Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Vitamix Roasted Red Pepper Soup, and Butter Pecan Ice cream

 I had a really off week last week, I bought a pair of Uggs-only to have to return them because they were two left feet and when they went to look for the right foot it was nowhere to be found. Then I made my tea (so many cups of tea) and somehow grabbed the salt thinking I was going to sweeten my cup of tea. I only poured a little in before I realized. There were a few more things but I've forgotten them by now. Luckily those mistakes didn't carry over into anything I tried cooking.

First up, I made some chocolate covered strawberries. I love chocolate covered strawberries from the Edible Arrangements company. They don't have those here (that I know of) so I made my own. I found a batch of decent strawberries and some chocolate. They came out OK. I'm thinking I should have used a sweeter chocolate. Maybe I will wait until strawberries are truly in season before I try again.

Then I made Roasted Red Pepper soup with a burger on the side. Probably an odd pairing. It was just 8 ounces of roasted peppers, onions, celery, garlic, chicken stock, and cream/milk with cayenne pepper. I think that's it. One of the easiest soups ever. It tasted OK. I think it was too much Roasted Red Pepper flavor though. For me, it needs something like Red Lentils to dilute the flavor. So I would make it again, but modified. 

Last up, Butter Pecan Ice cream. I love Butter Pecan ice cream (only Haagen Daz) and now my very own homemade one. I made the base the night before and then made the salted and buttered nuts the day I churned it. I never knew that the nuts were super salted, which means Butter Pecan ice cream is salty/sweet. That explains why I love it so much! I love anything Salty/Sweet. It's my favorite combination. Of all the batches of ice cream I have made so far, this has been my favorite. It's the only one I have zero self control with. I will be making this again and again! 

I love how I can customize it, I used big old chunks of nuts in it. Larger than the ones you get in a commercial tub and added a little extra on top of that. 

Click here for the recipe.

Almost forgot I did use a different extract from all other batches, I used the Nielsen Massey Madagascar Bourbon- this one made the very best vanilla flavor! Reminds me of the taste of Haagen Daz. I only brought back two of these bottles and really wish I had brought back a few more from when I went to the states. Bummer!