Okay, so welcome to my blog. I've been harboring a dream for the last year of creating my own cook book. Last week, I finally decided that the best way to get started and to archive my ideas would be to start this blog. So I figure the best way to get started would be to list a little bit about what kind of foods I love and where this blog will be headed.
Last summer my desire for creating a cook book came into being. I was living in Italy in a small town called Perugia. It is right in the middle of Italy and is absolutely packed with delicious foods. I loved everything about Perugia and I especially loved the new Italian foods that I had never had before in the United States. Most Americans see Italian food as pasta with tomato sauce and garlic bread and pizza. That is far from the truth and modern Italian food is just that: Modern. Italian cooks put new twists on traditional Italian food. Since my return from Italy last year I have been inspired to make small changes to simple recipes. This is of course what Emeril Lagasse calls, "kicking it up a notch." I find inspiration in every trip to the grocery store and at every place that I go out to eat. This blog will be focused on the creative foods that I create and the wonderful things that I get to eat when I dine out.
I finally decided to start the blog last week when I created a delicious, decadent, and somewhat nutritious dessert. I'm not quite sure what I want to call it. Maybe
summer fruit shortcake. It is one of the more creative things that I have come up with in the dessert category. In order to make it I bought shortcake shells at the grocery store along with fresh raspberries, bing cherries, and peaches, and then a chocolate bar of 70% cocoa (I prefer Lindt). The first step was to start melting the chocolate. I only used half of the chocolate bar and melted it slowly over a double boiler. While the chocolate melted I took the raspberries and mashed them up in order to create a fresh jam, my raspberries were already quite sweet so I didn't add sugar, but if you want something a little sweeter, now would be the time to add sugar. I let these set while I peeled and sliced the peaches and then poached them in Captain Morgan's Rum for about 5 minutes. The rum adds an extra level of sweetness to the peaches as well as softens them so that they are tastier. While I did this, I made my boyfriend half and pit the cherries. At this point all of the
ingredients were ready to be assembled. I spread the raspberries onto the shortcake shells and then arranged the sliced peaches and cherries over the top. I then took a spoon and drizzled the chocolate over the top of each one. The final product was light and delicious and a great dessert choice for a summer evening when you don't want to heat up the house with baking. We also paired ours with a nice cheap "champagne." (I use quotes because I can't afford the stuff from France). Check out some photos I took.
Until next time, happy experimenting and enjoy what you eat!
These photos and recipes are my own, so please be aware that selling them is stealing!
Using the garlic bread was a great choice because we didn't have any traditional burger buns, and I'm not sure that I will be able to feed my boyfriend another burger on a regular bun.
