Yes, I know. I’m a little late posting about my end of year local dinner. I’m a procrastinator. But better late than never right?
I had a general idea of what we would be having for dinner on New Year’s Eve. After heading out to the county and picking up a few ingredients, we came home with some really great things to add to the menu.
For appetizers, we served up some great tasting goat cheese from the London area. We diced up some kielbasa and pepperettes that we picked up from Souilliere Sausage and added local pickled asparagus.
Now, I know that I promised to post pictures but, ummm…I was so into eating that it wasn’t until I had devoured an entire bowl of brown butter risotto with lobster and was halfway through my local steak and potatoes (which were from Ontario by the way) that Sean commented on how nice it was to sit through a meal without me snapping away and turning the whole dinner into a photo shoot. This is the point where I hear a screeching sound in my head as if someone has scraped the needle off the record. The camera!!
Now while the local steaks were good, I wish you could have seen that risotto. Dam!! It was good! We picked up a few wild Canadian lobsters at the grocers, steamed them, gave them a rough chop and then served them over top a warm brown butter risotto that was to die for! It was almost better than dessert! Almost.
Check out this sweet dessert! Individual tiramisus served up in martini glasses that we got as a gift from Kelly at Slice of Style!
The recipe is super easy and tasty. I swear I could have eaten all four of these. Deeeeeeeelish! While watching a Gordon Ramsey program on t.v. one night, I saw him whip up these babies and knew I had to give it a try. My mom makes tiramisu all the time but putting them in individual glasses was just perfect for a dinner of four. You can take a look at the original recipe here but I’ve written it out below and roughly converted the measurements.
At the end of the night we had a great meal and celebrated with a glass of a’Dorah sparkling wine from Mastronardi. It was the end of a great year and the beginning of new possibilities. I think 2010 is going to be an exciting time for Windsor and Essex County, full of change and I am ready for it! I hope everyone had a great 2009 and cheers to an even better 2010!
Individual TiraMiSu
adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s version
- 1 cup mascarpone
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp Marsala (I ended up using a wee bit more…okay…alot more)
- 1/2 cup espresso, cooled to room temperature
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 4 tbsp icing sugar
- 16 sponge fingers (savoiardi)
- Cocoa powder, to dust
Whisk the mascarpone with the vanilla and Marsala and about 3 tablespoons of the coffee, until everything is thoroughly mixed together. Whisk the cream with the icing sugar until smooth, then fold in the mascarpone mix.
Pour the remaining coffee into a bowl. Take one sponge finger at a time and dip it in to the coffee. Set it to one side and continue with the remaining biscuits. Don’t let them sit too long in the coffee or they’ll get soggy. I used regular lady finger cookies here and they are just as tasty.
Line 4 serving glasses with 4 sponge fingers, breaking them in half if you need to. The cookies I bought were quite large so I actually only ended up using 2 cookies per glass. Spoon the mascarpone mix in until you reach the top of the glass. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.
Remove the tiramisu from the fridge. Dust with sifted cocoa powder, serve and enjoy!
