Over a month ago, my wine club sent me two bottles of port. I opened it and tasted it. YUCK! This stuff is horrible. So I thought I’ll cook with it. Double YUCK! Everything I made with it was horrible. Until today…
This is Strawberry Port sauce on top of home-made pink meringues with home-made vanilla birthday cake ice cream.
For the meringues, I used the left over egg whites I had from the ice cream. I whipped the heck out of them, added some sugar and vanilla, and just a few grains of my favorite Indian red food coloring to make it pink. I then baked them for about 30 minutes and let them cool. The outside is flakey while the inside is marshmallowy and chewy.
For the ice cream, it was a very typical vanilla custard ice cream mixture except for one thing. I added the left over birthday cake that I got from Angus Barn. By now, the cake was very stale. But after I cut it up and put it into the ice cream mix, you would never know the difference.
But the thing that impressed me the most was the taste of the strawberry port syrup I made. It was actually very simple. I took about a cup of port and brought it to a simmer. Then I added about a pound of cut up strawberries. I simmered that for about 20 minutes until the strawberries got soft. I added just a hint of brown sugar at the end. Finally, I strained it and chilled it. It’s slightly sweet and you can tell it’s strawberry. But it also has a flavor that’s hard to describe.
I guess in the end I found a use for the remaining port. Next I have to try it with raspberries!
