Raspberry & Pear Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

During our cruise we had a really nice raspberry salad one night with a raspberry dressing.  So when I came home I wanted to create something like that at home.  I really grew to love raspberries on this trip.  They had the sweetest berries on the trip.  For the salad you can pretty much add what you like. I like the nice dark spring greens.  I added some sliced red pear, raspberries, and red bell peppers.  I meant to add some sugared pecans but forgot.  You could also add some feta cheese,  It makes a nice spring salad. 

Isn't that a pretty salad?  Fruit added to salads are really nice. 

Okay this is all you need for the raspberry dressing.  Look at those berries.  I have since bought more just to eat on.  They are really good for you too.

I used my bullit jar with my food processor but you could use an immersion blender if you like.  Add about 1/2 cup fresh raspberries. I didn't measure.

1/2 cup olive oil

3 Tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar.  I really like balsamic vinegar.  It gives it a little bite.

Add a little honey and salt and pepper.

Then blend it.  Isn't that pretty.  You could strain out the seeds but I really didn't notice a lot of seeds in the dressing.  Actually I didn't want to go to the trouble.

Dress your salad and enjoy.  You can store the dressing in a sealed jar in the fridge.

Raspberry Vinaigrette Recipe

1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup olive oil
3 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon Balsamic vinegar
honey
salt and pepper

Best Chocolate Frosting

Valentine's Day is here and what goes better with Valentine's Day than chocolate?  I found this recipe and it said best chocolate frosting so you know I had to see if they were correct.  It might not be the best but it was one of the easist that I have tried.  Don't get me wrong it is very good.  Very fudgy.  So add a little decoration to it and back up a sweet treat for your Valentine.

A little sprinkles and a heart shaped piece of chocolate is all you need to dress up these cupcakes.  

 The nice thing about this recipe is that you do not have to soften the butter.  That takes planning.

 Take 10 Tablespoons of butter- that is one stick and 2 Tablespoons.

 1 1/4 cup cocoa

 Melt the butter

 Add the cocoa

 Stir it until it is nice and fudgy.

 Now you are going to move to your mixer.  You are going to add 5 1/4 cups of powdered sugar alternately with

 2/3 cup milk

 So I added one cup sugar and the cocoa mixture to the mixer. I added a little milk and continued to do this until it was all added.

 Then I added 2 teaspoons vanilla.  And mixed that well.

 After everything is mixed turn the mixer up and let it whip it for about 5 minutes. Doesn't that look good.

 To make the pretty rose patter in the icing I used a large star tip with a pastry bag.  Start in the middle and swirl around.

Add some heart sprinkles or whatever the occasion might be and  add a heart. Conversation hearts would work too.

Best Chocolate Frosting Recipe

10 Tablespoons butter
1 1/4 cups cocoa
5 1/4 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoon vanilla
Melt butter then add cocoa.
Alternate the powdered sugar and milk until all is added.  Add the vanilla.  Then whip the icing for about 5 minutes.

Cruising with the Grobmyers

We have just returned from our second Disney cruise.  We are wondering why we have not discovered cruising before now.  We had a great time touring the Eastern Caribbean. We had perfect weather, great food, lovely scenery, and met some wonderful people.  And there were a few Disney characters thrown in too.  This was the second year of the Star Wars Day at Sea cruises. There were lots of Star Wars activities for us to participate in too.  There was even a special menu that night.  But now on to the food.

This is a picture of our wonderful, attentive servers and our tablemates for the week. We had such a nice time getting to know all these fascinating people.  We look forward to our paths crossing again some day.

 This was a really good salad from the first night.  The pecans had a sugar glaze on them.  Very nice.

 Potato soup

 A beef dish

 Some kind of fish.

 A nice little sampler plater of desserts

 A chocolate tort cake.

 For lunch every day they had a chilled soup.  I enjoyed trying the different ones.  This was the chilled mango soup.

 Seafood sampler plate.

 This was a raspberry salad with raspberry dressing.  It was very good and I am going to try and make this at home.  the raspberries were so sweet and huge.

 Prime rib

 Scallops

 Another dessert sampler.

 A chocolate dessert

 Even the plates have hidden Mickeys

 Chilled strawberry soup.  It was very good also.

 Sausage lentil soup

 Classic reuben

 The napkins were always presented in an interesting way at dinner.

 Shrimp

 Salmon

 Beef tenderloin

 Creme brûlée

 Apple strudel

 Napkin boots

 Macaroni cheese soup

 Banana bread pudding

 Chilled creamed pineapple soup

 Chicken salad wrap

 Mango mousse cake

 Coconut cream tart

 Shrimp

 Chicken fettuccine- The peppers and onions were so sweet.

 Lobster tails.  They tell us they are the largest lobster tails in the cruise industry.

 Chocolate lava cake

 I had this for lunch one day but I don't remember what kind of beef it was.

 Cherry crepes

 Pistachio mousse

 Beef empanadas

 Cheese soufflé

 One of the spinach salads

 Their version of fried chicken and biscuits.

 A nice steak.

 An ice cream sundae with caramel corn on top. Han Solo in carbonate in chocolate.

 Red velvet cake

 White cheese broccoli soup.  Very nice.

And their version of strawberry shortcake.

As you can see we ate very well on this cruise.  The presentation was always interesting and pretty.  Now we are back home to reality where I have to cook and clean up my mess.  I could get use to someone else doing the cooking and cleaning.