Strawberries, cream and crunch!

British strawberry season is in full swing and supermarkets are bursting with half-price berries. I often grab these berry-bargains, only to get home and think what do I do with them?!

They generally end-up in muesli or fruit salad, missing out on their dessert potential.

Strawberries are a pretty unique fruit...

• the only fruit with seeds on the outside (200 on average)
• a member of the rose family
• used in medieval times to symbolise purity and prosperity
• splitting a double strawberry and sharing it with someone from the opposite sex will make them fall in love with you for life (I think this may be folk lore!!)

..given this, they really do deserve special treatment some times, and this dish is for those times! I've chosen to serve my strawberries with ice cream and black pepper shortbread. The warmth of the pepper complements the flavours and the mix of textures is a nice touch too.

Once you've made the shortbread (which you can do 24 hours in advance), it's quick and easy to plate this up. Great for a summer dessert in the garden. If you're feeling really adventurous, you can make your own ice cream too, but on this occasion I've gone for shop bought...

Strawberry, Ice Cream and Black Pepper Shortbread (Serves 4)

Peppered Shortbread

• 60g plain flour
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp all spice
• pinch of salt
• 30g butter
• 25g sugar
• 10ml double cream
• 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

Filling

• Strawberry Ice Cream (I used Carte D'or Strawberry Delice - low fat!)
• Strawberries (sliced - about 3 strawberries per serving needed)

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Cream the butter and sugar in a food mixer


Step 3: Mix flour, bicarbonate, baking powder, pepper, salt and allspice in a bowl

Step 4: Add cream and butter mix to dry ingredients and mix to form a dough

Step 5: Roll into a log, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes

Step 6: After chilling time, roll out onto a lightly floured surface about 0.5cm thick. Use a pastry cutter to create 8 rounds

Step 7: Place the shortbread onto a lined baking tray in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove and leave to cool

Step 8: Assemble dessert. Take one shortbread and scoop the ice cream on top. Sandwich together with a round of shortbread on top and place the sliced strawberries around the edge

The final step is a little fiddly and you'll need to move quickly to stop the ice cream melting. I'll be making this lots moving until the strawberry season is done!

Hope you enjoy,
Helen x

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Basil Ice Cream & Elderflower Spiked Strawberries!

It may not surprise you to know that I am an avid food magazine reader. I buy about 5 a month, read them front to back, back to front and then rip pages out of everything that tempts me to try.

I have a big folder bulging with these ripped out bits of paper. They are also spread around the kitchen, in various handbags, almost everywhere in my house in fact! Whilst I love and treasure my cookbooks for classics, I think magazines are great for focusing recipes on seasonal food and popular dishes.

Right now, it would appear that homemade ice cream is the dish du jour! I have held back from buying an ice cream machine as my kitchen is already bursting at the seams with cooking equipment (and aforementioned bits of paper). So, it's been a relief that many of the recipes have included instructions for making it without one. I've tried a few different recipes now (see Lemon and Rosemary ice cream on earlier post) and they've all worked really well.

I was intrigued by a recipe in Delicious magazine for basil ice cream. I've never tried this before and love the fragrant herb in savory dishes so a sweet dish seemed like a great alternative. I served it with fresh British strawberries, which I'd soaked in my new Elderflower liquor (read about this on the July Love List).

The recipe is really easy to follow, but I'd advise making it 24 hours before you need it so it freezes fully. Once the ice cream has been made, you can easily serve this as a quick, crowd pleasing dessert for several people without much hassle at all.

Elegant, British and intriguing - a great summer dessert!

Basil Ice Cream with Elderflower Spiked Strawberries (serves 6 - 8)

50g basil leaves
330g caster sugar
170g mascarpone
830g Greek yoghurt
1 punnet strawberries
1 bottle Elderflower liquor or cordial (optional)

Step 1: Chop your strawberries and leave to marinade in a good splash of elderflower liquor/cordial

Step 2: Place basil leaves in food processor with the caster sugar and pulse under a paste has formed

Step 3: Add the mascarpone and yoghurt and pulse to combine

Step 4: Pour into dish/tub and place in freezer. Remove after 90 minutes and stir briskly with a fork (this removes any ice crystals and ensures you end up with a super smooth ice cream). Repeat this twice more after 90 minute periods.

Step 5: Spoon your beautiful ice cream into bowl, top with your strawberries and serve!

Hope you enjoy!
Helen x

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Spring Feasting!

The bank holiday has given me lots more time to cook, hoorah!

With friends coming over for dinner before an evening out on Monday, I had the perfect excuse to put the cooking wheels in motion. Everything feels super fresh at the moment and I wanted to capture that in the menu. So, we had a mixed crostini platter with pea and mint puree, avocado and lemon and chargrilled peppers for starter, followed by lemon and pea risotto with cod and gremolata for main and a trio of lemon puddings for dessert.

Starter and main were super easy (you can get all those together and cooked in less than 1 hour), pudding is a little but more effort (most of mine was done the day before), but well worth it! If you only make 1 thing that I ever write about, I would really recommend the lemon sponge. I've had the recipe since 2002 and it never, ever fails! Everything goes into the mixer in 1 go and then into the oven (so easy!) and it comes out beautifully moist.

Crostini are always a fail safe starter. For my platter I sliced 1 ciabatta, drizzled with olive oil and toasted in a hot oven (190c) for about 10 minutes. Whilst it was cooling, I pureed 2 handfuls of defrosted petit pois with about 6 mint leaves and a glug of olive oil. Then I mashed 1 avocado with the juice of 1 lemon and some salt for the second topping and finally I mixed chargrilled peppers with olive oil and some balsamic vinegar for the third (you can make these yourself really easily - e-mail me if you don't know how - or just buy a jar of them ready prepared). When the ciabatta had cooled, I heaped spoons of each topping onto the toasts and that's it!!

For the risotto, I made a basic white risotto (use a medium heat to soften 1 finely sliced onion and 2 garlic cloves in a good glug of olive oil, add 4 handfuls of risotto rice and stir, add 1 glass dry white white and stir until absorbed then add vegetable stock a ladle at a time, waiting until each has absorbed before adding the next) and then when the rice was al dente I added the juice of 1 lemon, 2 good handfuls of petit pois (I used frozen, you could use fresh) and 1 tbsp of mascapone. Stir through, ensuring peas are cooked and your risotto is ready. The mascapone makes this really creamy and unctuous, but the zesty lemon and sweetness of the peas stop it from being too cloying.

The fish was really easy. I placed 4 cod loins in tin foil parcels in the oven for about 15 mins (timing will depend on size of fish/whether you're cooking from frozen), and then served them topped with gremolata.

Gremolata is an Italian flavouring which you can use on lots of different things to add flavour. I generally stick to putting it on fish or vegetables, but Italians use it on lots of different meats as well.  It's very quick to make too, just mix 2 tsps of lemon zest with 1 finely chopped clove of garlic and 4 tbsps of chopped flat leaf parsley (I also add the juice of 1 lemon and some salt, as I think it's nicer..but it's not the traditional recipe). That's it! Quite a fancy name for lemon, herbs and garlic!!!

So, onto the best bit! Dessert! I made a trio of lemon puddings (sponge, posset and ice cream), which went down really well....

All the recipes below are really easy and make enough for 4-6 servings. Best of all, the ice cream doesn't require any fancy equipment!

Lemon Posset

300ml double cream
90g caster sugar
1 lemon (zest and juice)

1. Heat cream and sugar until dissolved and then boil (keep stirring!)
2. Take off the heat and stir through the lemon juice and zest (it should thicken a little at this point)
3. Pour into dish of choice (I used espresso cups) and chill until set (6-8 hours for best results)

Lemon Sponge (best ever!)

115g soft butter/margarine (I use Flora Light..)
170g self-raising flour
170g caster sugar
2 eggs
6 tbsp milk
1tsp baking powder

Lemon Syrup: juice of 1 lemon and 2 tbsps of caster sugar mixed until dissolved

1. Preheat oven to 180c/GM 4
2. Put all of the cake ingredients (excluding syrup) into a large mixing bowl and beat for 2-3 mins until smooth, glossy and easily falling from your spoon
3. Pour mixture into a lined cake tin (I've done this in loaf tins/round tins/cake tins and it works regardless!)
4. Bake for 30-40 mins until top is browned and a skewer comes out clean
5. Use the skewer to stab holes in the cake and pour the syrup over the top while the cake is still warm

Lemon and Rosemary Ice Cream (recipe from Times Online)

500ml double cream
100ml lemon juice
200g caster sugar
1tbsp lemon zest
2 sprigs rosemary (remove and keep the leaves)
pinch salt

1. Mix together lemon juice, zest, sugar and leaves from rosemary sprigs. Leave to macerate for at least 30, stirring occasionally.
2. Stir in the cream and salt.
3. Pour into a shallow plastic container and freeze
4. Wait 1 hour, remove and stir with a fork (to break up any ice crystals)
5. Put back into freezer and repeat after another hour
6. Freeze for 6+ hours (ideally overnight) and then you're ready to go!

Whilst no Ice Cream maker was required, this menu was made infinitely easier by a food mixer (mine is a Kitchen Aid, price justified by 10 year life expectancy and weekly usage = £0.73 per use!!!) and a microplane (a million times better than a normal grater for zest/chocolate shavings/nutmeg). Without them, it might just take you a little longer to prepare, but end result should be the same!

Hope you like! If you have any comments or suggestions for future recipes, please post them on the feedahappylife Facebook page.

Helen x

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