Marinated Strawberry with Whipped Cream

I am surprised I haven't posted a strawberry recipe here this season. As it is indeed strawberry season here and before they are finished I was like I should post something.

But to be honest I have not been baking for almost a month, unless if you cound the spelt bread I make twice a week.

Last friday while i was in the grocerry shop saw these beautiful plump looking strawberries and I grabed a box and then picked up a box of cream too.

And when i came home I was like what I can i make then suddenly I thought about one of my earliest recipe here and that is something I make every year.

But then this time I thought I will do with different booze.

From one of our earlier trips to Italy I had picked up two bottle of Fragola from Paestum.

Fragola is An infusion and distillate of wild strawberries, infused for over 4 months after harvest. Slightly sweet with enveloping ripe strawberry notes and an unexpected softness on the palate. Delicious served chilled.

This is hubby playing for a Music Festival in Innsbruck.
VIOLA D'AMORE CONGRESS INNSBRUCK 2012
Performance on saturday 16th June: Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum Innsbruck.

Recipe for the dessert:

400gm Fresh Strawberries.

3 tbsp Contreau Liquor

2 tbsp fresh lime juice.

3 tbsp Castor Sugar.

Wash the strawberries, and slice each of the to four pieces if they are big two if they are small.

Put all the ingridients above and mix everything and allow to marinate in the fridge for 2 hours.

300 ml thick cream.

2 tbsp Powder sugar.

1 1/2 tbsp fragola

Whipp cream firmly with the liquors and the sugar.

Now layer up the dessert in individual glasses.

Add few tbsp marinated strawberried in each glasses, pipe or use spoon cream on top, add again few tbsp of strawberries and on top, cream.

Pour a tbsp of the juice left in the bowl on top of the cream.

Decorate with mintleaves if you have.

Going fully Blue

F/4 - Exposure 1/250 sec - ISO 250 used 50mm lens

If you see our drink cabinet ( well you can't call a cabinet as all the drinks are kept inside a big shelf) one would think we are the biggest boosers, which is far from true, we do love a glass of wine on weekend ok couple of glasses of wine then :-) and now and then we make a cocktail, aslo we make always cocktails when we have friends over.

And one game we play with one of our good friends is they have to guess what all drinks are in the cocktail and it is so funny , they will be smelling, tasting just to find what all drinks are in the drink and by the time they almost got all the drinks in it , it will b efinished so mostly we go for second :-)

So we have so much drinks and liqueurs because every time we take the cocktail book we end up buying something new as we alwasy seems to need some new drink when we make a new one.

f/3.5 - Exposure 1/250 - ISO 250 used 50 mm lens

I am sending this to Aparna's monthly photography challenge this month, which is Less is more, So let's keep it simple

I do agree to it as if there is no props etc.... you really see the food than getting diverted to what all is surrounding the main ingridients.
But said that I do love my props, and I am coninuously buying props when ever I see something which I like.
There are shops in my town I go at least once a week, well just say more than once sometimes thrice, not tha tI buy every time props, I just go and check if they have something special and then sometimes I buy them if my budget allows me that month :-) ir I wait and buy another time .

 Blue Hawaiian Cocktail:

30 ml White rum

20 ml curacao blue

40 ml pineapple juice

20 ml cream of coconut ( coconut cream from a tin)

extra pineapple juice for dipping the glasses

Desicated coconut for rim of the glass

2 piece of fruit for decoration

Dip the rim of the glass in the extra juice and dip it to the desicated coconut.

Now add the rum, pineapple juice, curacao blue, cream of coconut into a mixer with crushed glass and mix it.

Pour the mixture into the prepared glasses and garnish with the fresh fruits.

Recipe is for one glass or one person.

Microwave Chips / Crisps

Maybe I should not call the Chips / Crisps MW Chips as while we were eating this Hans was saying so this is the Miracle Chips :-)

In our place we have this bad habbit, we buy Chips from the shops .

It is like yeah it is weekend so if we have a drink what are we going to munch on and I am like Ok will buy a pack of chips.

There are so many brands and flavour of chips available that if one stand in front of the section one would be still saying which flavour of which brand to buy.

I admit I do like to eat crisps, but after having a them I am like why did I eat this which is not healthy but can't stop eating them if one start to eat them.

So few days back I was in Pintrest one of my latest craze and while I was there I saw this easy to make MW Chips, I was so excited about it, I literally got up and went to the kitchen and made them.

And I am happy I made them as for sure I am going to make these more often and buy lesser chips from the supermarkets.

Before you start making them please read the tips.

I do agree it takes a bit of time as unlike in the oven you can't use few trays.

I made with 2 potatoes and I think that was enough just for 2 of us.

Tips:

The first batch I made I sliced them thicker and that was like the oven chips we buy, then the second batch I made I sliced them really thin, and Hans loved the thinner ones.

But what I found is if you slice them really thinner you use a bit more oil otherwis it will stick to the plate and even if they stick doesn't matter I used the tip of a sharp knife gave a push and I could slide them.

I also sprinkled well with salt as here we love it salty.

According the the original post of the chips, she said even if you keep the crisp for next days it is still crisp, but I don't know aobut that as mine was finished the day itself :-)

I made them in the afternoon and it was over the day itself.

You would be surprsied to know how many times I went to the kitchen to steel these as I had kept in a tupperware so that Hans and I could enjoy it together when he came home in the evening.

2 big Potatoes, washed .( I used the potatoes which we use to make here french fries)

2 to 3 tbsp of olive oil

Salt according to your taste

Cooking spray

Slice potatoes into 1/8-inch rounds for thicker potato chips. For thinner ones, use a mandolin to cut very thin slices. Toss slices in a medium bowl with oil and salt to coat evenly.

Coat a large microwave-proof plate with cooking spray. Arrange some potato slices in a single layer on the plate. Microwave, uncovered, on High until some slices start to brown, 3 to 4 minutes (depending upon potato thickness and microwave power). Turn slices over (they will be hot, so take care with your fingers) and continue microwaving until they start to crisp and brown around the edges, 2 to 3 minutes .

 Check frequently and rearrange slices as needed to prevent scorching. Transfer chips to another plate and allow to cool completely. (They will crisp up more as they cool.)

Repeat process with remaining slices.
The first pic I took again as this is the third time I am making these delicious chips. So i am giving you the tip again I would suggest slice it thin, even if you have to use a bit more oil as the tinner ones are much more delicious. After the first time in the MW and when you want to turn them it if is sticky what i do is , I use a knife and with the tip i just slide under then it is really easy .

Pad Thai Noodles

The real authentic people would slaughter me saying this is not Pad Thai...... yeah and I know that this isn't the most authentic recipe.

Actually I made this dish as Shyama has been with us for some 10 days as She was having study leave before the exams ( well she went back yesterday and will be back only on 29th) and one morning after breakfast she asked can we have some kind of a noodles for lunch, so that is how this my way of pad thai got borned :-)

I looked in my fridge and just made with what I have in my fridge etc....

I know they do add bean sprouts, spring onions etc.... but I didn't have them .

But that didn't matter anyway as the dish was really yumm even if I say it myself.

Pad Thai or Phat Thai , "fried Thai style") is a dish of stir-fried rice noodls with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, red chilli pepper, plus any combination of bean sprouts, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts, coriandr and lime, the juice of which can be added along with Thai condiments (crushed peanuts, garlic, chives, pickled turnip, cilantro, lime, spicy chili oil, chili powder, vinegar, fish sauce, sugar). It is usually served with scallions and pieces of raw banana flower.

It is listed at number 5 on World's 50 most delicious foods readers' poll compiled by CNN Go in 2011

The dish had been known in ancient Siam in various forms for centuries. The variant of noodle was brought to the ancient Thai capital of Ayuthaya by Vietnamese traders.

However, it was first made popular as a national dish by Luang Phibunsongkhram when he was prime minister during the 1930s and 1940s, partly as an element of his campaign for Thai nationalism and centralization,and partly for a campaign to reduce rice consumption in Thailand.

 The Thai economy at this time was heavily dependent on rice exports; Phibunsongkhram hoped to increase the amount available for export by launching a campaign to educate the underprivileged in the production of rice noodles, as well as in the preparation of these noodles with other ingredients to sell in small cafes and from street carts. Nowadays Pad Thai has become a widespread staple food and is one of Thailand's national dishes.

Thankyou Wiki for the info.

300 gm Chicken breast thinly slices.

3 tbsp vegetable oil

175 gm dried flat rice noodles

3 cloves garlic chopped

1 tsp crushed dried chilies

2 eggs, beate,

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp tamarind water ( soak little tamarind in warm water for 10 minutes, then you will have tamarind water)

2 tbsp soysauce

1 tbsp palm sugar ( if you don't have use brown sugar or the normal sugar)

50 gm roasted peanuts coarsley crushed

4 spring onions sliced

1 large carrot thinly slickes lengthways

2 tbsp corriander leaves chopped

Extra few tbsp of chopped spring onions.

Lime wedges to serve.

Cook the noodles according to the instruction on the packet and keep aside.

Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat, add the onions,garlic, crusehd chillies , carrots and fry for two minutes, then add the chicken pieces and fry till they are cooked.

Pour the beaten eggs and stir fry for a few seconds, untill they just look scrambled.

Lower the heat and add the noodles, fish sauce, tamarind water, soysauce and sugar a,d toss together for few minutes untill the noodles are heated fully.

Add the peanust and the extra spring onions and corriander leaves and serve hot with the lime wedges.

Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream

I thought the Ice cream was discovered in late 1800 but aparently I was totally wrong. So Sharing a little information about Ice Cream.

And it looks like ths whole world was involved in the creation of ice cream.

In the Persian Empire, people would pour grape-juice concentrate over snow, in a bowl, and eat this as a treat, especially when the weather was hot. Snow would either be saved in the cool-keeping underground chambers known as "yakhchal", or taken from snowfall that remained at the top of mountains by the summer capital — Hagmatana, Ecbatana or Hamedan of today. In 400 BC, the
Persians went further and invented a special chilled food, made of rose water and vermicelli, which was served to royalty during summers.The ice was mixed with saffron, fruits, and various other flavours.

Ancient civilizations have served ice for cold foods for thousands of years. The BBC reports that a frozen mixture of milk and rice was used in China around 200 BC.^[5] The Roman EmperorNero (37–68) had ice brought from the mountains and combined it with fruit toppings. These were some early chilled delicacies.

Arabs were perhaps the first to use milk as a major ingredient in the production of ice cream.
 They sweetened it with sugar rather than fruit juices, and perfected means of commercial production. As early as the 10th century, ice cream was widespread among many of the Arab world's major cities, such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo.
It was produced from milk or cream, often with some yoghurt, and was flavoured with rosewater, dried fruits and nuts. It is believed that the recipe was based on older Ancient Arabian recipes, which were, it is presumed, the first and precursors to Persian faloodeh.

Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat asserts, in her History of Food, that "the Chinese may be credited with inventing a device to make sorbets and ice cream.
They poured a mixture of snow and saltpetre over the exteriors of containers filled with syrup, for, in the same way as salt raises the boiling-point of water, it lowers the freezing-point to below zero
."^[Some distorted accounts claim that in the age of Emperor Yingzong, Song Dynasty (960-1279) of China, a poem named Ode to the ice cheese (詠冰酪) was written by the poet Yang Wanli. Actually, this poem was named Ode to the pastry (詠酥; 酥 is a kind of food much like pastry in the Western world) and has nothing to do with ice cream.
 It has also been claimed that, in the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan enjoyed ice cream and kept it a royal secret until Marco Polo visited China and took the technique of making ice cream to Italy.

In the sixteenth century, the Mughal emperors used relays of horsemen to bring ice from the Hindu Kush to Delhi, where it was used in fruit sorbets.
When Italian duchess Catherine de' Medici married the duc d’Orléans in 1533, she is said to have brought with her to France some Italian chefs who had recipes for flavoured ices or sorbets.

 One hundred years later, Charles I of England was, it was reported, so impressed by the "frozen snow" that he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative. There is no historical evidence to support these legends, which first appeared during the 19th century.

The first recipe in French for flavoured ices appears in 1674, in Nicholas Lemery’s Recueil de curiositéz rares et nouvelles de plus admirables effets de la nature. Recipes for sorbetti saw publication in the 1694 edition of Antonio Latini's Lo Scalco alla Moderna (The Modern Steward).

 Recipes for flavoured ices begin to appear in François Massialot's Nouvelle Instruction pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits, starting with the 1692 edition. Massialot's recipes result in a coarse, pebbly texture. Latini claims that the results of his recipes should have the fine consistency of sugar and snow.
Ice cream recipes first appeared in 18th-century England and America. The recipe for ice cream was published in Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts in London in 1718

Thankyou Wiki for the information.

Now this recipe is from The Perfect Scoop by  David Lebovitz, I am sure if you are a blogger you will know his blog too, which I vist often. If you don't have the book you should buy it, if you love ice cream and love making them, this is a must have book.
According to my family this is the best Ice cream I havve ever made, can you imagine, I have been making ice cream for almost 18 odd years and they tell me this is the best , but then I am sure they must have told aobut other recipes too, but this was expectionally super creamy yummy.

Make about 1 &/4 Quarts ( 1 1/4 Liters)

5 tablespiins ( 70 g ) butter salted/unsalted, ( I used unsalted)
3/4 cup ( 135 g) packed dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp coarse salt
2 cups ( 500 ml) heavy cream
3/4 cup (180 ml) whole milk
6 large egg yolks ( I used only 4)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon scotch whisky
Butterd pecans ( recipe below)

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, then stir in the brown sugar and salt untill well moistened. Whisk in 1 cup ( 250 ml) of the cream and the milk.
Warm the brown sugar and cream mixture.
Pour the remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set amesh strainer on top.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm brown sugar mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heat proof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, untill the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.
Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream.
Add the vanilla and the scotch, then stir untill cool over a ice bath.
Chill the mixture throughly in the fridge, then make  your ice cream according to the manufacture instructions of your ice cream maker.
During the last few minuted add the butter pecans.

Butterd pecans:
1 1/2 tablespoon ( 25 g) butter, salted or unsalted.
1 1/2 cups ( 150 g) pecan halves
1/4 tsp coarse salt

Preheat the oven to 350° F ( 175 ° C ).
Melt the butter in a skillet. Remove from the heat and toast the pecans with the melted butter untill well coated, then sprinkle the salt.
Spread evenly on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring once during baking.
Remove from the oven and let it cool completley before using them for the recipe.