Getting ready for the annual meeting, tomorrow, of the Maritime Provinces Chapter Canadian Company of Pilgrims

Getting ready for the annual meeting, tomorrow, of the Maritime Provinces Chapter Canadian Company of Pilgrims, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Top left Gateau Basque with the Basque Cross, top right Tarte de Santiago with Saint James Cross and bottom No Knead Rustic Bread.

Gateau Basque

From: hcorbett@garnet.berkeley.edu
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 05:03:19 -0700 (PDT)

Serves 6-8. High-fat, not greasy. Prep 30 min + 1 hr wait, 40 min bake time.

Cake:
-----
200g (1/2 lb) butter
200g (1 cup) white sugar
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
300g (2c plus 1 tbsp) cake flour
Pinch of salt
Zest of one lemon (grated peel)

Creme Patissiere:
-----------------
250 ml (1 cup) milk
60g (1/3 cup) sugar
25g flour (plain or cake)
Pinch of salt
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
vanilla to taste (2 tsp)

Notes on ingredients: Cake flour here means flour with baking soda/powder
premixed. If this is not available, mix normal flour and 1 teaspoon of
powder (levure chemique - une cuillere a cafe).

Using cake ingredients:
1. Cream sugar into soft (but NOT melted) butter until smooth.
2. Add the 2 egg yolks, whole egg, and lemon peel; mix well.
3. Add cake flour gradually and stir until well blended.
4. Cover mixing bowl and keep in refrigerator for one hour.

Meanwhile, make the creme patissiere (eclair filling):(I double the amount of Creme Patissiere if not the top crust sags.)
1. Mix sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.
2. Heat milk in heavy-bottomed saucepan until very hot but not boiling.
3. Whisk hot milk into bowl of dry ingredients and beat until blended.
4. Return mixture to pan and whisk over low heat until thickened (like
pudding) - 4 to 5 minutes.
5. Add egg yolks and cook 2 or 3 minutes more, constantly stirring.
6. Remove from heat and cool, stirring occasionally. Stir in vanilla.

Butter and flour a regular-sized round cake pan (9 or 10 inches by 2
inches high, I think; around 25 cm by 5 cm).(I use a removable bottom tart pan.)

Assemble the gateau:
1. After the dough is hard, divide not quite equally into two parts.
2. Press larger part into bottom of cake pan, covering bottom and partway
up the sides to make a trough.
3. Spoon creme patissiere into middle of cake.
4. Working quickly, roll out (or try with your fingers) the rest of the
dough into a circle. Lay over the filling and seal at the sides with the
bottom half.

Cook at 180 C (350 F) for about 40 minutes, until golden brown on top.
Serve in wedges.
This recipe is jealously guarded by the Basques and was extricated with
difficulty and trial and error. It is THE traditional sweet in their region.

Tarta de Santiago

Recipe courtesy Pilar Sanchez

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Ingredients (I didn't like this pastry so I use regular pie crust.)
For the pastry:
1 egg
2/3 cup sugar
Generous 1 cup flour

For the filling:
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 unwaxed lemon, peel grated
2 cups ground almonds
Pinch ground cinnamon
Flour, for rolling out
Butter, for greasing
Confectioners' sugar, for sprinkling
Directions
Beat together the egg, sugar and 1 to 2 tablespoons of warm water until light and creamy. Gradually fold in the flour until the mixture leaves the
sides of the bowl clean. For the filling, beat together the eggs and sugar until creamy. Fold in the lemon
rind, ground almonds and cinnamon. Roll out the pastry to 1/8-inch thick on a floured work surface. Line a
greased, loose-bottomed 10-inch tart pan with the pastry. Prick it all over with a fork and spoon the filling
on top. Bake in a preheated oven at 355 degrees F for about 30 minutes, until golden brown. Leave the almond
tart to cool in the pan. Once cool, transfer it to a serving plate and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar
before serving. A St. James' cross template can be used, if liked.

>The New York Times No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour,(I use 450g) more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, (I now use up to 420g)and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees F.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees F. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

I have enjoyed all of the loaves that I have made using this method but I have had a problem with consistency so I have been working on a using weights for the flour and water instead of volume measures. After several tries I've settled on 450g of Flour and 375g of water. I'm also finding that I get a much better loaf using unbleached flour.

September 6, 2010 SFG Update Beets,Tomatoes,Brussels Sprouts and Free Seed

A short look around the garden lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, small beets and the Brussels Sprouts and getting bigger everyday. Three varieties of free seed if you are interested just send me a PM with your postal address and I will drop them in the post for you.




Not sure if I've ever grown a Tomato before that you only needed one slice for a sandwich, variety Big Beef, tasty too.

Hurricane Earl Campobello, NB September 4, 2010

Earl not much of a threat at least in this area.

Square Foot Garden Update August 31, 2010

Just a short update from the garden to show how much the Brussels Sprouts have grown in the week since I stopped their vertical growth, a look at some hot peppers and time to harvest those French Beans.

Making Lactic Acid Fermented Pickles in the Picklemeister

A short video of the nine day process in the making of Lactic Acid Fermented Pickles in the Picklemeister. A very simple and easy process resulting in the best pickles I've ever tasted.

The latest from the garden, free seed and preparing fall crops.

I've pruned the Brussels Sprouts fingers crossed that I will see sprouts developing soon. Removing dead pea vines and some advice on saving the free nitrogen in the soil. A look at the compost building up. At last vine ripened tomatoes in the greenhouse. Free seed Ground Cherry and Buckbee's New Heirloom Tomato, for anyone who would like to have some.

The weekly Square Foot Update and some of the early bounty of the harvest

The garden is at it's peak for this year many things I've been very pleased with and a few that I won't plant again at least not the varieties that I grew this year. All in all it has been a great summer for the vegetable garden and the harvest is increasing everyday.

Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins

Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

From the Joy of Baking website - Very Good

Buttermilk Berry Muffins: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Position rack in center of oven. Butter or spray with a non stick cooking spray 12 - 2 3/4 x 1 1/2 inch muffin cups. Set aside.

In a large measuring cup or bowl whisk together the egg, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla extract.

In another large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking
powder, baking soda, salt, and orange zest. Gently fold in the berries. With a rubber spatula fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir only until the ingredients are combined. Do not over mix the batter or tough muffins will result.

Fill each muffin cup almost full of batter, using two spoons or an ice cream scoop. Place in the oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for about 5 minutes before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar.

Makes 12 regular sized muffins or 6 jumbo muffins.

Note: If using frozen berries you may have to bake the muffins a little longer than the stated time. Also, if making jumbo sized muffins, again, you may have to bake the muffins a little longer.

Adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly Best Food Cookbook

Buttermilk Berry Muffins:

2 1/2 cups (325 grams) all-purpose flour

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Zest of one orange or lemon

1 large egg, lightly beaten

3/4 cup (180 ml) buttermilk

2/3 cup (160 ml) safflower or canola oil

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh or frozen berries (blueberries, raspberries, or blackberries)

Read more: www.joyofbaking.com/muffins/ButtermilkBerryMuffins.html#i...



www.joyofbaking.com/muffins/ButtermilkBerryMuffins.html

The Harvest continues

It's a wonderful time of year in the garden, getting more food out of it everyday. Just in the past week I had enough cucumbers to make pickles, I've harvested the Garlic,discovered that I have lovely large straight carrots, dried the blue podded peas for winter use and had my first fresh fennel.

Lacto Fermented Dill Pickles

I decided to try my luck at making traditional Lacto Fermented Dill Pickles in my new pickle crock. I got the method from the Wild Fermentation website.

Timeframe: 1-4 weeks

Special Equipment:

* Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket
* Plate that fits inside crock or bucket
* 1-gallon/4-liter jug filled with water, or other weight
* Cloth cover

Ingredients (for 1 gallon/4 liters):

* 3 to 4 pounds/1.5 to 2 kilograms unwaxed
* cucumbers (small to medium size)
* 3⁄8 cup (6 tablespoons)/90 milliliters sea salt
* 3 to 4 heads fresh flowering dill, or 3 to 4
* tablespoons/45 to 60 milliliters of any form of
* dill (fresh or dried leaf or seeds)
* 2 to 3 heads garlic, peeled
* 1 handful fresh grape, cherry, oak, and/or
* horseradish leaves (if available)
* 1 pinch black peppercorns

Process:

1. Rinse cucumbers, taking care to not bruise them, and making sure their blossoms are removed. Scrape off any remains at the blossom end. If you’re using cucumbers that aren’t fresh off the vine that day, soak them for a couple of hours in very cold water to freshen them.
2. Dissolve sea salt in ½gallon (2 liters) of water to create brine solution. Stir until salt is thoroughly dissolved.
3. 3. Clean the crock, then place at the bottom of it dill, garlic, fresh grape leaves, and a pinch of black peppercorns.
4. Place cucumbers in the crock.
5. Pour brine over the cucumbers,place the (clean) plate over them, then weigh it down with a jug filled with water or a boiled rock. If the brine doesn’t cover the weighed-down plate, add more brine mixed at the same ratio of just under 1 tablespoon of salt to each cup of water.
6. Cover the crock with a cloth to keep out dust and flies and store it in a cool place.
7. Check the crock every day. Skim any mold from the surface, but don’t worry if you can’t get it all. If there’s mold, be sure to rinse the plate and weight. Taste the pickles after a few days.
8. Enjoy the pickles as they continue to ferment. Continue to check the crock every day.
9. Eventually, after one to four weeks (depending on the temperature), the pickles will be fully sour. Continue to enjoy them, moving them to the fridge to slow down fermentation.

After only 24 hours the salt has removed enough water from the cucumbers that my boiled rock has sunk below the brine.



August 10, 2010: Today is day number 3 and there is something happening there is foam from fermentation bubbles on the surface and the brine has darkened so I can no longer see the pickles or the plate. I tasted the brine and there is a nice dill flavor.

Weekly Garden Update

I'm starting to get enough produce from the garden that I can freeze some. So far zucchini, peas and beans. The blue podded peas are all filled out and I hope to pick them soon and dry them for winter soups. I was surprised to read in my copy of, Preserving the Harvest, that they should be blanched for three minutes in steam before drying them just the same as you would do if you were freezing them. Lots of mystery squash on the vine from the seed packet labeled, Fun with Winter Squash, the latest one that I discovered yesterday looks like Acorn squash, maybe a yellow variety. (Not shown in the video.)

Scones baked in my Solar Oven

Trying out my new toy, doing a comparison of Scones backed in my gas oven and ones baked in my new Solar Oven. Just a very inexpensive $22.98 light weight Solar Over called Sun Chef which I bought from Pine Creek Enterprises.

If you know what the mystery squash and tomato are leave a comment.

Squash are starting to appear on the vines of my heirloom fun with winter squash plants but I not sure what they are, at least not all of them so if you can identify them please leave a comment. The same goes for the mystery tomato in the the garden center it was just labeled Heirloom, I've never had a tomato shaped quite like it before so if you can identify it I would appreciate it. Getting more produce from the garden almost on a daily basis today I had my first cucumber from the greenhouse and more peas from the garden.

Getting produce daily from the square foot garden

It's a wonderful time of year when the garden starts to yeild enough that I'm eating fresh produce on a daily basis. No sign of a ripe tomato yet but that is quite normal for this area I'm usually well into August before I get my first tomato. Some of the ones in the greenhouse are reaching full size though so it shouldn't be much longer.

A beautiful day for a walk in the park.

It was a hot July afternoon so I decided to go to the cool side of the island for a walk in the park land, cool breezes and fog.

July 13, 2010 Weekly Square Foot Garden Update

The garden is progressing nicely and seems to be really enjoying this fine summer weather that we have had lately. I've had an unwanted visitor in the garden digging up my potatoes and I suspect it is a raccoon. I've left him a little surprise for his next visit. I had several pairs of robins nest on the property earlier this spring and I enjoyed talking to them as they fed their young and taught them to fly. I wasn't aware that they nest twice in the same season until this week when I discovered two new nests in the gardens.

Green tomatoes in the greenhouse.



Greenhouse cucumber Carmen starting to produce.

Square foot garden update July 6, 2010

At last we had a whole week without rain, next thing you know I will be complaining about all of the dry weather, there's no satisfying a gardener. The week without rain was wonderful and I was able to produce several batches of compost tea and apply it to the garden.

Things are growing quickly now with the warm weather and all of the sunshine. I had some zucchini, kale and Swiss chard for dinner last night and today I had some of my lettuce and radish in a salad, it's great to be getting produce from the garden again. Today I see several of the winter squash are in bloom as well as some of the cucumbers.

My video is a day late this week because for some unknown reason I haven't been able to upload to YouTube for the past 24 hours.

To date there have been 1,893 different people from 56 different countries visit the blog but I don't seem to get many comments. Please take a moment make a comment and let me know where you are from , I would love to know more about who is following the blog.

Special hello to all of my friends in the Yahoo Heirloom Gardening group.

Heirloom fun with winter squash., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I want to take this opportunity to welcome the members of the Yahoo Group HeirloomGardening2 who are visiting my blog for the first time. The group is a great source of knowledge and heirloom seed varieties through their seed bank. Click on the link above to have a look at the groups web page. I'm growing mostly heirloom vegetable varieties this year and most of those came from the seed bank. A few photos taken in the garden this morning:

Clicking on any of the photos will take you to my flickr account and more info on the variety in the photo.

The bunny is back

My bunny is back and this morning he clipped a branch off a high-bush blueberry and enjoyed the leaves, this I don't mind just stay out of my vegetable garden and so far that is just what he has done, no garden damage yet.

We had a week of fairly wet weather, 2.5 inches of rain, so I wasn't able to do any compost tea watering this week. I'm pleased with the progress of most things in the garden, so far the only food from the garden has been parsley, lettuce and radish but several other crops are starting to grow nicely now and it won't be long before kale, chard ans zucchini will be ready to eat and preserve.

I took this little clip at Rugosa Rose Alpaca Farm earlier in the week.

Chianti, bred by David Austin, England 1967

Chianti, bred by David Austin, England 1967, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I took some footage of this rose in this weeks update but I just had to show you this photo too, it is really putting on a show right now.

As you can see from the video things are progressing along quite nicely in the vegetable garden. I've had a meal of garlic scapes and I'm using my own lettuce regularly now, some time this week I will pick the first crop of French Breakfast Radish I ate one in the garden this week but they weren't full size yet. The weather has improved much warmer now and not so much rain in the past week we only had a half inch of rain, but the forecast calls for showers for the next couple of days so that should give everything a good watering.

I'm still very pleased with the results that I'm getting with compost tea and of course it has the added bonus of being completely organic.

I planted a Plum tree today and in the process dug up a nest of earwigs so I suppose they will be the next curse to hit the garden, my neighbor has made traps which he say work so maybe I should build some too. He filled a 2 inch piece of black plastic pipe with drinking straws, the earwigs hide in there you tap it on the ground and they come out so you can spray them with soap and water which kills the.

After I had taken the video and posted it one of the Blue Podded Peas bloomed. It is every bite as nice as a sweet pea it just doesn't have the nice fragrance.