Desserts · Fruit · Uncategorized

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

A friend of mine ask me if I had a good recipe for strawberry ice cream. This ice cream is so easy and so creamy…

This is actually a very old recipe from Southern Living.

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (5 oz) can evaporated milk

2 tables sugar

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 (16 oz) container fresh strawberries or 1 (16 oz) package thawed frozen strawberries (unsweetened)

2 tables lemon juice

1/4 teas salt

Whisk first 4 ingredients in a 2 quart pitcher or large bowl until blended. Cover and chill 30 minutes. Process strawberries, lemon juice and salt in a blender or food processor until smooth. Stir into milk mixture.

Pour milk mixture into freezer container of a 1 quart electric ice cream maker an freeze according to directions.

Remove container with ice cream from ice cream maker and place in freezer for 15 minutes. Then transfer to an airtight container; freeze until firm if not eating immediately.

Cakes · Desserts · Fruit

Strawberry Pound Cake

Isn’t it such a blessing that we never have to wait for summer for strawberries? Aren’t freezers just the best invention ever?

Because this recipe calls for frozen strawberries, you can make this gorgeous and delicious cake in the dead of winter, when you have reached your pumpkin and gingerbread limit.

2 packages (10 oz eac) frozen sweetened sliced strawberries, thawed

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups all purpose flour

1 teas baking soda

1/2 teas baking powder

1/2 teas salt

2/3 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup chopped pecans, optional

1/4 teas strawberry extract (if you do not have this, you can use vanilla)

Strawberry Sauce

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup sliced fresh strawberries (you can use frozen if unable to find fresh)

1/2 teas vanilla

1/4 teas strawberry extract (if you do not have this, just add another 1/4 teas vanilla)

1/2 cup butter

Drain strawberries, reserving 1/2 cup juice. Chop the berries; set juice and berries aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Combine the dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk and mix well. Stir in pecans, chopped berries and extract.

Pour into a greased and floured 10″ fluted tube pan. Bake at 325 for 1 1/4 hours or until cake tests done. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove from pan to a wire rack. (Mine only took a little over the hour)

Sauce:

In a small saucepan, combine the butter and reserved strawberry juice. Add the fresh sliced or frozen berries. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in extracts and powdered sugar and mix until no lumps remain from the sugar. Pour glaze over warm cake. 2015-09-23 14.31.48

*Taken from FaceBook

Chocolate · Desserts · Fruit

Strawberry Cream Pie

Taking a break from pulling all the white shorts, white capris and white shoes out of my closet until they come back out next Easter, I decided that I earned something sweet. Putting away all my linen clothes is enough to put me over the edge. So,  I sat down and began to look for something that sounded refreshing and yummy.  Since it is getting to the time that the strawberries won’t taste as sugarery and sweet, I want to make use of them before they go away for a few months. This recipe caught my eye. Just this morning pulling out my recipe for cream cheese pound cake, I ran across this same recipe in another cookbook, and lo and behold, here it is in a 2012 Southern Living also. So it must be good.

Different from a traditional strawberry pie…well, you’ll see!

3 tables cornstarch

2 tables flour

1/4 teas salt (I have always wondered, since it only calls for 1/4 teas, would we notice if I skipped it altogether?) Think I will be daring and try it without.

1 cup sugar, divided

3 cups half and half

6 egg yolks (note to self, take extra Lipitor tonight)

2 teas vanilla

1 (9oz) package chocolate wafer cookies

1/2 of a (4 oz) semisweet chocolate baking bar, chopped

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 qt fresh strawberries

1/4 red currant jelly (I have seedless raspberry, so will use that)

1 tables orange liqueur (only have raspberry liqueur so will use that)

Whisk together first 3 ingredients and 2/3 cup of the sugar in a heavy saucepan. Whisk together half and half and next 2 ingredients in a small bowl. Gradually add to cornstarch mixture, whisking constantly.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl; cover and chill 4-24 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Pulse wafer cookies and chopped chocolate in a food processor 8-10 times or until finely crushed. Stir together cookie crumb mixture melted butter and remaining 1/3 cup sugar; firmly press mixture on bottom and up sides of a lightly greased 9″ pie plate.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool about 30 minutes.

After 4 hours, spoon chilled half and half mixture into crust. Cut strawberries in half and arrange around center to the outer edge of pie. Use all strawberries to top the creamed mixture.  Using a small saucepan, heat jelly 2-3 min or until melted. Brush jelly mixture gently over strawberries. Chill, uncovered, 30 minutes or until ready to serve

Fruit · Salads

Frozen Strawberry Salad

In 2002, after moving back to Dallas from California, our house became the meeting place of several ladies groups for luncheon’s. I loved the opportunity to not only cook for a large gathering, but to grab the chance to show friends how much fun it can be to have people in your home. Cooking for a crowd is so much fun. It allows you to make different recipes that you possibly wouldn’t make when you normally cook for just 2 or 3. This salad was a winner, because it could be made ahead of time and frozen. It is easy to double or triple, whatever the need be. Remember this come holiday season. It is taken from “Miss Daisy Celebrates Tennessee” a cookbook given to me years ago by a sweet friend, Simone, who knew my love of new cookbooks.

1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3 large bananas, sliced

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 (14 oz) can pineapple chunks, drained

1 (16 oz) package frozen strawberries, thawed

1 (8 oz) carton whipped topping, thawed

Assemble all ingredients. In large bowl, cream together the cream cheese and sugar. Add bananas, pineapple, strawberries and whipped topping. Stir in pecans. Pour into a 9×13 dish. Freeze

When ready to serve, cut into serving sizes that you need.

Serves: 12-15

 

Uncategorized

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

Celebrity Resturant in Dallas drew in hundreds of ladies each day with this salad, which was served alongside chicken salad sandwiches.  With Mothers Day in 4 days, what better way to celebrate Mom, ( oh my, that’s me, I think I will make me a strawberry pretzel salad) with a delicious salad that is good enough to have for dessert. 

2 cups thin pretzel sticks, coarsely crushed

3/4 cup butter, melted

3/4 plus 2 tables sugar, divided

1 (8 0z) package cream cheese, softened

1 (8 oz) tub of Cool Whip, thawed

2 1/2 cups cold water, divided

1 (6 oz) package strawberry jello (not sugar free)

2 cups frozen sliced strawberries, thawed and drained well

Preheat oven to 350.

Spread pretzels evenly in the bottom of a 9×13″ baking dish. In a small bowl, combine butter and 2 tables sugar and pour evenly over pretzels; bake for 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow pretzels to cool to room temp.

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, whipped topping and remaining 3/4 cup sugar at medium speed with mixer until smooth. Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over pretzels.

In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups cold water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add strawberry gelatin, stirring until completely dissolved. Remove from heat; add remaining 1/2 cup cold water and sliced strawberries. Let cool. Pour over cream cheese mixture. Chill overnight, covered. Cut into squares to serve and garnish with whipping cream and fresh strawberries. 

Daily Thoughts · Desserts · Fruit

Strawberry Pie

The sunshine that is so gorgeous this time of year just makes me think of strawberry pie. Tonight several young moms are coming over here for dessert after they go for a massage. This is the MOPS ladies (mothers of preschoolers) that sit at my table on Wednesday mornings and I have just grown to love them and appreciate their efforts to grow as Christian wives and moms. They were wanting a night out so I told them to come over here for dessert after they go for massages. What better way to end their night out than with a wonderful strawberry pie and hazelnut brownie cups, with coffee or tea. These pies make wonderful endings to your Easter dinner. Top them with fresh whipped cream and you will be the hit of the day.

2 pie crusts, baked and cooled

2 quarts of fresh strawberries (washed, trimmed and sliced, saving some for top to place on top)

2 cups sugar

2 1/2 cups water

4 1/2 tables corn starch

6 tables strawberry jello (not sugar free, it won’t work)

Place the water, sugar and cornstarch in a heavy saucepan. Stir continually being sure to break up the cornstarch so they don’t lump together. When mixture begins to boil and becomes thick and clear, take off the heat and stir in the strawberry jello and stir until well blended.

Fill each baked and cooled pie shell with strawberries, dividing between the two pie shells. Pour half of the jello mixture onto each pie, being sure each strawberry is covered with some of the jello mixture. Place in fridge to cool and top with whipping cream, right before serving.photo

 

Chocolate · Cookies · Desserts

More Chocolate for Valentines-Chocolate Strawberry Thumbprints

In my new Food Network Mag for March, it had a whole section called the United States of Chocolate and lists lots of places where you can go for chocolate meals, candy factories across the states or spas where you can have chocolate facials…..so this is now on my bucket lists, to go to every “chocolate Event” before my cholesterol gets to high for me to eat chocolate…before this happens, I will be baking with chocolate at any given opportunity. These are from the Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook and are simply put….DIVINE!

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teas salt

2 oz semisweet chocolate

1 stick unsalted butter, room temp (I wonder, if I used salted butter, could I eliminate the 1/4 teas salt) I think I will be daring and try it sometime, but not for Valentines, how awful for me to serve Romeo chocolate cookies tonight and he would look at me and say, “you don’t expect me to eat these, do you, they have no salt”?

1/4 cup plus 6 1/2 teas sugar

1 large egg yolk

1/2 teas vanilla

4 oz room temp cream cheese

2 tables powdered sugar

4 oz strawberries, (about 6 medium, stemmed and finely chopped)

Sift flour, cocoa and salt into a bowl. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring until smooth; set aside. ( I nuke the chocolate in 15 sec intervals)

Put butter and 1/4 cup granulated sugar into the bowl of a mixer and mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy (I think you can guess what you can use as your model on this one)

Mix in yolk, vanilla and chocolate. Reduce speed to low. Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Refrigerate covered for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Put 6 teas granulated sugar into a small bowl. Form dough into 3/4″ balls, roll in sugar to coat. Space 1″ apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Press center of each ball with your thumb. Bake 10 min. Press centers again with end of a wooden spoon, making 3/4″ indentations. Bake until sightly cracked and set, about 5 more minutes more.

Cool completely on racks. (Unfilled cookies can be stored in airtight containers for up to 3 days at room temp or frozen up to 1 month)

Stir cream cheese and powdered sugar in a bowl. Toss berries with remaining 1/2 teas granulated sugar in another bowl.

Spoon cream cheese mixture into centers of cookies; top with berries, dividing evenly.

Place on a red valentine doily and Happy Valentines Day to all of YOU!!!!