Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
I had an opportunity to talk on a local radio show on holidays recipes. It was a call in show and it was nice to hear that folks were willing to discuss their family traditions and special recipes. I directed some people to this page so I thought I would post a link to where we place our favorite family recipes:
I haven’t put up Karla’s recipe on this family page… but it is on this blog if you scroll down a bit!
Thanks for listening!
Roger
Well, a few days ago , I talked about a lovely marinade to soak a pint of strawberries to be used in what Karla called “Strawberry Pizza.” I hinted that the marinade would have some uses later on… and that it would ‘live again’ as a wonderful ‘drink.’
The only thought is to add something plus finely crushed ice to make it superb!
However, this is no ordinary alcoholic libation… it carries with it a serious ‘kick’ that surprised me. At first, I turned to Laura and queried whether or not the alcohol may have evaporated? She gave me this school marm look as if to say,” so, you think you will be able to walk after this?”
In any event, you definitely want to be wherever you intend to stay for the night before you enjoy this very special drink.
One of the interesting challenges of having your adult children all over the world is that you have to pick out the holiday decorations by yourself… and buy the mandatory Christmas Tree.
As is our habit each year, we find just the right tree!
Laura is working on the tree as we speak and I think I will put on the latest ‘Narnia” movie for backgound!
So as is my tradition, I will go sit in my chair and enjoy the festivities… hmmmm… I wonder if I should make some home made ‘egg nog’ this year? Why is the rum gone?… oh yeah… that’s why!
So , no matter what the future may bring, no matter what troubles and worries might be about you… enjoy this holiday season…
Roger Freberg
Karla came up with an interesting request a while back. She found a recipe for what was billed as a “Strawberry Pizza.” Since Karla is given to unusual requests , I wondered how small I could make it without having to actually… eat any.
After looking over the recipe, I realized that some changes we necessary: 1) Mace, Cinnamon and Cardamom and powdered sugar (rather than granulated in the original) for the crust, powdered sugar and white chocolate went into the cream cheese layer and the strawberries were made ala Romanoff with a Cassis glaze rather than a strawberry glaze.
Oh, maybe I overly customized this Chevy… but it worked out just fine!
Roger Freberg
When you open this giant book inside is a hallow containing a much smaller book on the tales of Beetle the Bard. Anyone familiar with the Harry Potter series knows that this book contains tales told to magical children at bedtime… very much like we did reading ‘Jane Austin’, ‘How Things work’ and ‘secret demolition techniques’ to our children at bedtime.
Money from the sale of these books, about $40, I understand goes to helping children in need. I like that.
Read here a nice review and an explanation of where the money flows!
Now put your wands away and read.
Roger Freberg
My daughter Karla uses email a lot, especially when it comes to birthdays and Christmas. The emails are full of detailed descriptions, pictures, where they can be purchased, rank ordered and cost. She is just as organized in finding things she would like to tryout. Recently she sent me a recipe for something that was billed as a ‘Strawberry pizza.’ It was simple enough, but besides being really a strawberry pastry dessert… it failed to be too interesting… so I thought I’d work on it a bit.
The topping was ordinary and needed something else… so the first thing was to use a variation of a “Strawberries Romanoff” dessert that is popular in Southern California as well as France and it’s native Russia.
It requires ‘marinating’ the strawberries for 6 weeks (just kidding). Here’s the marinade which should make a nice ‘drink’ as well:
1 pint strawberries (sliced in half)
2 cups made up of equal amounts of the following: Orange Juice Concentrate, Armagnac, and Triple Sec (Contreau or Grand Mariner)
1/2 teaspoon mace ( one of my favorites)
Looks good enough to put nto a blender with ice right now… but this is for Karla’s Pizza… hmm
Roger Freberg
(full recipe to follow)