This very quick fall pear treat, unless you call using a toaster cooking, could just as easily be eaten for breakfast, lunch or a snack. It’s just so good and uses very little energy. You will no doubt come up with your own variations using other fruit without breaking a sweat.
A loaf of good crusty bread, sliced and toasted. Topped with a smear of ricotta cheese or mascarpone and thin pear slices, a drizzle of honey, a sprinkle of sea salt or sugar and almonds are all you need.
One day they are green and hard and we wait. The next day it seems the drupelets have blackened and we cannot eat them fast enough. Such is blackberry season.
I have made Fourth of July Blackberry Pies in my Food on Fifth kitchen as well as Blackberry-Mango Drinks. I have shared my youthful blackberry picking snake story with you when I made a Blackberry Upside Down Cake and today offer the most simple and easy way to both preserve and cool down with fresh blackberries, A Very Nice Blackberry Ice.
Plump, ripe Tennessee blackberries……
….frozen on a parchment lined baking sheet. In the food industry this way of individually freezing product is called “IQF” which means Individually Quick Frozen. This is how it’s done on a “at-home” scale. If you do not want to use the berries immediately just pop them into resealable plastic bags or boxes and store frozen until ready to use for any of your favorite dishes.
A food processor….some honey or agave nectar…….
…plus a splash of balsamic reduction….
…gives you this….
….and this……
…and best of all…this…fresh blackberry ice…very nice!
1. Freeze whole blackberries on a parchment lined sheet pan in a single layer.
2. Put frozen berries in a food processor with 2 tbsps honey or agave nectar & pulse a few times. Add 1 tbsp balsamic reduction and pulse until smooth. Taste & adjust flavors. Immediately scrape into a glass or metal container & freeze for 30 min to 1 hour. Serve.
Do food blogs have to be recipe driven? While sipping my “Honeycomb Cocktail” my mind was wandering…..that is what a Honeycomb Cocktail will do to you….
It does seem that a good, simple recipe can wow the most jaded of audiences. A beautiful photo of that recipe certainly gilds the lily. But there are many times, when the recipes I am cooking & the cocktails I am conjuring up belong to someone else & what I am cooking is not for me, but for a cookbook, a restaurant menu, a magazine article or ad. While I do love my work it definitely slows down my home kitchen output. But while I am on a shoot I always keep my camera handy. Wonderful imagery abounds in ways obvious or obscure having to do with food. These images often are what inspire me to cook up a new recipe, look at an old recipe differently, see food more scientifically and humorously. Here are some recent encounters of the food kind, not so recipe driven.
P.S. Don’t miss the recipe after the photos that got this idea percolating...”Honeycomb Cocktail for Fall Musings”
Pie on paperTen til Five.....beautiful stainless steel everywhereNot to be confused with any other breader.Chicago, on a shoot, view out my hotel window.An image styled.........part of same image "un-styled".Dried up pears from a tree in my neighborhood...on ground since last fall.Bread Box with inspirational sayings on restaurant table.Lots of Big Spoons.Lots of Big Ladles.Fresh green peas ready to be shot.Red Stripes.Chef's coats"fun" written in chocolate syrupSome folks still make real flour sacksKitchen in an abandoned houseChayote was the subjectOld recipe box for home economic studentsEgg & Whisk
A simple recipe for my “Honeycomb Cocktail for Fall Musings”
Ingredients: Chilled White Rum, Chilled Limoncello, Honey with honey comb
Honeycomb
Directions:
Mix together 1 ounce chilled White Rum, 1 ounce chilled Limoncello liqueur, a tsp good local Honey. Pour into a glass. Garnish with a wedge of Honey Comb. Sip and let your mind wander.
Questions?
How often do you really follow a recipe?
Do you listen to music when you cook? What kind?
Do you encounter images daily that create food & recipe ideas in your head?
The more you know about food…do you find yourself eating less? or more?
Do you think you eat more than your fair share of the earth’s bounty?
Is it more important to blog often with less content or blog less often with more content.
How many times have you actually tried the recipes you encounter on food blogs?
What would you blog about it you had nothing to eat for a few days?
