Fresh Berryade

Each summer I reserve enough blueberries harvested from our potager to make blueberry cupcakes, and each summer I actually make something else with those precious berries. Something cool. Something that doesn't require any more baking than the self-roasting I have achieved by picking them in the hot sun. Something which highlights their sparkle and tart sweetness.

Thirty-year-old pitcher with FRESH juice

INGREDIENTS
per sweetness and consistency desired, makes a pint to a quart

• 3 cups of berries (several large handfuls)
• simple sugar syrup made from 1 cup sugar/1 cup water (mix in pot, simmer until mixture is clear, about five minutes)
• berries for garnishing
• additional water for desired dilution

A few raspberries and strawberries along with a handful of blackberries were added to the abundant blueberries.

All from our potager

Eschewing various aides of the electric persuasion, I just put the sieve of washed and trimmed berries over a mixing bowl. My fingers did the rest. You be surprised how much fun it is to squash them, especially the blueberries, almost equal to the pleasure of popping bubblewrap. Those grape-stompers have nothing on me.

This gorgeous pulpy mass will find a loving home on the compost pile

A fork and a wooden spoon was used at the end to finish mashing and to press juice through the sieve. Make sure to use a clean spoon for scraping the outside of the strainer.

Burgundy bliss!

With a small amount of syrup and water added, the 'ade was closer to juice. With more syrup and water, it became cloudy, somewhat dulling the fresh edge, but still so much better than any packaged/bottled versions. If the syrup, berries, and water are cold, then one can enjoy it right away. If not, refrigerate or add ice.

The pink froth tickled in a welcoming way

In the potager, various plantings done in March and April are either close to harvest like onions and potatoes or are being harvested as in the case of shallots. They are a valued ingredient for bringing a delicate piquantness to dishes. For my first crop, I had chosen a rose-coloured variety. It seems that the grise (gray) shallot is more esteemed so I will try those next season.

Jermor variety curing in the shade

Basil, like all annual herbs, need to be pinched back frequently to keep the plants nice and bushy. When I have some in hand, I sneak them in wherever I can, for example, by tucking a few leaves in grilled cheese sandwiches.

Next time, I will add minced shallots

During a late-evening perusal of the garden, I was delighted to see flowering fennel transforming itself into the likeness of a delicate Asian print.

Living artwork flanking one side of our house

In the flower garden, a trio of lavender, perennial snapdragons, and roses form a calming melange.

In the front garden, hydrangeas add a bright accent to foliage, rocks, and brick path.

À la prochaine!

Spiced Blackberry Lassi

Muggy and hot. Hot and muggy. And some. The blackberries are coming in so it's high time to lasso a lassi. This one is inspired by the Punjabi style of topping with makhan though I used a mixture of yogurt and cream instead.

Gorgeous colour! And taste!

For a tall glass, mix together one heaping tablespoon of yogurt and one tablespoon of cream. Put in the freezer while the lassi is being made. Puree a handful or so of berries with eight ounces/237 ml of yogurt (I use a handheld mixer and the tall cylindrical container that came with it). Add about a tablespoon or so of sugar and large pinches of powered cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Blend until smooth. Pour into a fine sieve and work the liquid through using a wooden spoon, leaving the seeds behind. Add ice cubes if desired, spoon the yogurt-cream mixture on top, and sprinkle some cinnamon.

Our blackberry bushes have no thorns and fruit nearly the size of small plums

In the potager, about three-quarters of the onion crop have toppled over indicating that their bulbs will not increase further in size...

Those are Delice de la Table (a cantaloupe variety) in front of the onions

...hence they were harvested...

...to start their curing in the shade under the pergola.

In the herb garden, the basil is close to flowering necessitating the rooting of some cuttings in water which takes about a week...

Flowering causes the foliage to taste bitter

...and transplanting them into pots so there will be plenty to go with the tomatoes when they ripen in a few weeks.

The new transplants will get pinched also to make yet more plants

Our Rose of Sharon bushes are strutting their stuff in the flower garden and will continue to do so through the heat of the summer.

Dirac the Young Cat finds delight in everything.

He loves the old pear tree

He also loves to scramble down when he spots something more interesting on the ground

À la prochaine!

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Why I Have a Crush on Pesto

Though pesto has oomph, its lusciousness remains approachable.

Fulsome, but never standoffish

It accompanies pasta well, coating each strand with its awesomeness.

Linguine & pesto

In its expansive way, it will pair with many different pasta forms.

Corkscrew pasta & pesto

At first it shyly plays its role as a garnish for soups.

Then with an encouraging nudge by a spoon, it snuggles up to everything else in the bowl.

Chicken soup & pesto

Pesto enhances omelettes as well does a dollop on hard-boiled eggs.

French bread finds its soulmate when it meets up with pesto.

Why this flurry of pesto dishes?  There was one remaining freezer container with last season's harvest.  One way to preserve basil is by processing the leaves with olive oil, then freezing it in suitable containers. Defrost, add garlic, Parmesan, and my preference, walnuts and...

Presto, you got pesto!

This time I did not add the full amount of olive oil I usually do, but instead relied on the small amount used in preparing the basil for freezing. This thicker version went better with the non-pasta dishes.

This season's impending basil harvest may look unassuming, but through time its delectable charm will develop.

In the potager, steady spring rains--fairly unusual here--has kept everything happily moist, the hose curled up, and the rain-harvesting tank nicely filled.

Peas in the centre are pleased with the cool rain,  but not the strawberries on the middle left

Cottage pinks, which would be my desert island flower choice, are prominent in the garden at the moment.  Pinks can be white, all tints of red, and yellow, and their distinctive edges have given pinking shears its name.

Red 'pinks' on the left and the fabled Mrs. Sinkins with its intoxicating fragrance in the right background.

One of my favourite varieties has pale-pink, double blooms tinged with yellow.

Cottage pinks cover the knobby knees of roses very well.

Pinks readily propagate by cuttings and by seeds if you can locate a nursery source.  Their stalwart, silvered foliage is evergreen, making it an all-year-round ground cover and edging plant.  There are many different varieties, some with delicate coloured fringes/centres and strong fragrance.

Dayo's return to the garden was short lived as his paw injury once again became worrying. He will be confined inside the house for several weeks.

He has a chance to catch up on his sleep.  At least that is what I tell him, especially when he stares forlornly through closed windows.

À la prochaine!

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How to Make Fresh Basil Pesto...and tomato soup concentrate & gazpacho

The fruit harvest throughout France has been greatly reduced this season. Instead of several bushels of plums,  I have just a few small baskets from our trees.  Happily, I will be able to make a few pots of jam and maybe some fruit leather.

Purple ente plums and mirabelle plums

When I get a little down because of having so much less fruit for preserving, I walk by the Rose of Sharon bushes with their pastel clouds of flowers and immediately feel better.

Dayo, being his own man, likes to wander off by himself in some undisclosed corner, usually tucked away in a veggie bed.  Just as I wonder where he might be, I look down, and there he is, inspecting the basil with me.

Basil is a very attractive green herb with an alluring aroma and taste.  It goes well in many dishes, especially tomato-based ones.  It is simple to grow an ample harvest from seed:  sow in early spring indoors in a plant incubator or on a heat mat and transplant when weather is reliably warm, mid-May in my garden.  Several weeks after transplanting, a new flat of freshly sowed seeds is a good idea, as basil bolts and goes woody, that is, flowers usually by late July which makes basil a bit bitter.  This way, as the first succession is pooping out, you have a nice new planting rearing to go for flavouring late-season tomatoes. For basil to stay bushy, it helps to harvest frequently.  Pinch as soon as there are six leaves--leaving four--and repeat pinching/harvesting.  My preferred method of serving fresh basil is by making a chiffonade.

Basil can be preserved by first washing, then chopping and adding either olive oil or a little water, placing in ice cube trays, freezing, and then separating and putting into freeze bags.  Individual leaves can be frozen also--wash, pat dry, and freeze on a tray, with space in between each leaf, then place leaves in freezer bags.

Since the walnuts grown near Grenoble in southeast France are so good--light golden brown without a touch of bitterness--I use those instead of pine nuts for making pesto.

For a cup of pesto, toss in an 1/3 cup of shelled walnuts into the food processor for a few pulses, then add two cups of washed and dried, packed, fresh basil leaves along with two fat, crushed garlic cloves and pulse a few times more.  Then add an 1/2 cup of a good quality olive oil and an 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan and blend until smooth, scraping down the contents at least once. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

It goes beautifully on top of your favourite pasta or spread on French bread.  Actually if you love its taste, it can go on just about anything--baked potatoes, a smear on hard-boiled eggs, as a dip for  crudités, etc.  Pesto can be prepared for the freezer by leaving out the cheese and adding it after defrosting and before serving.  Upon exposure to air and freezing, the bright green colour changes to an olive green but its taste remains vibrant.

Mildew has attacked tomatoes in many gardens and fields throughout France.  It is very contagious and before you know it you are staring at dry and lifeless plants.  Since I eschew all chemical treatments for my edibles, all I can do is to remove infected leaves when I see them.

One hot and windy day, Madame M and I were in our individual gardens at the same time picking off infected leaves from a total of eighty plants between the two gardens.  After a bout of huffing and puffing, we would rest an arm on a tomato stake, look across our garden to the other's and laugh at ourselves.  The small mountain of yellowed leaves were not put on the compost, but carefully bagged.  So far, I have harvested enough juicy beefsteaks to make tomato soup concentrate and other goodies.  Hopefully, the remaining green toms will mature into plump globes of irresistible flavour.

Note the yellowed, brown spotted leaf in the upper right corner

It is an absolute delight to have a plentiful supply of ripe, juicy tomatoes.  I consider it an honour to figure out what to do with them all.  The Calm One has a knack of incorporating our garden produce into our routine dishes.  He makes a mean top-of-the-stove macaroni and cheese with three different cheeses and three different pastas.  His embellishment during tomato season is to put the macaroni and cheese in an oven casserole, top it with thickly sliced tomatoes, add additional grated cheese on top and place it under the broiler for about five minutes until nicely browned and the tomatoes have become more like a sauce.  I added some basil to mine, but he didn't as he already had reached his daily quota for green things on his plate.

Making a concentrated soup base is a good way to preserve tomatoes, serving as a base for both cold and hot, late summer/fall soups like my creamy tomato with Edam and brown rice soup--look out for the recipe around autumn.  For cold soups, I add either some cream or crème fraîche and add appropriate garnishes.

Dice tomatoes and add garlic, onions, celery/lovage, carrots, black peppercorns, heaps of fresh basil, and a bouquet garni, barely covering the whole lot with water.  If you have some rind ends of Parmesan, toss those in too. Fish them out before serving; they can be cut into small pieces and are quite delicious to eat on the side.

That's lovage on the bottom left

Simmer about an hour--the veggies should be very soft to make sieving easy. A thorough sieving via a Foley Mill is all that is necessary to have a thick soup base which can then be frozen. 

Another way to use tomatoes is to blend them raw along with other tasty ingredients.  Since gazpacho has many recipes whose creators insist are the true version on the Web, I decided to add to the already huge collection.  I am attempted to call mine the omission/addition gazpacho recipe because it lacks all the ingredients I did not have on hand while using all the ones I had and thought would go well in this kind of cold soup.  I was very pleased with how it came out.

Instead of bread--some admonish those who use bread, but I recommend ignoring those people--I used some leftover buttered cous cous which imparted creaminess and a slightly nutty taste.  I didn't have green peppers, and besides I don't care for them much which is probably why there weren't any around.  Now red peppers are another matter; I adore those but my garden ones are not yet ready for harvesting.  Note to self:  get some shelf-loving powdered paprika.  I also think that raw onions when blended can be too overpowering so they were left out even though I have heaps of those from the garden.  Of course, gazpacho is all about tomatoes, so unless you can get wonderful, ripe, flavoursome tomatoes, it is probably not worth the effort.

Chop 1 kilogram of unpeeled ripe tomatoes, crush one fat clove of garlic, and peel and chop a medium cucumber.   A couple of slices of bread, soaked in water and squeezed out well can easily be substituted for an 1/3rd cup of left-over, cooked, buttered cous cous.  Measure out 50 ml of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.   Fill up the blender with one third of the ingredients, blend till mushy, add another third, blend again, and then add the final third, blending this time several minutes until very smooth.

Sieve or not to sieve?  I consider both versions to be delicious, just different--the sieved one is undeniably more smooth and a bit more urbane while the not sieved one is somewhat boisterous with its more grainy and earthy texture.  If a food processor is used instead of a blender, sieving may be more compelling.  Dilute with a little water if too thick for your taste--I found the thickness to be as satisfying as a nice substantial porridge.

To chill or not to chill?  So many important questions when making such a simple soup!  If most of your ingredients came from the fridge, the soup will be cold enough to scoff down right away.  If not, then chill in the fridge for an hour or so.  Garnish with cucumber ribbons, minced flat leaf parsley, and finely chopped hard-boiled egg.  Serve with tortilla chips.

Bon appétit!

RELATED POSTS AND LINKS

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A superb collection of creative gazpacho recipes at Scoop.it!