Mixed Berries with Mascarpone-Limoncello Cream

This was the simplest and one of the best desserts of the summer so far! It's just berries - here our strawberries we picked and then black raspberries and red currants from the garden. The recipe calls for raspberry jam, but I used the strawberry-currant jelly I'd made, and even reduced it to a couple of TB (I also left out the extra sugar for the berries). The cream was so easy, I overbeat it a bit, but we'll definitely be having this again!

TWD Brrr-ownies

Not the most photogenic pic, but these were great brownies! I layered the brownie, patties, brownie, instead of chopping - I keep thinking I'd read a Maida Heatter recipe like that, but I've not been able to find it again. Anyway, I loved that the brownies are dark, dense and rich, but they don't feel too sweet. I pretty much ate them all myself :)

Thanks to Karen of Welcome to Our Crazy Blessed Life for this week's pick!

Strawberries!

The kids love strawberries, and the first time we went picking, we got one flat that was gone by the next day. The following trip we got two flats, and I was able to play around a little :)

First I got to try Gourmet's Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream, and then a strawberry sorbet. Both were incredibly easy, only required a few ingredients, and didn't require any cooking. The sorbet was the favorite, I think because we has such great berries. It was almost a little sweet, next time I'll cut back the sugar to 1/2 c. The ice cream was my husband's favorite, though I ate most of it :) I liked it best right out of the machine, soft-serve-ish. It ended up getting a little icy, but that was also after a couple days.

Strawberry Sorbet
4 cups strawberries
3/4 sugar
2 T lemon juice
Puree all in food processor and freeze in ice cream maker.






















I also tried Ferber's Strawberry and Red Currant Jelly with Whole Strawberries and Black Pepper. I really liked the flavors, the strawberry-currant was almost raspberry-like. The jelly below set well, but by the fruit, it was syrupy. I'm not sure how I can fix that, but the kids and I like it anyway :)

TWD Tart Noire

This wasn't my most successful TWD ever - my crust was still in the oven when through miscommunication, the oven was turned to broil :)















It doesn't even look like a crust - it looks like a flat, burned, shrunken pancake. I can't believe how much it shrunk!

Anyway, I made 1/4 recipe of the ganache, which was incredibly rich, very smooth (even with the bubble), very dark. I managed to eat the whole cup while watching old tv on netflix. Thanks to Dharmagirl of bliss: towards a delicious life for this week's pick!

Kind of healthy drop biscuits

We've not been able to get our schedule to work with the weather and when the farm's open, so we ran out the other night and picked 10lb of strawberries in 20 min. We got back, made some freezer jam from the certo box, and for dinner the next night we had biscuits and jam :)

This biscuits were the basic drop biscuits from America's Test Kitchen's Family Baking Book, with the exception that I replaced half the ap with white whole wheat. They were still nice and tender, and the www made them feel a little healthier.

We're hoping to get out again this week as the season's ending, because after one strawberry-rhubarb pie, one batch of freezer jam, one strawberry/currant jelly and the kids eating like crazy our flat's already gone.


Simple Drop Biscuits (adapted from ATK's Family Baking Book)
1 c ap flour
1 c white ww
2 t powder
1/2 t soda
1 t sugar
1 c buttermilk
8 TB butter
Melt butter and let cool. Whisk dry ingredients together. Stir buttermilk and butter together til butter clumps, stir into dry ingredients. Scoop onto baking sheet and bake at 475 for 12-14 min.