ounces butter or solid vegetable shortening  cut into small pieces

2/3 to 1 cup buttermilk

Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450
F.   Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper. and set aside.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and soda,  salt and sugar in a large bowl.  Add the shortening and rub the flour and shortening together with the tips of your fingers, making little crumbs and letting the crumbs fall back into the bowl.  Keep rubbing the flour and shortening together  until most of the shortening is mixed with the flour.  Add the buttermilk and stir with a fork to moisten the flour.  Don’t worry about getting everything thoroughly or evenly mixed.  You’ll have a sticky mass of dough.

Lightly flour a work surface and scoop the dough out of the bowl onto the counter.  Knead the dough ten times-no more , even if it tempts you.  Pat the dough into a circle about 9 inches across and, using a 2 inch biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits.  You can press the scraps together into a 1/4 inch thick circle and cut out additional biscuits.

Transfer the biscuits to the baking pan, allowing them to touch each other if you want biscuits with soft sides, and placing them apart if you want crisper sides.  (The biscuits can be brushed with melted butter before baking, an optional but nice touch.

Bake the biscuits for 12 to 15 minutes, or until they are golden on top.  Serve them warm.

Biscuits are best just out of the oven, but they can be kept covered at room temperature for a few hours and warmed about 5 minutes in a 350F oven.

Like pie crusts, biscuits are a measure of a baker’s talents and a pastry in which bakers take particular pride.  Make them often and you’ll be rewarded with rich, delicate, flaky biscuits.  Make them tonight and you’ll family will be  very happy.  Any biscuits left over spread lavishly with home-made jam.  Biscuit heaven.

EASTER MORNING

Lush blooms welcome Easter morning.

Primroses and geraniums guarded by rabbits.

In the house, in the garden rabbits make us smile.  Happy Easter.

A HAPPY SIGN OF SPRING … RHUBARB!

This afternoon I cut an armful of rhubarb .   The first of the season.  My knife sliced through a thick, red stalk.  My mouth puckered,  remembered  taste.  I am eight or nine years old.   We are raiding the rhubarb patch.  Gathering an armful of stalks, faces hidden behind the enormous leaves.  In the watery green hideaway of the vine-covered  summerhouse  we  dip the stalks  into the sugar bowl over and over again.  Sated we make hats of the gigantic leaves . Dance madly,  waving rhubarb like exotic fans.  A pagan ritual.    A sugar high.    Rhubarb is in season.

To avoid a watery rhubarb crisp mix a generous tablespoon of starch into the cut stalks, then put on your topping   Tonight we will  savour one of the most popular prairie desserts, rhubarb crisp with an oatmeal crumb topping.  To gild the lily I’ll add a little whipped cream.  I wish  your  were here to share this dessert with me.

RHUBARB CRISP

6 cups of  rhubarb cut into one inch pieces (you can also use frozen rhubarb with great success.  Bake it frozen)

1 generous tbs cornstarch

For the Topping:

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup old-fashioned  slow cooking  rolled oats (not the instant or 5 minute kind)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

4 oz butter or hard margarine (use the best quality margarine you can buy if this is a diet issue)

a pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

Toss your rhubarb with the cornstarch in a shallow baking dish.  The size will depend on much rhubarb you end up using.   This recipe doesn’t have to be too precise on this.   Be generous as rhubarb bakes down.

Using your balloon whisk mix your dry ingredients.   Add the butter cut into small chunks.   Using your fingers, NOT a food processor, blend in your butter until all the dry ingredients are assimilated.  Put this on top of the rhubarb.

Bake on the middle rack of your oven until the rhubarb bubbles along the side of the dish.  About 30 minutes or so. When you are baking any fruit desserts such as crisps, cobblers and so on, this is what you look for .  Fruit doesn’t bubble until it is cooked.

Serve rhubarb crisp with lovely big scoops or ice cream, or  my favorite way, a jug of whipping cream to just pour over it.

CHEF’S NOTE:  You can easily double this recipe.  It doesn’t take much longer to make up.  Then put half in zip lock bag in your freezer.  You have it on hand to make any type of fruit crisp.

This dish also freezes well uncooked.  Excellent for preparing a dessert ahead of time.

SEARCHING FOR …. THE BASSETT FAMILY TREE …. help needed!

My sister Heather is attempting to track down some information  for our family tree.   She has  exhausted the usual avenues.  Now she is hoping someone might be able to help her (other than going to Britain and checking records).

Heather is  looking for information about our 23rd great-grandmother IDA PLANTAGENT  born 1154 died 1214, married Roger Bigod born 1150 died 1221.  She has more than 800 names on the tree so she has been doing her homework.  Any help, suggestions, brilliant ideas would be so very greatly appreciated.

HOW TO COOK WITH HERBS

I’m not sure what I enjoy most about herbs.  Growing them, cooking with them, or gently brushing their fragrant leaves for the sheer enjoyment of their fragrance.  I use fresh herbs when ever I can.  With dried herbs you don’t know their quality and what level of intensity they will bring to a dish.

Herb s are divided into two categories, hard and soft.  Hard herbs are the ones that have thick, woody stems: oregano, sage, thyme, lavender, and rosemary, for example.  These are powerful herbs that are added at the beginning of a dish and can withstand the heat, slowly releasing their oils and flavours.  Because they’re so strong they can easily overwhelm a dish.

Soft herb s include basil, dill, cilantro, tarragon, parsley, chives and chervil.  They are more delicate and volatile.  These herbs should only be used at the end of cooking, after the pan is off the heat and you’re ready to serve the dish.  Don’t cut your soft herbs too much.  Mincing them destroy their flavour.  The only herb you cut fine is chives.  As a rule, give soft herbs one pass with the knife just before you use them, or better, tear the leaves by hand.

My kitchen window is filled with herbs .  Most will be planted in containers outside my kitchen door.  I’ve several kinds of mint and much as I adore the little darlings, they will take over my garden.   Now if our weather would just cooperate and give us some heat both my herbs and myself will be extremely happy.

DAFFODILS (1804 Wordsworth) ‘Bradner Flower Show, Abbortsford, B.C. Canada’

I  wander’d lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch’d in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company;

I gazed – and gazed – but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Daffodils courtesy the BRADNER FLOWER SHOW AND DAFFODIL FESTIVAL.

Joyful moments  and garden delights shared with my good friend and gardening guru, Dellis.