Drunken Fruit Salad

Here's a great fruit salad you can take to your next summer picnic with a unique twist that everyone will love! I recently made this for a Fourth of July picnic and it was gone within minutes!

Fresh fruit is a must. Nothing frozen and thawed. Organic and local is preferable. But fresh definitely. Whatever fruits you want. There are no rules to what fruit should or should not go in a fruit salad. I say, go as crazy as you want! I chose strawberries (because they're my favorite and they're red, happy 4th!), watermelon (its the perfect summer fruit), blueberries (because there's lots of them and it provides the patriotic blue), and peaches (because they smelled so good when I walked by and it would be something a little different).

But I didn't want to do just fruit. It needed a special twist. So I decided to make a dressing. I went online and searched through all my favorite blogs and recipe pages to find the perfect dressing. I took an idea from this one, a piece of that one, and created my own Drunken Salad Dressing.

So what exactly is in this Drunken Fruit Salad Dressing, you say??  Here you go...

4 Tbsp orange juice (I prefer pulp free)
3 Tbsp honey
3 tsp Chambord (this is the drunken part)
1 Tbsp + 3 tsp lime juice (i know kind of a crazy measurement but I was experimenting!)
5 fresh mint leaves, finely minced
(Stir it all together in a small bowl until the honey is somewhat dissolved. This makes about a cup of dressing which was plenty for the large bowl of fruit I prepared.  You don't want the fruit swimming in it. You want just enough to give a little extra zing.)

Once all the fruit is cut, sliced, diced, whatever, pour the dressing in with it and gently toss the fruit and dressing together. Then let it sit in your refrigerator for at least an hour or 2 before serving. This gives the dressing a chance to soak into the fruit a little bit and for all the flavors to meld together nicely. Then you'll have a beautiful fruit salad thats both sweet and a little tart and completely refreshing on a hot summer day!

Fourth of July Pops!

Happy Independence Day, America!!  I found this recipe a few weeks ago and thought they would be perfect for the summer holiday. While perusing my favorite blog list, I came across a recipe for popsicles on Eat Good 4 Life.  She actually posted a couple different versions of these popsicles and they seemed so easy I had to give them a try.

The ones I made were the Strawberry and Lime Popsicles. She also did a Raspberries and Cream version too that I'm going to try next week for a church meeting. I swear these are so simple and very yummy, you will want to make these every week during the summer. And they are quite pretty too. And the possibilities are endless! The Eat Good 4 Life lady also mentioned a coconut version...and seeing as how i LOVE coconut, I will have to experiment with that flavor too.

Here's the original recipe (with my personal notes in blue)...

Ingredients:
Yields 9 3oz Popsicles (using 3oz Dixie cups, I actually ended up with 10)

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup low fat yogurt (I use organic)...(I did too, Stonyfield is great in plain or vanilla)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped (I actually used the food processor and chopped them almost to a slightly chunky puree. I'm not a fan of huge chunks of fruit in dessert.)
2-3 limes, juice (If you like, you can also add in about 1-2TBsp of liqueur for an extra layer of flavor and to keep it from freezing too hard. I used Chambord, a raspberry liqueur.)

  In a bowl whip heavy cream and sugar until soft peaks form. Fold in yogurt, juice, (and liqueur if desired) and strawberries.(For this part, I followed a little bit what she did in the Rasberries and cream version, where she layered the ingredients in the cup...yogurt, fruit, more yogurt. But I still mixed in a little of the fruit with the yogurt as well so there were strawberries throughout but still had a pretty red stripe across the middle of the pop.)

Snip the top edge of the Dixie cups with scissors for easy peeling. Fill Dixie cups all the the way with the whipped mixture.

Place a pop stick in the middle of each Popsicle and freeze 4-5 hours before serving.

Note: I find that I don't have to freeze Popsicles before inserting Popsicle stick. The whipped cream is strong enough to hold the stick in place :-).

  

 

The yogurt makes them super creamy and the combination of strawberries and lime provide a refreshing sweet-tartness making them the perfect treat for summer.  These pops are also the perfect size for a small sweet snack and not too large for the kids to enjoy too!

the paper cup peeled off nicely too!

PassionFish

PassionFish is a great seafood restaurant located in Reston, VA.  They are most known for their sushi (which is how we heard about it through our friend Ruby Woo who loves sushi) but they have many other unique items. A word of caution though...Unless you're hitting up the bar at happy hour, this is not a cheap place, and while I don't believe there's a dress code, most people there were dressed at least business casual. I'm not sure they'd kick you out in your grungy T-shirt, cut-off shorts, and flip-flops but I guarantee you'd feel a little under-dressed and out of place.

inside restaurant

However, if you're willing to make yourself somewhat presentable and are also willing to shell out a few extra bucks for some awesome seafood, this is the place to do it.  Elegant (yet not stuffy) modern delicious cuisine.

outdoor patio where we sat

crispy baguette slices with crabmeat dip...yumma yumma

We begin with appetizers...1/2 dozen raw oysters and a jumbo lump crabmeat cocktail. I personally am not a fan of the oysters. I may have mentioned this before; I've given them the ol' college try a few times, just not my thing. Superking, however, loves them and couldn't resist the fresh slimy sea creatures on the half-shell. I will say they look pretty sitting in their shells on top of a bed of ice with their little garnishes and sauces.

The crabmeat cocktail was basically a huge lump of fresh shredded crabmeat drizzled with a Key lime mustard sauce. Phenomenal! Pure crabmeat-a-liciousness!

They had some amazing looking entrees but we decided to stick to small plates so we could squeeze in as much yumminess as possible.  Though we also skipped the infamous sushi too. :(  Too many good things to choose from. Next time we'll try the sushi, I promise!

Next was the Peruvian-style ceviche.  This was very different from any ceviche we've ever had. It included various generous-sized pieces of fish and other seafood as well as fresh lime juice, red onion, and habanero. What made this truly unique was that it was topped with popcorn!! Yes actual popped popcorn!! When you eat ceviche, everything in it has the same texture...soft.  The popcorn added a crunchy salty surprise that was strange yet lovely!

can you see the popcorn on top??

We also tried the Hamachi Crudo.  This was one of my favorite dishes of the night.  Crudo is a type of fish and it was served sashimi-style on top of slices of ruby red grapefruit. It also came with thin slices of jalapenos, a sweet soy sauce, and a green tea sea salt.  The combination of spicy, sweet, sour, and salty made an amazing and unique experience.

beautiful presentation

For the next course, we had the Spicy Ahi Tuna Tartare.  Raw supple chunks of tuna served with pickled ginger, sesame, and ponzu sauce, and topped with crispy shredded wontons. The pickled ginger gave the dish a little kick while the ponzu added the sweetness and the wontons a textural crunch.

though it looks like shredded cheddar cheese on top, thats actually the crispy wontons

Also in this course we had the Grilled Baby Octopus.  Now I do like the taste of octopus but the sight of tentacles on my plate is a little disconcerting for me.  But this dish was so yummy, I didn't even pay much attention to the tentacles.(Well, maybe a little as I cut those parts off and handed them to my husband)  This little octopus was served on top of a Greek salad comprised of chopped cucumbers and tomatoes and olives  mixed with tzatziki sauce alongside a block of grilled Halloumi cheese (a special Greek cheese requiring a high melting point).  It. Was. Awesome!!!  This was another favorite dish of the night. The octopus was tender, not chewy at all, and combined with the cheese and salad, it was unique and full of so many flavors indescribable.

octopus on top

thats the grilled cheese on the left side

At this point we were approaching fullness but there was still a tiny bit of room left for dessert.  Fresh fried donut holes served in its own tiny fry-basket and served with a coffee bavarian cream! Talk about Yumma Yumma!! Whats not to like??

And THEN, to top it all off when our waiter (who was excellent, very friendly and knowledgeable...thanks Kenny!) brought us the check, it came with a couple pieces of almond fudge of some kind, compliments of the chef!

Again, not cheap but its to be expected when ordering fresh quality seafood that strives to be local and sustainable, I might add. It was worth every penny and then some.  Not your average seafood joint, it has a touch of Asian, a touch of Mexican, a touch of Italian, and even a little touch of Greek. Its like a journey by sea around the world and back again in one meal. Creative, unique, elegant, delicious.

Santini's Deli

I apologize I haven't been putting up blog posts as quickly as I used to. I've been pretty busy...training for my first 10K in August, I just spent the last three days painting my bedroom (and still have a small half bath to do), and getting things ready for the music classes I teach at my church school which goes year-round (a week from Monday is the first day back!), among a million other things.  My "weeks off" from school have been quite busy.  But in the midst of all that, I have about 4 or 5 food adventures running through my mind just waiting for the opportunity to be put in a blog post such as this.

So I wanted to do a quick post about a local deli we recently just tried out.  Its called Santini's. There are actually four locations in the area I believe.  Unfortunately, there are not a lot of true deli's like this around here in Northern VA, where they make genuine NY style subs and pizzas, so when you find one and its good, you gotta tell people about it!

A fancy place, this is not.  But if you're looking for a good old fashioned sub (and want to avoid Subway), this is the place to go.  They also have pizza, calzones, and even breakfast items in the mornings like a steak, egg, and cheese sub!  We've only had a couple of their regular subs so I can only speak towards them. However some friends of ours had their pizza and a calzone and attested to their yumminess as well.  The subs though were off the hook! We went there twice almost in the same week!

The first time we went, I had the Chicken Club...marinated grilled chicken breast on a toasted kaiser roll topped with provolone cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise.  The chicken was flavorful and moist and all the veggies crisp and fresh, and the bacon was crispy and smokey! A total win!

Superking got the Godfather.  He was so in love with it he got it again the second time we went. So I had to get one too to see what all the fuss was about.  The Godfather is an 8" toasted sub roll (though you can also opt for the 12") topped with three of the most delicious deli meats...Genoa salami, capicola, and proscuitto. Also it comes with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, hot peppers (though I skipped these myself), and their own house-made Italian dressing.  It was an awesome hearty, meaty, fresh sandwich.

Last but not least, are the fries.  They offer three different types of fries there at Santini's...steak fries, curly fries, and spicy santini fries. Of course we went for the spicy ones.  They are basically hot thin crispy fries sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning.  Super yummy!!

So nothing earth-shattering here folks.  Just a simple, local NY-style deli that serves great subs.