Strawberry Wine Coolers

Can I first of all tell you you're lucky you get a picture of this delightful beverage at all, even a bad one with my couch in the background? This was wine night and my ladies were patient enough to wait for a picture only because these were so beautiful and amazing. So, anyways...

Wine coolers are pretty lame when they come out of the barely alcoholic six-pack from the grocery store. However, when you make them at home and serve them in jumbo glasses and add a touch of vodka, well then, they are a wine night specialty. They're pretty, they're pink and they're delicious. What more could a girl want? Maybe some strawberry wine sorbet to pair with it...but more on that later.

Strawberry Wine Coolers
makes 4-6 large drinks

adapted from Annie's Eats

1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup of chilled vodka
Pinch of coarse salt
2 bottles chilled white wine, such as Riesling


Combine strawberries, vodka, salt and 2 cups of white wine in a blender and mix until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh sieve and return to refrigerator until ready to serve.

To serve, fill a large glass with ice. Fill halfway with strawberry mixture, then top off with more white wine. Garnish with whole fresh strawberries.

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

So, I have a bit of a problem.

I am using my ice-cream maker obsessively.

And I’m justifying it with my own twisted logic.

You see, since Rob is lactose intolerant there are very few treats I can enjoy, because let’s face it, I’m going to get fat as hell if I’m baking whole batches of cookies and brownies for myself. But I can freeze ice-cream and eat it in reasonable amounts and all will be well with the world. You know, except for the fact that I probably don’t, at any single time, need five different options of ice-cream and sorbet to choose from.

But that’s cool, I’ll just give some to my brother and everything’s good.

Logic.

So, here is the first of many ice-cream recipes to come to you from my incredibly overstocked freezer. This strawberry ice-cream is truly the best I’ve ever had. I have a long-running love affair with fresh strawberry ice-cream since it is served at the Old Cazadero BBQ every year. This, I must say, is on-par if not better. Either way it brings back those late summer memories and I just can’t get enough of it.

Fresh Strawberry Ice-Cream

makes about 1 quart

adapted from Annie’s Eats

1 lb. fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced (save one or two whole)

¾ cups sugar

1 Tbs. vodka or kirsch, optional

1 cup sour cream

1 cup heavy cream

½ tsp. fresh lemon juice

Place the sliced strawberries, sugar and vodka in a medium bowl and stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover and let sit at room temperature for one hour.

Combine strawberry mixture, sour cream and heavy cream in a blender. Puree until mostly smooth. Refrigerate until very cold (about 1 hour).

Freeze in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Chop and smash reserved strawberry and stir in during the last five minutes of freezing. Transfer to freezer to set completely. (I highly recommend using Ball freezer containers. They have them at Walmart next to all the Ball canning supplies.)