Strawberry Sunday

This is Strawberry season, and if you have a palate, you'd better run away from the giant soggy store strawberries and head to a nearby farm to pick your own. We elected Homestead Farm, up against stupid-pretentious-mansion-land along River road, in the hope that a wealthier farm will mean less stupid mansions around. And also because they have lots of fruits to pick all summer. We managed to pick only 10 pounds of strawberries, a feat compared to previous years..

Then, what do you do with 10 pounds of strawberries?

1. Pies: we tried a strawberry-banana-pecan pie that's fully cooked and a classic fresh strawberry pie with a baked crust covered by a cream-cheese / heavy cream mixture covered with fresh strawberries. YUM.
   
   
2. Berry booze! We tried a small bottle of strawberry vodka last year and had the good idea to try it before get the berries: we are making a lot more this time!!
   
   
3. Eat the leftover strawberries with cream. Organic heavy cream, because it has so much more taste.
   

And don't forget: next month is cherry season...

Strawberry-Pecan pancakes

What is better than fresh, homemade pancakes, mm? fresh, homemade Strawberry-Pecan pancakes, that's what! And, wait for it... with heavy cream and maple syrup sauce, it's even better!! Proof is, that all that was left when I managed to put down the fork long enough to take a picture. The recipe is basically your good-old pancakes, with bits of strawberry and pecans thrown in before cooking them. Eaaasy. And for the cream and syrup sauce, guess what? yeah, just pour some heavy cream, some syrup, and eat until you can't!

Pecan-shortbread-pocalyspe

Do I need to say more? one of the most insane recipes from the Barefoot Comtessa, like a pecan pie except the pie crust is replaced by shortbread and the pecan/syrup top by a pecan caramel. Main ingredient: butter. Most important trick: use a really big tray or your oven will end up looking like a caramelized battlefield. Doh! my tray was too small..

Heart of Darkness cookies

If the snow is going to bury us in cold whiteness, let's fight back with warm yummy Darkness. These are easy to make: in a big bowl, mix 1 stick (~125g) softened butter with a fork (15s in the microwave will do the softening for you). Add 1/4C sugar, 1/2 Dark brown sugar, 1/2t baking soda. Mix well with said fork. On the side, slowly melt in a saucepan 1/4C Dark chocolate with a dollop of butter (you can use some of your chocolate chips, or some Darker stuff if you have some). Let it cool down a bit while you add 1 egg and 1/2t vanilla extract or rum in the bowl. Mix in the cooled chocolate, then "clean" the saucepan. Yum. Back to the recipe, beat in ~1/6C powdered cocoa and 1C flour, making it smooth. Add 3/4C chocolate chips, preheat the oven at 375F, drop rounds of cookie dough unto a baking sheet, cook for 8-10 min. Done!

Alcool de vieux garçon

For some reason, I have become well-known for my "special berry alcohol beverage", a treacherous drink that has been known to provoke undesired shirtlessness, extreme reddening of the skin, voluntary loss of memories or inability to operate shoelaces. Today, I will share with all of you the incredible secret recipe of this entertaining drink (you've read about some of the risks, so consider yourself warned of possible disastrous effects):

1. Acquire fresh fruits of the -berry family (rasp-, straw-, blue-, black-, boysen-) or other delicious fruits (peaches, cherries, etc) in season. Quality is the key here, because a flavorless fruit will not improve with age. I recommend going to a pick-your-own farm for added fun.
2. Make a pie first, because you picked too much anyway and it would be a shame to waste all those freshly picked fruits into something you'll have to wait half a year to enjoy.
3. Fill a small bottle with the rest (I like iced tea bottles of maple syrup bottles; you want glass, a large enough neck to stuff the berries in, and a tight cap) to the rim, but without mashing them.
4. Add a single spoon of sugar, white or brown, to help start the fermentation process.
5. Top with your favorite alcohol (vodka, rum, possibly gin or whisky depending on the fruit and your taste, other strong but neutral alcohols can work). As blindness is not a fun side effect for this recipe, choose some good quality alcohol, not the cheap stuff. Cheap booze may pack all sorts of unusual stuff that do strange things given time. Stick to the good stuff.
6. Tighten the cap, write the name of berries (they sometime become hard to identify, especially after a glass), alcohol (it soaks so much of the fruit flavor it's difficult tofind that hint of pepper or sweet cane) and year (most important part) on a piece of paper and tape it on the bottle.
7. Put the bottle in a cool place far from your eyes, and wait a full year.
8. Drink in small quantities among select friends.
   

As you see, the only hard part here is step 7. It takes a solid few months for the fruits to start losing their color and blend their flavor with the alcohol, and then the taste grows in power over time. Wait at least until the year on the bottle doesn't match the one on the calendar, it's worth it. With more time, the alcohol turns sweet and fruity, and the fruits become unbelievably alcoholised. I said it's worth it, so screw that cap back on and put the bottle back on the shelf.

Battle of the Noggs

The skies have gifted us a full week-end of snow just before Xmas, and so there is only one reasonable response: make Eggg Noggg!!!

While looking for recipes, I realized there was (at least) two schools of Egg Nogging: the Dark Rum School and the Bourbon School. Which one will win?

School of Darkness Rum-flavored Egg Nogg
Ingredients (for 4 small cups):
* 4 good eggs (salmonella is not invited)
* 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
* extra fresh milk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* dark rum
* powdered nutmeg

Recipe:
1. Separate egg whites and yolks, whites in a big bowl
2. Beat the Christmas spirit into the egg whites until they're stiff and fluffy. Use a fork and several friends for an old fashioned arm work-out, or a mechanical egg beater for faster results. I do not recommend electrical equipment, as a bit of pre-egg nogg exercise will make your arteries forgive you for drinking such beverage.
3. Mix all the other ingredients, except rum and nutmeg
4. Fold in the egg whites, a third of it first, then the rest. Mix very gently until lumps disappear
5. Add rum to your liking. Thinking of all the egg bacteria, add more rum.
6. Taste the mixture, until there' s enough rum in the mix or no mix left.
7. Add nutmeg and/or cinnamon and/or cocoa powder
8. Make a second batch!

School of Mighty Bourbon Egg Nogg
Ingredients (similar quantities):
* 4 good eggs (nobody invited salmonella, I tell you)
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup Bourbon
* 1/4 cup Brandy
* 2 cups milk
* 1/3 cup heavy cream
* nutmeg

Recipe:
1. Separate egg whites and yolks, both in a big bowl
2. Warm-up your beating muscles beating the egg yolks with the sugar, until it's thick and lemon colored. Then add the Bourbon and Brandy slowly to the mix. Remember, more Bourbon equals less worries about raw egg bacteria. A cup measure doesn't have to be precise.
3. Now that you're nice and warm, beat the Christmas spirit into the egg whites, like in the previous recipe.
4. As long as you're at it, pour the cream into a small bowl and, guess what? yes, beat it into fluffiness.
5. Now you're getting thirsty, so mix gently the egg whites and then the cream into the boozy yolk mixture. Done?
6. No, you forgot the nutmeg. Now you can drink.
7. There's nothing wrong with a second batch, it's a great arm workout!!

Krusty Duck

So all this blog thing started when Phil talked about duck recipes... here's one of my favorites, really simple, really delicious.

Ingredients:
- dough: 2Lbs flour, 1-2Lbs coarse salt, 2 egg whites, 1 pint water.
- a duck. If you can't find one, use a chicken instead (downsize the quantities on the dough, unless you have a really fat chicken)

Mix all the dough ingredients to get a soft dough. Wrap the duck with it, then cook in the oven for an hour at 400⁰F. When done, crack open the crust (don't eat it unless you have a serious sodium deficit!) and retrieve the steamy beast. If you can't find coarse salt, use a much smaller quantity as fine salt will be more efficient.

The recipe can be scaled to work with any bird, even saving a Thanksgiving turkey debacle... but that's another story.