Thirsty Thursday: Strawberry Lemonade

 I think one of the BEST parts about living in Southern California is the strawberry season.  You can start getting (semi) local strawberries by the end of January, and you can milk that season through when everyone else in the country eats them.

It seems as though the local stands sell them for about 8 straight months.

Consequently, I can't always make the same strawberry shortcakes, strawberry jams, and strawberries with cream every day.  Even though I would love to eat strawberries every day of my life, my husband doesn't quite align with my sentiment.

So?  I found a recipe for a lemonade concentrate.  So "easy," and simple, plus you don't have to worry about any added preservatives or gross-ness.

Ingredients:
6 cups of strawberry puree (about 2-3lbs whole fruit)
4 cups of fresh lemon juice (about 3-4lbs whole fruit)
1/4 cup of sugar - 6 cups of sugar depending on the sweetness.  Original recipe called for 6, I used 1/4 cup.  You're call, obviously.
5+ freezable containers.
Liquid to un-concentrate later (Sprite, Ginger Ale, Water, Seltzer Water, or whatever you'd like).

Directions:
1. Stem and hull strawberries.  Throw into your food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Juice a lot of lemons.  Add to strawberry puree.
3. Add sugar to taste.
4.  Place into freezable containers.  After the concentrate freezes, you can pop the cubes out and place them in a zip-lock bag.
5. When you're ready to enjoy the beverage, thaw your concentrate and use an equal proportion (or more) of the liquid (I used about 3/4 C Diet Sprite to 1/2 C concentrate, and loved it).

* You can also process the concentrate through a water boil method for canning, but I didn't want to waste the jars on something so easily frozen.
** These would also make a good smoothie base.

Thirsty Thursday: Strawberry Mint Julep

 Today's drink actually takes some planning.

I apologize for that, but I do promise that your outcome will be amazing.  I picked up the original recipe from Cookie and Kate, but I thought it was a little vague.

As I made it, it turns out that mine will be a bit vague as well.

I made 8 (16oz) drinks, plus 2 non-alcoholic drinks.  My measurements will reflect as such.

 First off, the strawberry infused bourbon.

I had Jack Daniels in the house, so it was whiskey instead.

Rough estimate of ingredient ratio:
1 cup of whiskey
1/2 pound of strawberries

I started with about 2 cups (JD) and around 1 pound of strawberries.  I basically quartered my strawberries (cut off the stems), and kept throwing them into the bottle until the liquor was completely filled with strawberries.

From there, you put the bottle in a dark space (I chose my pantry) for 3-7 days.  Every day, give the bottle a bottom over top rotation to readjust the strawberries and mix up the liquor.  You don't have to shake it, just one spin will help the infusion process.

Mint Julep Ingredients for one 16oz jar:
7 mint leaves
1-2 tables spoons of honey
1/4 c of strawberry infused whiskey/bourbon (more if you don't want to add Sprite)
ice (to fill the entire glass)
about 1/2 c of Sprite (or not if you're more of a straight up person)

* For my jars, I used both wide mouth and regular jars.  I just used everything I had in stock.

 Directions (*skip to the very bottom for a non-alcoholic idea):
1. Add mint leaves to your glasses.  For my glasses, I had a variety of mint leaf sizes, so I added the biggest leaves first, then the mediums, then the small leaves last.  Not because I'm weird, but I wanted to make sure that the quality and quantity of the mint was the same across all the glasses.
2. Cover mint with honey.  I just poured it in, but I basically aimed to cover the entire bottom of the jar and all the leaves with honey.
3. Muddle the mint in the honey.  If you have fancy contraptions, go ahead and use them.  I had a hand held mixer's beater.  I just used that, muddling the mint until it was slightly broken down in the honey.
4. Strain the strawberries from the liquor.  I used a cheese cloth, but you can use any strainer that will keep out the strawberry particles.
5. Measure out the appropriate level of liquor and add to your glasses.
6. Stir the liquor, mint, and honey together.  This will sweeten the beverage and also insure you don't have a huge clump of honey at the bottom of your glass.

7. Now, fill up your glass with ice.  I wanted a nice cold beverage, so I filled it as high as possible.  Use your own discretion.
8. Top off glass with Sprite, and give it a final stir.

Since I was using mason jars, I then covered the glass with a cupcake liner and screwed on the lid.  This keeps the bugs out, and also will hold your straw in place. I pre-poke a little hole in the cupcake liner with a pen tip (skewer, ice pick, whatever is handy) and then place the straw in.

To re-mix the drink, my brother in law recommends blowing a light bubble in through your straw.  That will help in the process.

Finally, clink in cheers and good health, and enjoy!

Non-alcoholic Idea:

For the tween at the party, I made this version of the drink:

1. Follow steps 1-3 above, muddling the mint in the honey.

2. Quarter (or more) 4 fresh strawberries, and add them to the glass.

3. Mix together the honey, mint, and strawberries.

4. Fill up glass with ice.

5. Top with Sprite, cover and enjoy.

While this is not nearly as fun as the alcoholic version (in my opinion), it is still a fun mocktail that anyone can enjoy.  I though it might turn out too sweet, but I had one after the rest had run out and I was excited about how good it was.

Strawberry Meringue Butter Cream Cupcakes

Welcome to heaven, population: you.

Too corny?  Oh well.  It was difficult for me to share these cupcakes with my family, so I really do believe I've found my favorite recipe.

But it's not just the cupcakes, trust me.

I was planning on using an angel food recipe for the cake, but then found this handy dandy box of strawberry cake mix at the store and quickly ditched my preliminary efforts.

 I followed the box mix directions, with one minor exception.

I added about 1 cup of diced strawberries to the mix.  This way it really reinforced the strawberriness of the cupcake.

And it wasn't over powering.  It was still the light and fluffy that I was looking for, just with little chunks of love added!

 Where I really wanted to spend my time was with the Strawberry Meringue Butter Cream frosting.  I know I try to avoid Martha Stewart, but I think she really nailed this one.

Ingredients:
4 large egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into tablespoons
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) strawberry jam, pureed in a food processor

I started off by using my PC Batter Bowl over a sauce pan of simmering water.  I combined the egg whites and sugar until dissolved and warm to the touch.

You're supposed to use your free standing mixer bowl, but since my KitchenAid is shoved back in the corner of a deep cabinet, this was a close second.

 Next, I added my whisk attachment to my hand mixer (again, I was supposed to use the free standing mixer), and whisked until there were stiff, wet peaks, which felt like forever.  Martha claims it's 6 minutes, but with a hand held, it certainly felt longer.

Finally, I'll let Martha take it from here...

With mixer on medium-low speed, add butter several tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. (If frosting appears to separate after all the butter has been added, beat on medium-high speed until smooth again, 3 to 5 minutes more.) Beat in vanilla. Beat on lowest speed to eliminate any air bubbles, about 2 minutes. Stir in strawberry jam with a rubber spatula until frosting is smooth.

 

 Here's where I added my own trick...
You know I love to can, right?  Well, I didn't have a plain strawberry jam in the house, but I did have one better: I had a strawberry jam with Thai herbs that I made about a month ago.  It's sweet like strawberry jam, but the basil, mint, and cilantro add just a bit more.  I processed it, as per directed, and then used my hand mixer to blend the entire thing together.  (It was much quicker than doing it by hand.  I tried that first and got extremely frustrated.)

By the time I was done, none of my frosting tips were wide enough for my chunks.  So, I just took a spoon and smeared the frosting on.  For the topper, I just took a quarter of a strawberry and made two cuts along the length of the strawberry from the hull, leaving the tip connected.  With the little bit of left over frosting, I just dipped in the leftover strawberries.  I had to force myself not to eat it all.  SO GOOD!

Another "cheater" dessert - HELLO, SUMMER!!

I really like doing as little work as possible in the kitchen.  We all know this by now, right?  Good, then I feel less guilty when talking about the dessert I served for a 9 adult (+1 child) party last week.  Thomas did the grilling, and some of the heftier cooking, but when I came up with dessert ideas, he shot them down repeatedly.  No cupcakes, cakes, pies, cookies, etc.

He wanted something "light."

*sigh*

 So, when he suggested fruit kebabs, I thought we could do one better - Strawberry Shortcake Kebabs!

Ingredients (for 9 bob kebabs):
27 Fresh Strawberries
2 Enteman's Butter Loaf (or any pound/angel food cake)
1 stick of butter
9 skewers
Assorted garnishes (we used fresh cream, mint, red gel, shaved dark chocolate and Tequila Rose)

 First, trim down your cake into easily cubed shapes.  We made four long rectangles from the two cakes.  Next, lightly brush melted butter over all sides of your cake.

Then, grill (in or outdoors) briefly to create your hatch marks on every side. On medium-high heat, it goes very quickly, so don't walk away!!

Then, clean your strawberries and remove the stems (should you so choose).  Cube your cakes.  Then, alternate strawberries and cakes on your kebab skewers

The most time consuming part of this entire process was plating it up to the boss' standard.  I actually let him do it for fear of messing it up.  He had originally wanted to serve our bottle of chocolate wine with it, but we also had Tequila Rose, and I thought that would be more fun.

Everyone enjoyed, and it looks like you worked hard, when really you're just assembling some one else's hard work!

Taste of Sweetness Saturday: Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

 Melt white chocolate.  Dip strawberries in it to create the shirt layer.

Melt dark/milk chocolate. Dip shoulders to create the jacket.

Get a black/chocolate icing or gel tip (pre-made) to create the buttons and bow ties.  For the ties I made an X in the size that I wanted for the tie, then filled in the opposite sides to create the bow.  People think they're adorable, and they're so delicious, too!

as always, my apologies for the blurry iPhone photos!

Sweet Sunday!

c

 Oh, yeah!  It's a Nutella kind of day.  Thomas was gone for 36 hours and I wanted to spoil him horribly upon his return.  PLUS, I just landed a new job here, and I was in the mood for a cooking celebration!

So, I started mixing up the recipe for the Chocolate Hazelnut Torte, when I realized I used a regular size devil's food mix instead of the half-size.  Whoops!  I guess that just means I had to make two instead of one.   Luckily, I had enough of the other ingredients to double up without causing too much of a scene in our household.  Oh, and I only used 1/4 of the prescribed hazelnuts from the single recipe for the cake because I'm not entirely nuts about nuts.

 Now, I didn't have any Cool Whip in the house, and I wasn't really in the mood for their prescribed frosting, so I did a little search and found a Nutella Cream Cheese frosting that sounded OUT OF THIS WORLD!  Real talk.  Be jealous.

Now, I had two cakes, so instead of making two whole cakes, I decided to be a piggy make a double layered torte.  If you're going to make a cream cheese frosting, why let any of it go to waste?!  Also?  I think I used almost twice as much Nutella in the frosting and about half as much powdered sugar.  It made more sense to me that way.

I couldn't let the rest of the nuts go to waste, so I used the other 1/4 cup to sprinkle across the top.  I didn't want to save them for another day, so I figured that it was now or never.  Finally, I made up some strawberries to cut the richness (ha!) or at least add the goodness of strawberries and whipped cream.  How could you go wrong with a dessert like that?!  Quick tip?  Use the egg slicer+ to slice your strawberries beautifully for a dessert!

Oh yeah...  it was that good!

Ode to Summer

If I could encapsulate everything I hold dear about summer, it would be this:

That's right.  A whole bowl of strawberries (2 pints), cut neatly and sprinkled with some Splenda Blend for an extra oomph.  Straight out of the fridge, nicely chilled, after a long day out on the beach.

Ahhhhh...  Love the beach!

But, if you really want to make it taste like a dessert, then you have to add some whipped cream!

Or A LOT of cream, and then call it a day!  Happy Summer, everyone!!

Now THAT'S the ticket!!