Janice Tripepi

I am FINALLY up to date at work and am rolicking through my “loose ends” from last year.  I have cleaned and filed and thrown out a mountain of unwanted and unused garbage clogging the arteries of my home.  Mondi paper waste will be able to produce toilet paper for the entire nation with my paper waste!!!!  Well done Mondi Paper Waste programme. 

I did mention, if a little sheepishly that the Tripepi’s are dieting!!! Horror of horrors …. the word diet gives me the shivers.  Break the word down and what do you get???  Die – with a T on the end.  I KNOW it’s purely psychological – and when I get in that swimming pool in the mornings I am a demon – the more laps – the harder i swim and sweat (and believe it or not – YOU SWEAT IN THE WATER) the sooner I will attain an acceptable shape ……… well, for my liking.  I don’t believe is scales, I don’t even have one in my kitchen (maybe that is why my baking is sooooo diabolical … just a thought) !!!!  I see myself as a Boticelli woman – abundant and curvesque. 

My meals at the moment are moderate and ……………….. moderate.  No other way to put it.  Hubby informed me that he felt “weak” this morning.  The poor man is languishing, for in his world food is not only comfort it is the beginning and ending of all life, it’s reward, it’s the expression of our love for him – it punctuates his day with hapiness and joy.  WELL NOT NOW DARLING!!!!   Soooooooo, bear with me for I am cutting corners and calories like a scissor crazy barber at the moment.  Invention is the name of this kitchen game ………. substitution, substitution, substitution.  Oh well, no use in banging on about it. 

As a little girl my most favourite and highly prized treat was ice cream, Rasberry Ripple ice cream in cup – I can remember cleary pondering over little cups of this pretty pretty ice cream.  How do they get these streaks of sweet raspberry ripple into the ice cream was my question.  I would carefully dig out the deep red veins of raspberry with the ever-so-dinky plastic spoons that came with it.  As I recall the spoons were kept and cleaned and made perfect dolly feeding tools.  I loved watching the vanilla ice cream turn the palest  of pinks as it melted.  I could only wonder at pure indulgence of a whole tub of the ripple … the thought of that was just about more than I could imagine. 

So, I make fruity berry gooey coulis, reductions, jus’, compotes and anything inbetween whenever I can.  I still feel as if I am treating myself and the recipients of berry bounties.  So with no further yakking here is the Berry Blitz recipe …….. from last year!!!!  Apologies for taking soooooo long! 

INGREDIENTS

For the Fruit

1 packet of Woolies frozen berries for the winter version of this

or

In summer when the berry bushes proffer garnet coloured jewels

1 punnet of black berries

1 punnet of raspberries

1 punnet of strawberries

2 cups of castor sugar

1 vanilla pod

1 star anice

3 cardamon pods

1 glass of champagne or water or dessert wine

the juice of a lemon and the zest of half of that lemon

Place all of the fruit in a pot or frying pan

add the vanilla pod, star anice and the seeds from the 3 cardamons

the zest and juice of the lemon and the wine or champagne

add the sugar and bring to the boil

boil until the juice has reduced and  you have

a thick syrupy ruby red juice bursting with berries.

For the cream

1 tub of Full Cream (oi) Greek Yoghurt

1 tub of double thick cream

1 vanilla bean

Combine all of the above

Line up your glasses or glass dessert bowls and

Ripple away!!!!!

Ready and willing glasses!!!

Buon Appetito!

xx

Jan