Berry Experiments

I should be revising a portfolio paper right now. I promised my committee chair I'd send her a complete draft by the end of the month--which is Monday. And I promised my study buddies I'd have a draft of it to workshop tomorrow. But here's the thing: I've been working like a dog all week, and my brain is fried. I need a break from academic writing. So I decided to make myself some treats.

Plus, I wanted to try my hand at the step-by-step cooking/baking photo blog post genre.

See, it was my turn last Saturday to do the grocery shopping, and I love berries. And they were on sale. So I bought a lot of them. I mean A LOT. So on Sunday, I made a pie. A chocolate uber-berry no-bake non-dairy cheesecake.* Mmmm-MM! It was delicious, and by far the most attractive pie I've ever made. Not that that's saying much--I'm pretty new to the pie-making business.

But it didn't use very many berries. I still had a lot of berries. And you know, fresh fruit doesn't last forever. So I made some chocolate covered strawberries. 

Chocolate covered strawberries are easy (and also tasty). I wanted to try something different. I still had tons of raspberries, so I decided to make some chocolate raspberry cups. I put some melted white chocolate at the bottom of a mini-muffin pan, put two raspberries in each, and then I poured some melted semi-sweet chocolate over the top. Later, it occurred to me that I might have trouble getting the chocolate out of the pan, because I didn't use liners or anything. But I poked at their edges with a knife and they popped right out. 

And they were DELICIOUS. 

Except there was too much chocolate. 

I know, right? I can't believe I'd say that either, but it's true. There was too much chocolate. They were hard to bite into, and the raspberry-chocolate ratio wasn't right. Well, we ate them anyway. Mostly I ate them. But I did share some with my roommates.

Even after completing this highly educational experiment, I still had a lot of berries. I could have just eaten them, but I had bigger ideas. I planned further experiments for my remaining test subjects, but didn't carry them out until tonight, spurred by the fact that my brain was beginning to dribble out of my ears from all that academic writing, and those berries weren't going to keep forever.

I decided to ditch the muffin pan. I dropped a bit of white chocolate in rows on a wax-paper covered cutting board and put a berry on top of each. In retrospect, maybe I should have left some just like this, because look how pretty! Or maybe I could have melted the chocolate to an even thinner consistency and just drizzled some delicately over the top. But who am I kidding? I'm not really the delicate type.

I wanted them completely covered in chocolate. I figured that it would get really messy if I tried to roll them in chocolate and then put them back on the paper. I also figured I could just pour chocolate over the top of them.  

That sort of worked. But I could tell that I was going to end up with a "too much chocolate" problem again. Also, it wasn't looking very pretty. I decided to roll them after all, and then drop them back onto the wax paper.

Just as I predicted, it was messy. Overall though, I think they're slightly better looking than the "dribble chocolate over the top" models. And they certainly have a more reasonable berry-chocolate ratio. When I finished making my twelve white-chocolate-enhanced berries, even though I'd been snacking on the raw ingredients as I worked, I still had a few more raspberries left. So I just rolled those in chocolate too. Might as well.

Messy, but DELICIOUS. I plan to conduct follow-up experiments to improve my methodology and satisfy my need for chocolate and distractions from doing actual work.

*Chocolate Uber-berry No-bake Non-dairy Cheesecake Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Sliced strawberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Any other berries you want

1 8-oz package of plain Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

2 C thawed non-dairy whipped topping

3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 C (1/2 stick) margarine, softened

1/2 C sugar

1 graham cracker crust

Directions:

In a microwave-safe bowl, heat chocolate chips on MEDIUM for 1 minute. Stir. If needed, heat in additional 30-second increments on medium until melted and smooth.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese, margarine, and sugar on medium speed until creamy. Gradually add whipped topping and chocolate, mixing on low speed until well blended. Spoon into crust.

Arrange berries on top of the pie any way you want. Chill in refrigerator until firm (about two hours) before serving.

Entertainment Reviews

I'm thinking about posting something complicated and academic to do with the nature of words. But let's face it, I've pretty much blown the first two weeks of summer on entertainment, instead of making progress on my giant pile of academic reading or, you know, analyzing the data for that research project that I'm supposed to have finished by the end of June. Anyway. I'm still procrastinating brain work, so I'm going to write about entertainment instead.

Part 1: Portal 2 Is the Best Game Ever

Don't even try to argue with me. I spent much of last weekend playing Portal 2. Nancy got me to play Portal way back in 2011, and I've been waiting forever for a chance to play the sequel because up until last month, my PC only ever ran Linux. Since I finally broke down and bought a Windows desktop, I got the Portal Pack from Steam (and the Universe laughed, because right about the same time, Steam added Linux support--but it wouldn't have run well on my geriatric Ubuntu laptop anyway).

I could explain what makes Portal and Portal 2 so awesome, but these games have been around for ages, so I'm sure you can google an actual review. Instead, I'll just finish this section by observing that Portal 2 and zucchini bread are now forever linked in my mind, because who has time for proper meals when there's science to be done?

Part 2: Zucchini Bread, The Nearly Perfect Food?

Making food and eating it (with our without sharing, but preferably with) are among the oldest and best forms of entertainment. We recently started harvesting zucchini from Stephanie's garden, so naturally I had to make some bread. It's got vegetables (the eponymous zucchini), protein (an egg), and grains (I even use part whole wheat flour). And I don't eat dairy, so that's all the necessary food groups right there. Makes you wonder why anybody ever eats anything else.

Part 3: I Suck at Kickball, or Maybe Kickball Just Sucks

It just might be the easiest team sport ever, yet I managed to take myself out of the game during my second inning by tripping at a run over a pathetically small mound of dirt and narrowly averting a total faceplant. Now my bad knee is worse. I think in future I'll stick to safer sports, like slacklining and rock climbing.

Part 4: Summer Blockbusters

Even though sequels are rarely brilliant, I've been looking forward to Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness. I thoroughly enjoyed their predecessors and I was prepared for more of the same, if somewhat watered-down, which is pretty much what I got. Of the two, I think Iron Man 3 is the better film. The reveal in IM3 actually surprised me, unlike the total non-surprise of STID. Also, I've emotionally invested in the Marvel universe's characters in a way that I have yet to do with anybody but maybe Spock in the Abrams Star Trek universe, so that helps. I really like what they've done with Tony Stark's character arc, though I'm not sure how much character development is left for him at this point--enough to get him through Avengers 2, I hope. Iron Man 3 wasn't as good as 1 and 2, but I'll happily add it to my collection. I think STID was worth the price of admission, but Benedict Cumberbatch aside, I'm not all that eager to watch it again.

Part 5: Books!

My pile of grad student reading is so large that I feel guilty about reading for fun, but lately I've been really wanting to re-read Dune. Plus, I borrowed In the Beginning Was the Command Line from a friend the other day. Decisions, decisions....