Food Friday: Vanilla Sauce with Berries

Introduction:
I am 7-years old and living the high life for the weekend with a quick getaway to the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, which according to their website is a, “AAA Five-Diamond resort.” Everything was fabulous, from the lavish linens that dressed the cloud-like beds, to the exquisite service with an ‘anything you want, we will make it happen’ attitude. It was a world of possibilities.

As I sat between my Grandma and Grandpa who had accompanied us for the jaunt out-of-town, the waiter approached with a colorful tray. Assorted raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries filled the delicate crystal vessels.

Headline: My Aunt Ginny always says that, “you could scoop up every last drop of the vanilla sauce, with or without berries” on your way to discovering tastes you had never experiences before.

Opening: The Broadmoor’s vanilla sauce is a dessert made of whipping cream, vanilla extract, sugar, and corn starch that is served as a topping for bread pudding, cakes, crepes, waffles, and strudels. But for as long as I can remember, my family has used the vanilla sauce as a dessert topping on fresh berries.

The origin of the sauce is unknown, but my during my research of the vanilla pod I discovered that it has been used to flavor food for quite some time. According to ifood.tv, vanilla’s increasing popularity began in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico. But what really interested me was the mythology of the vanilla bean.

“Princess Xanat escaped from her father to the forest, along with her lover. The lovers were found out and beheaded, and when their blood reached the ground, the vanilla vine grew on that land” (www.ifood.tv/network/vanilla_sauce).

This story reaches the hopeless romantic in all of us, but the bonus is the creation of the vanilla bean and as a result, my favorite vanilla sauce. The vanilla pod’s popularity grew from the 15^th century until the 19^th century making the transition from only being produced in Mexico to places in France and proceeded then traveled around the world.

Sub-Head: In our own family mythology: it is told that the vanilla sauce recipe was challenging to obtain from The Broadmoor. My grandma recites that, year after year and visit after visit the request for the recipe was always made. Then…we finally received it. To now ever be enjoyed.

Content: My entire life, through birthdays and holidays, there is a place in my mind that wants to skip the three main courses prior and jump to the end of the meal to get to the best part. My entire family’s taste buds salivate knowing what is being prepared in the kitchen. Then the dessert time is spent with vanilla sauce stories being shared; all unique, all different, all featuring family.

There have been moments in my life when experiencing rejection, when I ask to make the vanilla sauce. There is always a mix of emotions from my mom and grandma concluding that the vanilla sauce is a little devil to complete, and it is best to wait until the next holiday to undertake this effort. 

Then comes Food Friday, and I can choose anything I can dream of to prepare for my peers. Of course this is my opportunity to experiment with the delicious dessert. Getting the recipe, I began my mental preparation of not only making the vanilla sauce for the first time, but with the challenge of quadrupling my classic family recipe to feed a 25 person class. I was ready for the challenge. And what I found was not difficult at all. A simple dessert that consists of four ingredients and a melody of berries… leaves me with thought of my family celebrations.

 Enjoy!

#foodporn http://instagram.com/p/leEiKKyPzG/

Recipe:

 

Ingredients - 1 pint of whipping cream- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon of cornstarch
- 1 container of raspberries
- 1 container of blueberries
     *or any berries you favor
 

 

 Directions

1. Use a medium size sauce pan to mix all the ingredients together



2. Pour 1 pint of whipping cream into the sauce pan

 3. Pour 1/2 cup of sugar into the sauce pan

 4. Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla into sauce pan
5. Add 1/4 teaspoon of corn starch into sauce pan

 

 

6. Because this is a fast cooking treat, leave the burner off until all ingredients are added. Then turn the burner onto medium.

 

7. Then constantly stir, stir, stir for 5-7 minutes  

8. You want to make sure the vanilla sauce is hot all the way through. A good indication is to test the sauce on your tongue.

9. Let cool for 10-15 minutes and pour into a container

10. Refrigerate over night

11. Pour vanilla cream sauce over your favorite berries and even have fun experimenting a little with new creations :)

 





Pictures to Mom & Dad: Moonstruck Eggs

It is not my fault that I inherited my mom’s racing metabolism. I have always been tall and skinny. Never has it been a concern to me to monitor my eating habits. If anything, I need to carb-load and put some meat on my bones. This has always been the consensus when going home for the holidays and my entire family is reminded of my slender frame. It got better this year when my brother started college at CU Boulder…having the exact racing metabolism as I do. The attention was split between the two of us as our worrying mom served us extra helpings and encouraged snacking. At one point my mom literally said to me, “…Well, I got the anorexic in Durango and the ‘manorexic’ in Boulder…” of course, said jokingly, since neither of us have an eating disorder, and that is not even something to joke about. I realized at any cost my parents will always have the goal to add a good five to ten pounds on us before we returned to our college homes and onto yet another semester.  So I came to a conclusion. To decrease the natural worrying all moms and dads have and ensure, via pictures, that I was not wasting away, I planned to take pictures of everything, or most everything I was eating… sending pictures to Mom & Dad of all my eating experiences.

I believe that breakfast is an appropriate meal morning, noon, or night. This may be due to the fact of my extreme talent of being able to sleep until any time of day.

There was only a brief hiatus when I completely disliked eggs. After an awful experience with fake, cheesy, mass-produced hotel eggs, it became crystal clear as to why I needed a little separation. I started experimenting with different ways to eat my eggs: scrambled, omelet, sunny-side up, over-easy, even egg sandwiches. Let me just point out, that I am very particular about my eggs. Then I discovered a unique way to cook up my high protein meal.

I personally call this style… ‘Moonstruck Eggs’ referring to the film, Moonstruck, which in fact, my mom and I can quote from scene to scene. And we will not miss an opportunity to slip in a catchy quote from the film when a situation applies.  If you have not seen this movie, I recommend you do so, as soon as you possibly can. Anyways...back to the food, in layman terms you can call this style: hole-in-one eggs. 

After every vacation, when I return back to my quaint apartment in Durango, I can’t shake the lingering twinge that I wish I was still back home in Denver. But the peace of an empty house, I always cherish, the sweet, sweet relief of decompression, leaves me with a sense of calmness. Then a gurgle in my stomach indicates my need for food. My expedition to the kitchen leaves me with an empty refrigerator staring back at me. The barren shelves only offered a third of a carton of eggs, and still edible bread. These are always essentials that you need to have in your refrigerator. These items tend to have a long shelf life and have the ability to be whipped up into a tasty meal.

Sound bite:
http://youtu.be/DGxOhy08N0A

What you are going to need:
- 2 eggs

 

- 2 pieces of bread

- Cooking spray: vegetable oil or olive oil

 - Medium saucepans- depending on your pan size, you may have to cook each piece of bread and egg separately
     
- Shot glass: to be able to cut a hole in the middle of the bread for the eggs
- Spatula
    

Directions:

- Start by taking the two pieces of bread, lay them onto your cutting board. Take the shot glass and place it in the middle of the bread, add pressure to cut a hole in the middle of your bread.
     -This will leave a circle in the bread for the egg to be cracked into; when it is time to cook.

- Spray you saucepan with the cooking oil. This will ensure that your bread and eggs will not stick to the pan when cooking.

 - Turn on the burner to medium. Since this is a fast cooking meal, you will have to monitor how fast the meal is cooking. It is recommended if eggs and bread are cooking too fast, to turn your burner down to medium-low.

- Take each piece of ‘holed’ bread and place into sauce pan. If your sauce pan is large enough to cook both pieces at the same time, do so.
     * I had to cook each piece separately due to the size of my sauce pan.
    
- When the pieces of the bread are placed into the greased pan, crack the egg on the side of the pan.

 - Then carefully crack the egg into the hole of the bread, your eggs will fill the hole and begin to cook quickly, depending on how long your burner has been heating up for.  

 

- As the eggs begin to cook, you will hear sizzling. This is your indicator that it is time to flip the hole-in-one eggs. If you have a timer, this will be approximately 3 minutes into cooking. Use your spatula to flip the bread and egg. It can be a little challenging to get everything flipped at once. Do not worry if your ‘Moonstruck Eggs' do not look too beautiful…they will taste delicious either way.

 

 

 - You want to make sure you keep moving bread and eggs back and forth in the pan. This will help the bread to not get burnt and stuck to the pan.

- Flip the hole-in-one eggs again. You want to make sure each side is getting cooked evenly.

 -  A good indicator when the meal is ready to be devoured, is too carefully (it is hot) touch the piece of bread. You want it to feel toasted.

 

 - Depending on how you like your egg yolk cooked, either allocate more or less time. You can tell how hard the yolk is getting by looking at the frequency of the yellow part of the egg.

     - More time allocated: the harder your egg yolk will be.

     - Less time allocated: the yolk will be runny and soft.

 

 * You will see that I cooked one of the hole-in-one eggs for a longer period. The yolk is hardened and does not gush out when broken. The other hole-in-one egg was cooked for a shorter period, allowing the yolk to be broken. This is perfect for dipping extra pieces of toast.

 

-  If you are looking to make this meal heavier, you can serve this meal with numerous side arms for some variation: bacon will add some meaty flavor and density. It can be a topping for your ‘Moonstruck Eggs.’ This breakfast dish also is accompanied nicely with sausage. For a lighter meal, eat with a piece of fruit on the side. Or just as is, with no sides.

Before I devour the scrumptious meal…a picture to Mom & Dad is in order.