Tag Archives: my new trifle recipe

Trifle

Posted on December 31, 2015 | 1 comment

Yikes, I’ve only a day to think it through. Last year for the dinner I made a full-fat version of it with layers of pound cake, whipped cream and tons of berries.

Then I made one with angel food cake, nonfat Greek vanilla yogurt and tons of berries. Which to choose?

We’ve two young girls this year so I was thinking of making individual parfaits for them with graham cracker crumbs, vanilla yogurt and berries. If they were here I’d teach them layering but I’ll just make them before we depart to meet our friends.

For the adults I could mix it up and do angel food cake and whipped cream, or the opposite.

Oh, forget it, it’s New Years’ Day and time to renounce all those dietary restrictions!

Snow was melting today and now it’s quite cold. Our neighbor was without heat for two days so we lent him our portable heater.

For the first time in years we have icicles about 4′ long over our balcony. On the glass, there are also some coming up. Stalagtites and stalgmites.

I wanted to finish the trifle today and keep it outside (there’s no room in the frig for a trifle dish). Now I know it will freeze and the glass will break and everything will be ruined.

Dear husband, the physicist says, why don’t you make it, place the vessel in one of our many insulated bags and place it in your car in our underground garage where the temps are near refrigerator temps and not what grows 4′ icicles.

What a great idea. That is the plan. Happy New Year! Dee

 

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The Second Frig

Posted on December 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

It’s snowing, from the east. I saw a barge offshore lit up like a Christmas tree and all of a sudden it disappeared. Snow has passed 20 minutes later and there are actually plows out on the roads. Miracle of miracles! Yet my only explanation is that they want to be home for Christmas so are doing their jobs early instead of days late or not ever.

Our former mountain home had round-the-clock plowing plus shoveling. Here, there’s just salt. I have to pick up the dog (30 plus lbs.) because the salt on ice or snow kills her paws and she’s an older girl. So as of last weekend she has a coat, but as of last weekend, snow booties. I’d rather carry her than put those on.

It looks like a winter wonderland and is seventeen degrees right now. I have to check the temperatures to find out how many layers to wear in the morning and what type of boot. Some people collect designer shoes, I make sure I’ve the right winter clothing for me and my husband. Scotland story? I’ll see if I told it before.

Trifle is a Brit “pudding” that is very easy to make. I made one and assembled it in the trifle bowl and had no place to put it. It is in a secure bag inside another bag with packing peanuts et al around it. We had to temporarily place it on our balcony in 11 degree weather so it wouldn’t freeze. We gave it as a gift today.

Several other items had to go out to the “second frig” which we were used to having in the mountains. That was our garage. I always kept our lemon and berry trifle in the garage. My husband would bring it to work for his team.

All the markets are closed today and while we expect mostly a quiet day together, we do have plans for a brief visit with friends.

I ordered bone-in beef ribeye steaks that we’ll cook on the grill. Rosti potatoes, green beans and braised carrots. Just the two of us. After traveling halfway across the country on the train that would not end (we were ten hours late) to visit sixty of my husband’s relatives for Thanksgiving, we enjoy some quiet time together, just us and Zoe (the dog). No, she will not get steak.

Health and happiness throughout the new year, Dee

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Lawyers and Recipes

Posted on June 17, 2013 | 1 comment

This site and a particular young writer on this site was vilified and threatened with lawsuits several years ago. I asked the company that owned a defunct magazine if I could print one decade-old recipe, with attribution. I was refused and was threatened with a potential lawsuit.

Now people (see Slate.com) are asking if jokes can be patented. The lawyer said I couldn’t print an entire cookbook in my name if I stole it from someone else. I have rules against plagiarism, ingrained from birth, so this blog only gives you my best new stuff and my ancestors’ old stuff. If someone copies it from any of these, I won’t bother to sue. I do expect a thank-you, however, an attribution, a note on your blog.

How about this? I made it up this morning and sent it, yes the entire trifle bowl, to work with my husband, my newest creation:

Rhubarb, Berry and Brioche Trifle

A neighbor gets a surprise package from her community farmers’ market every week. She gave me about eight stalks of rhubarb, that she doesn’t like.

I cleaned and sliced the rhubarb into 1/4 inch half-rounds and placed it in a large pot with about 1/4 cup of water and 1/2 cup sugar and let it simmer for about 20 minutes, then cooled.

I’d bought a loaf of brioche and got 2 pints strawberries, 1 pint each blueberries and blackberries. Also a quart of heavy whipping cream.

After the brioche was roughly cubed, I prepared the berries, slicing the strawberries and mixing everything tenderly by hand so assembly would be easy. Three cups of lightly sweetened cream (2T sugar) was whipped with a tsp. of vanilla.

I started the trifle with 1/2 inch rhubarb, added 1/3 of the loaf of brioche, topped with rhubarb, whipped cream and 1/3 of the berries. Add two layers, top with berries, cover and refrigerate.

Some folks want to eat it right away. I prefer to wait a bit. Wait a minute, I didn’t get any! Luckily there was a tablespoon of whipped cream in the bowl and a handful of berries. Who wouldn’t love that for dessert? Dee

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