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Monthly Archives: August 2012

I make! Raspberry mousse tart edition

A few weeks back, I had a craving for raspberries.  I think it was triggered by this coupon I got from Vons for a free carton raspberries if I bought 5$ worth of groceries.  So anyway, I was trying to figure out what I’d buy for 5$ to get raspberries when I was volunteered to make dessert for my small group meeting.  Perfect.  I could buy 5$ worth of dessert supplies that would feature raspberries!

I ended up making raspberry mousse tarts, which worked out really well, because it meant I didn’t have to turn on the stove or bake or anything.  That’s important to note because it’s been ridiculously hot and using the stove just makes everything hotter.

You can get the recipe from that link up there.  I took a gander at it when I was thinking up things to do with raspberries.  Also, you can take a look at all the other stuff Naomi does.  It always looks delicious.

I ended up taking her recipe as a suggestion, so…

  • I didn’t use cassis or grenadine.  I had no intention of going out to buy cassis.  Also, the raspberries were quite fresh (I had to go to Pavillions for them though, Vons had the most pitiful selection of raspberries ever) and were very vibrant.  People thought I augmented the color of the mousse with food coloring.  Nope.  That was all raspberry.  To help with the puree-ing and to highlight the tartness, I used a tablespoon or so of fresh squeezed lemon juice.
  • I don’t normally whip sugar into my whipping cream.  Instead, I pureed the raspberries with 0.25c granulated sugar and then folded the puree into the whip.  Also, I used 2c of cream because what was I going to do with the 0.5c of leftover cream?
  • I didn’t use normal pastry shells.  I ended up finding phyllo mini tart shells at Pavillions and used those instead.  But the thing with phyllo is that it’ll sog up, so you don’t want to make these too far in advance.
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Moose vs Chickens

My mother has recently developed a thing for keeping chickens.  I assume as pets.  I don’t really know.  Yaris has developed a thing for sitting outside and staring at the chickens.  I assume it’s because she wants to eat them.  Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s because she wants to eat them and it’s not really an assumption.

A few weeks ago, my mother acquired a pair of black Silkies.

The little one may or may not have met an untimely demise. I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask Yaris.

Those were fairly nice chickens.  I like the way they look, all fuzzy and such.  They were also quite docile and friendly.  Apparently, Silkies are known for that kind of behavior.  I liked those chickens.

But then one day the Silkies were gone.  In case you were wondering, chickens were not on the menu.  Also, even if it had been on the menu, it would have been pretty easy to figure out if they were the Silkies, because Silkies are completely black inside and out.  I hear a lot of people find that to be really gross.  Weak.

Anyway, I’m told they were sold.  And in their place, I found a pheasken (a pheasant-chicken hybrid), a Nankin chicken, and a Delaware chicken (maybe?).

I was not impressed with these chickens/hybrids.  They didn’t look anything as amusing as the Silkies did nor were they so friendly.  They were noisy and all fancied themselves to be escape artists.  This ended up being a thing.

My parents asked me to watch over the chickens while they were away for the evening and also to keep an eye on Yaris.  I guess she had made several attempts to sneak into the pen earlier.  Ok…not a big deal.  But when I went to check up on the chickens after I fed the dogs, I noticed that one was suspiciously absent.  It was getting dark so I thought maybe it decided to roost for the night.  But…the roosting facilities were empty.  Hmm…and why is that big chicken constantly looking at the wall?  And what is the interesting noise coming from behind the fence?  SUGH.  The pheasken had escaped and it was too dark to find it.

THEN!  While I was trying to figure out how the pheasken escaped, the stupid big chicken leapt onto to the wall and tried to make an escape.  While I was standing right there.  It apparently thought that I would just let it escape.  Nope.  I knocked the chicken back in with a broom (it was a bit too far away for normal pushing).  Stubborn thing, it was.  I also figured that’s how the pheasken escaped.  My parents probably decided that the chickens wouldn’t be able to fly up to the top of the wall and didn’t think about how pheasants can fly.  Welp, I got to putting more netting around the top of the wall when the stupid big chicken exploited an area of the netting that was still loose and tried to escape again.  I had to knock it back down with a broom again.  This happened a few more times and I had to put a roof over the wall so the chicken couldn’t get out.

The little chicken that was still there looked like it was trying to roost but the big chicken kept stepping all over it.  It finally decided to also try to escape by using the big chicken as a step stool. It didn’t work too well and the little one never made it successfully to the top of the wall.

Anyway, I was THE ANNOYED the whole night.  Yaris was THE DISAPPOINTED.

This doesn’t really show that Yaris was disappointed, but it might help illustrate her interest in chickens (my mother acquired even more chickens since the events described above).