Dessert – Page 6 – Rosemary and the Goat

Peachy Pistachio Ice Cream

Summer may be over but never wrong season for some homemade ice cream.

They said that the first day of Fall was September 22. Not here in Texas. It’s still pretty hot outside and when it’s hot, I want to make some ice cream.

I ran across some good peaches at Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago and just had to make a couple of jars of peach preserves and with the peaches that didn’t get go into the preserves I made this peachy pistachio ice cream and it did its job and cooled us down on a hot summer night when we had some friends over for some rotisserie chicken. With this chicken I made my Salad Luke and some sautéed green beans.

Don’t you just love fresh peaches when they are in season and meet your expectations when you bite into one. Nothing is worst than to pick a peach and have it feel good, smell good only to be kind of tasteless when you eat the thing. My grandmother use to make fried peach pies but used dried peaches that she would cook and put into a homemade crust then lightly fry them in a skillet. Boy, were they ever good.

September 30, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Pies/Tarts

Tropical Rum Cream Pie

A smooth and creamy pie with colorful fruits.

How is it possible to have a recipe that I have forgotten for 30 years. Years ago my sister and I put together a cookbook of our favorite recipes and then a few years later we did another one (Two Peas In A Pod). This recipe for Rum Pie was in our first book that we called “Double Delight” (after all we are twins, so a fitting name.)

Recently I was looking through one of our book for a particular recipe we both use to cook and decided to revisit our dessert section and when I saw this recipe I thought “ohhh, I forgot all about you” and how creamy and rummy you tasted; and how good you would be with some beautiful tropical fruits.

We eat a lot of fruit and I’m always looking for different ones to try but always go back to my favorites which are raspberries, kiwi, pineapple, and mango just because the colors are so beautiful together. My first though on what fruits to garnish this pie with was to use tropical fruits but when I looked up the list of tropicals, raspberries didn’t show up and after making that salsa to go with my Spicy Tuna Bowl that had passion fruit and pepino melon (it was good) I didn’t want to go out on a limb again and try a “new” fruit. Some of those tropical fruits, in my opinion, have soft mushy taste that I don’t care for. Ya can’t go wrong with anything with raspberries, mango, pineapple and kiwi.

August 16, 2016 By Sherry

Cookies/Bars/ Dessert

Coconut Chocolate Raspberry Squares

Nestles makes the very best choco-late.

For about 20 years after moving to Texas I catered; I had my first job about a month after moving here for our realtor, then our builder and then for a corporation and after that things picked up and I was most doing corporate work except at Christmas time where I was booked mostly for cocktail parties and I also did showers, weddings, and graduation parties. My favorite party to cater, by far, was a cocktail party because I love little food. It’s a lot more work doing all those little pieces of food but I have always loved to watch people try a lot of different items which you get with that type of party vs a dinner party.

When catering corporate luncheons I had to come up with different recipes for cookies/bars/finger desserts. I could whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies or brownies without even looking at a recipe because I did them so often. I can no longer do that since it has been about 6 years since I have catered anything. That part of my life is in the rear view mirror and was the reason I started food blogging; I missed cooking the food and sharing with others.

When my kids were younger, chocolate chip cookies were their most requested cookie for me to make. One year at one of the school book sales I bought this Nestles book and over the next few years of catering (like 20) I made several favorites from that book.

August 6, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Summer Fruit Shortcake

Shortcake doesn’t have to be just made with strawberries or spongy cakes.

Are you looking for an easy light summer dessert? Look no further than this Summer Fruit Shortcake.

This isn’t make with those little round store-bought shortcakes you get next to the strawberry section of the grocery. Who really likes those anyway once covered with strawberries and the cake turns all mushy.

My daughter, Alexis, made a shortcake once that was like a biscuit and had hard boiled egg yolk as one of the ingredients. That was a very good shortcake and I just discovered that the recipe was first published by James Beard and was one of his mother’s recipes. The hard boiled yolk adds to the richness of the shortcake without making it tough.

This Summer Fruit Shortcake doesn’t have either a biscuit or cake type ingredient but is made the way my mother made shortcake and that is with a pie crust baked to golden crisp perfection and then broken into pieces and put beneath a bunch of summer fruit and topped with some REAL whipped cream.

July 27, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Ice Cream

Buttermilk Ice Cream with Bourbon Peaches and Other Friends

My peach friends are blackberries and blueberries.

Do we ever get tired of ice cream? When it is hot as blazes here in Texas, ice cream is the only thing that will cool you down short of jumping in the swimming pool.

While Blue Bell was taking their break in the ice cream making business, I wouldn’t buy any other brand. If it is not Blue Bell, then I’m going to make my own. And, even when it started showing up on the shelves again, I only wanted to buy their “light” because to me that is their best.

While visiting for a few days in New Orleans recently we were at the World War II museum (great museum) and decided that we could walk to Willa Jean’s for lunch (I thought it was rather a long walk 🙂 ). Wonderful lunch and I will be making a sandwich (sort of) that I had but for dessert we shared their cornbread bread pudding with bourbon and buttermilk ice cream. I didn’t want to attempt the cornbread pudding because it seems a little heavy to be making in the summer. So, I decided to make a buttermilk ice cream with bourbon fruit on the side. Yum, yum. Maybe I’ll do the cornbread bread pudding in the fall when it starts to cool down a bit.

June 26, 2016 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert/ Morning Foods

Raspberry Applesauce Cake

The kids are all gone!🙁

What do you do with all that special “grandkid” friendly food after they leave?

My refrigerator and pantry are always packed with things like applesauce, some good yogurt, some organic meat of some sort, lots of fruit, string cheese of course and lots of other things that I may not be eating if it is left over. As always, I buy way too much. But who wants to run out of food or goodies when the kids are visiting. I usually love the non-so-good-for-you-foods like Goldfish, popsicles, ice cream cups with about 6 kinds of sprinkles, and drink boxes (organic juice of course).

So recently my daughter was home for the weekend; and they had friends and kids at our house, so that meant stock up on some “stuff” for them to eat since they may not want to be eating the paella that we made one night.

On Monday, when the house was all empty except for the two of us, I decided to take on the bulging refrigerator. First, I threw all the fruit into my dehydrator, peeled and individually wrapped my bananas (they are like eating banana popsicles), threw some sweet stuff away. But, then there are the cartons of applesauce staring at me and I don’t even like applesauce.

June 1, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Pies/Tarts

Chocolate Tacos

A big hit with my bunco group.

Since our May bunco fell the day before Cinco de Mayo we were asked to bring a Mexican themed food. So I did, in dessert form.

Everyone loves tacos, right? We were married when my husband was in his last year of college and I remember we would go and buy tacos for 25 cents each. Were they ever good! And I always served tacos to my kids when they were still at home. What’s not to love — crunchy shell, spicy ground beef filling, some shredded lettuce, tomato and cheese with a spicy taco sauce drizzled over the top.

Have things ever changed. My first fish taco was in LaJolla, CA at a place called George’s at the Cove and since then I have become a taco aficionado. Experimenting with all kinds of fillings, I have made a Pork Belly Taco, Pulled Pork Taco, Fish Tacos, and one of my favorites, Grilled Salmon Tacos with Schirarch Cream. So, you see I have been experimenting with a lot of things other than ground beef; so why not a dessert version.

A few years ago a friend told me about this bed and breakfast she went to in California, the Oak Knoll Inn in Napa (Looks like the Inn has been sold, shucks, we never made it there.) and how beautiful the food was and the owner had a Chocolate for Breakfast Cookbook by Barbara Passino. The book is full of wonderful breakfast items and many, many chocolate recipes. I fell in love with a chocolate taco picture (is that possible?) of a taco full of fruit and topped with a pansy and a big scoop of raspberry sorbet.

May 15, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Ice Cream

Lemon Sorbet with Mint Marigold Syrup and Meringue Bark

Put those marigolds in your yard to good use.

Don’t you just love beautiful desserts. Sometimes they look better than they taste. There is nothing worse than seeing, wanting, buying and eating a beautiful dessert only to find that it was all looks and nothing in the taste department.

You should know by now that I love copying or trying to recreate something I’ve eaten at a restaurant. It’s not like going to someone’s house and you love something and ask the hostess for the recipe and she’ll give it to you. You have to do a little detective work sometimes.

A few weeks ago, I met my daughter, Alexis for lunch in Austin at Olemaie. I always want what the person next to me ordered. This girl had a bowl that looked like salad, had some interesting greens, sprouts, fennel etc on top but it was a bowl of dumplings and not salad at all. The most delicious drop dumplings I’ve ever had and I didn’t think I even liked “dropped” dumplings and the bowl had pieces of fermented carrot floating in the broth along with the dumplings. Of course we ordered their BISCUITS which are not on the menu at all; they are a secret and only people knowing about then, know to order them. I’d read about them before going there. $10 for three biscuits with honey butter and it was the best $10 I’ve spent in a long time. Big square biscuits, brown and crunchy on all sides and soft in the middle. (Of course, I’m trying to find out how they made them and I did read some of their secrets which I will be trying.)

March 30, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Peppermint Delight

Born again! and just in time for St. Pat’s Day.

This is a born again dessert recipe. Over the last few years I’ve been watching Paula Deen and Pioneer Woman make desserts and recipes that my mother use to make back in the 50’s and 60’s and now on Facebook all these old recipes that we grew up with are popping up all over the place. I think anyone under 50 would have never been treated to some of these family favorites.

This particular recipe is one that my sister, Terry, and I put in our Double Delight Cookbook that we did many years ago and came from one of her friends in Caruthersville.

What a fitting dessert for a St. Patrick’s Day party or anytime in the month of March when you are looking for something green to make. One year I was desperate for something green to make to celebrate St. Pat. and made these Green Velvet Cakes in a jar. I should make an Irish dinner every year since my husband’s grandmother’s family came from Ireland (grandfather’s from Scotland). My favorite Irish side dish has to be Potatoes Colcannon which is mashed potatoes mixed with some sautéed cabbage and onions and topped with cheese. I’ve only prepared corn beef like once so maybe this year with our new outdoor kitchen we can try doing it outside on the smoker. Throw in some green beer and some other green foods and some decorations and we can have a party.

March 15, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Morning Foods/ Pies/Tarts

Rustic Citrus Almond Tart

Rustic and beautiful citrus tart.

All I can say is “wow”, this was one beautiful tart. Not too tart and not too sweet, as Goldilocks said “it was just right” and I think all the ladies that tried it at my craft circle enjoyed it.

I’m sure you have all heard that snapping turtles bite and don’t let go. In Alabama they use to (may still do) call a snapping turtle “thunder turtles” because they believed that once bitten by the ST that it would not let go until it thundered. So, what does a snapping turtle have to do with this recipe.

Well, I have a problem letting go of an idea for a recipe I’ve seen or a product I have not used before. See the chunky sugar on the above tart. Well there’s even a story there. While in France back in 2012 (see, I told you I hold on to an idea for a long time) we spent a week in Provence after doing Paris (liked Provence much better) and we stayed in Eygalières in Provence area. This little commune, town, or whatever they call a town less than 1,700 actually had two bakeries a couple of grocery stores (very small, one English-speaking the other not) and one very good restaurant, sous les micocouliers which we ate at our first night there. I still get emails from them with their menus and I can’t read a word of it. (I just looked at their website and I never noticed they have “English” version.)

So, back to the story about the sugar. Every morning we would walk down to one of the local bakeries and buy some beautiful and delicious pastries (see below) for breakfast before heading out for the day. Usually at least a couple of the things we purchased had this sugar that stayed chunky. I couldn’t find it in the small local market but when I came home I looked until I finally located it I think on Amazon (of course). The sugar has been sitting in my pantry since then just waiting to be used for something special. This sugar will not melt and disappear as normal granulated sugar does at baking temperatures. I want to try it on some cinnamon elephant ear pastries sometime soon.

March 10, 2016 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Pastries

Christmas Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce

And I thought I didn’t like bread pudding!

Are you a connoisseur of bread pudding? Do you have your favorite kind of bread, or ingredients? What kind of sauce do you like, Cognac sauce, whiskey, or bourbon or rum sauce?

Honestly, I have always said I don’t like bread pudding; guess I thought it was like just eating more bread with your meal, and who needs that. Then one year I made a Pumpkin Bread Pudding for a catering job and was told by someone who it was one of the best she had eaten. I still didn’t try that recipe until recently and I have to say I enjoyed it very much.

This Christmas Bread Pudding is a recipe from Boudro’s Restaurant in San Antonio and I’ve been told by a friend’s husband (who is a connoisseur of bread puddings) that it is one of the best he has tasted. I decided to change the raisins in Boudro’s recipe to golden raisins and to keep with the season I will add dried cranberries in place of the raisins when I make this Christmas Day.

The name was changed to “Christmas Bread Pudding” because this seems like the perfect dessert for your Christmas dinner and you have to make it before everyone starts counting those nasty calories in January.

December 21, 2015 By Sherry

Candy/ Dessert

Date Nut Roll

Have a sweet tooth? It’s Halloween, who doesn’t?

If you have never tasted date nut roll you are really missing a sugary treat. It reminds me a lot of pralines but with the sweet dates added to it. The dates pretty much dissolve in the cooking process.

Do you still call your mom (or did you) if you have some cooking question. My mother has been gone for 7 years and my grandmother for almost 4 and I miss calling them with my cooking questions. Even though I could probably have found the answers on the internet, I just wanted to hear how they made a certain favorite of mine like chili and hushpuppies.

When I have questions about candy, I call my mother-in-law. She is known for her divinity and her date nut Continue Reading…

October 31, 2015 By Sherry

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