Hungarian Mushroom Soup: Indulgent Comfort Food for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

Hungarian Mushroom Soup might seem a bit more fall or winterish when it's nearly May but it is a soup that I crave since it's perfect comfort food, and my work was giving out near-date foods including 5-lb containers of sour cream. I split one tub with my co-worker, but that still left me with almost 3 pounds of sour cream to go through and I wanted a soup recipe that would utilize at least some of my bounty. Other than the mushrooms which I grabbed at the store with a few other fresh items for the week, I had the rest of the ingredients in my fridge and pantry.

This recipe is modified from the Old Wives Tale Hungarian Mushroom Soup recipe from Food Network. Old Wives Tale was a Portland, Oregon restaurant and this was my favorite dish from there. My roommate and I used to grab it to go. The recipe online is for 12-16 servings-far too much of this rich and decadent soup, so I cut it down by about 1/3--the quantities I used are below, and made a few modifications for optimum flavor. I originally posted this recipe in December 2008, the first year of my blog which turned 12-years-old this month. (I can't believe it's been 12 years!)

Hungarian Mushroom Soup
Slightly Modified from Old Wives Tale, Portland, OR
(Serves 6)

Soup:
2 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 lb mushrooms (cremini), cleaned well and sliced
3 Tbsp fresh dill (I used freeze-dried)
2 1/2 Tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika 
3 Tbsp soy sauce or tamarin
4 cups water or mushroom broth
roux (see ingredients/recipe below)
1 pint sour cream
2 Tbsp lemon juice, or to taste
sea salt and black pepper

Roux:
4 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp flour
2 cups whole milk

Melt butter in a large heavy-bottom soup pot. Add the onions, and saute until softened. Add the mushrooms, saute until juice is rendered out. Add the dill and paprika and mix well. Add tamari and water or broth, bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer, cooking for about 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile in a large pan, make the roux by melting the butter and stirring in the flour until it browns slightly. Whisk in the milk gradually, careful to remove any lumps. Cook about 8 minutes. Add in a ladle of the hot soup liquid and continue whisking. Add the water-smoothed roux to kettle and simmer until it thickens, about 10 minutes or until it coats the back of a spoon. Lower the heat (do not boil soup) and whisk in the sour cream until well blended. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Notes/Results: Just as good as I remembered. I love how rich and velvety this soup is but the sour cream, dill and pop of acidity from the lemon juice I added keep it from being too much. It definitely has calories and fat, but it is worth it and although I have made a couple very good vegan and healthy versions, there is something special about this one that makes it worth indulging. I will happily enjoy this for lunches at work and working from home this week.

Let's see who is in the Souper Sundays kitchen this week! 

Shaheen of Allotment2Kitchen shares Orange and Carrot Soup and said, "I am not normally into sweet soups, but I enjoyed as it was not overly candied.  The orange gave the soup a citrus lift.  This was originally a Lemon and Carrot Soup, but I substituted the lemons with oranges."

Debra of Eliot's Eats brought Chickpea Salad and said, "The Chickpea Salad is simple and delicious with raw green beans, tomatoes, red onion, and chickpeas. The dressing is an apple cider vinaigrette with thyme and oregano. I loved it. (Warning though, the recipe yields four very small servings. You might want to double it.) This salad could be very versatile as well. I’m thinking about throwing in edamame and carrots. It’s a tart salad, too, which is fine with me but you might want to throw a little honey into the vinaigrette."

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog made Pandemic Carrot Peanut Soup, saying, "I had 5 pounds (plus) of carrots, so I started looking for carrot recipes. I made a carrot cumin seed recipe last week and was running out of carrot soup ideas. It's been challenging to keep using the same vegetables over and over in my recipes. I find that root vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes, have been keeping the longest in my pantry. ... My friend Yda told me about a recipe for carrot peanut soup. It sounded intriguing, so I thought I would give it a try. However, I had to make up my own recipe, and just use the ingredient's I had in my kitchen. I won't be going grocery shopping for at least 5 more days. I am trying to use up as much as I already have before I venture into a store unnecessarily during this pandemic."

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor shared Beef Vegetable Soup and Homemade Chicken Salad and said, "Today I will share a hodgepodge of soup and sandwiches we have been preparing and eating during the past two weeks. I sometimes miss grabbing a bite out and getting Thai or Indian or Greek...that was before and one day I know we will all get back to business as usual. ... Ok, lunch on the patio: Here we have a beef vegetable soup stocked with so many veggies and fresh baguette."

And... "Homemade chicken salad with lots of tomatoes on toasted potato bread."

Thank you to Shaheen, Debra, Judee, & Tina for joining me this week!

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.
If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The German Heiress" by Anika Scott, Served with a Recipe for Julia Child's Homemade Mashed Potatoes (with Butter & Parsley)

Happy Aloha Friday. Hope you are well and hanging in there this week. I am maintaining--dividing time between work and home and trying to focus on reading whenever I get a chance and can stay awake. Luckily I had no trouble staying up to finish the tense and absorbing The German Heiress, World War II historical fiction by Anika Scott. Accompanying my review is a recipe for Julia Child's Mashed Potatoes (with Butter and Parsley) inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb:

Clara Falkenberg, once Germany’s most eligible and lauded heiress, earned the nickname “the Iron Fräulein” during World War II for her role operating her family’s ironworks empire. It’s been nearly two years since the war ended and she’s left with nothing but a false identification card and a series of burning questions about her family’s past. With nowhere else to run to, she decides to return home and take refuge with her dear friend, Elisa.

Narrowly escaping a near-disastrous interrogation by a British officer who’s hell-bent on arresting her for war crimes, she arrives home to discover the city in ruins, and Elisa missing. As Clara begins tracking down Elisa, she encounters Jakob, a charismatic young man working on the black market, who, for his own reasons, is also searching for Elisa.

Clara and Jakob soon discover how they might help each other—if only they can stay ahead of the officer determined to make Clara answer for her actions during the war.
Propulsive, meticulously researched, and action-fueled, The German Heiress is a mesmerizing page-turner that questions the meaning of justice and morality, deftly shining the spotlight on the often-overlooked perspective of Germans who were caught in the crossfire of the Nazi regime and had nowhere to turn.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (April 7, 2020)

My Review:

I do love my World War II historical fiction and I am always on the lookout for books that give me a different look or perspective of the war. The German Heiress certainly does that, told from the point of German characters after the war has ended. The main character is Clara, known as The Iron Fräulein, a young German woman who ran her family's ironworks during the war and was held up as an ideal by the Nazis even if she didn't share their beliefs. Clara has hidden away for two years and is looking for her friend while on the run from a dogged British officer who seems to have a personal interest in her capture. There's Jakob who lost his leg and much of his family to the war and is trying to support his two young sisters, one with a baby on the way. There is also Willy, a teen boy who has been hiding in an abandoned mine and thinks the battle is still raging eighteen months after Germany's defeat. These three characters are dealing with the repercussions of choices they made during a time where there were really no good or easy choices to make, and they are brought together in a story full of secrets, mystery and steadily rising tension that kept me turning the pages to the end. 

This is Anika Scott's first book and it is well researched and vividly told. Being the geek that I am, I was delighted to find a mention of the author's blog Postwar Germany | 1945-1949 (where she's gathered together much of her research) on her website. If you are interested in World War II history and the German experience, both The German Heiress and her website will have you fascinated. 

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Author Notes: Anika Scott was a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Tribune before moving to Germany, where she currently lives in Essen with her husband and two daughters. She has worked in radio, taught journalism seminars at an eastern German university, and written articles for European and American publications. Originally from Michigan, she grew up in a car industry family. This is her first novel.

Find out more about Anika at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.


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Food Inspiration:

There is food in The German Heiress but not a lot--it is after all a time of war. Mentions included: bread, peppermint candy,schnapps, chestnuts, coffee and cake, pork (a character dreams of roasts, sausages, and stews thick with bacon), black bread, zwiebeck, noodles, rice, Linz marmalade, ersatz honey, turnips, dried pudding, coffee flavored chocolate, potato soup, ham, canned chopped pork, peas and carrots, soup,  fruit, beans, sugar, fish and dried meat, Knorr pea soup, sardines, vanillia pudding, eggs, bread with margarine, thin potato soup, canned carrots, turnips, chocolate, coffee with milk and biscuits, cognac, whiskey, Cadbury's Fruit and Nut bars, cookies--vanilla crescents, cinnamon stars, biscuits dented with anise and chocolates in sparkling paper, walnuts, oranges, cans of bully meat, condensed milk, oatmeal and hard biscuits, boiled sweets, wrinkled apples and lemons for tea, spices--cloves, nutmeg, peppercorns, caraway seeds, a cinnamon stick, hot toddy, marmalade and honey, and sausages. 

For my bookish dish, I decided on potatoes. When Jakob offers to get Clara lobster, oysters, and caviar, she instead asks for pork, potatoes with butter parsley sauce and white wine "as dry as a bone." Later in the book she is served a meal of meat in a bland sauce and heavenly mashed potatoes that warmed her stomach. I decided to combine the two potato dishes by adding parsley to Julia Child's Mashed Potato recipe.

Julia's Garlic Mashed Potatoes seems to be her more popular recipe but I found this one on Cookstr.com and felt like it was more in keeping with the book inspiration and my mashup of dishes. 

Cookstr says, "This easy mashed potato recipe from Julia Child will teach you everything you need to know about homemade mashed potatoes! Mashed potatoes are a staple on any holiday table, so this is an essential recipe to have in your arsenal. One of the secrets to this Homemade Mashed Potatoes recipe is to heat the milk or cream in a saucepan. Many people add cold milk to their hot potatoes, but this recipe will teach you to avoid that. Ricing the hot potatoes also help them to incorporate seamlessly with the milk, resulting in perfectly fluffy potatoes that the whole family will love." 

Julia Child's Homemade Mashed Potatoes
Slightly Adapted from The Way To Cook via Cookstr.com
(Serves 6)
4 to 5 large baking potatoes (I used 5 large Yukon Gold Potatoes)
salt
1/2 cup milk or cream, heated in a saucepan
2 or more Tbsp softened butter (I doubled the butter)
freshly ground white pepper
(I added 3 Tbsp chopped parsley)

Preliminary Cooking: You may bake or steam the potatoes whole before mashing them, or boil them in pieces as suggested here. Wash and peel the potatoes and cut into quarters. Set in a saucepan with lightly salted water to cover (l½ teaspoons salt per quart of water). Bring to the boil, cover loosely, and boil 10 to 15 minutes or longer, until potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife. Cut a piece in half and eat a bit to be sure they are just done; undercooked potatoes will not mash properly. Drain the water out of the pan (you may wish to save it for soup making); toss the potatoes over moderate heat for a moment, until they begin to film the pan; this is to evaporate excess moisture.

Mashing: While still warm, either put the potatoes through a ricer (my preference) and return to the pan, or place in the large bowl of your electric mixer and, using the wire whip attachment and moderate speed; puree them with ¼ cup of the milk and/or cream.

Seasoning: Beat in driblets of hot milk and/or cream, alternating with ½ tablespoons of butter—careful not to make them too soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste. The sooner you can serve them, the better.

Make Ahead Note: If you cannot serve at once, beat in only a minimum of milk, etc. (Turn the potatoes into a saucepan if you have used an electric mixer.) Set in another pan of hot but not simmering water, and cover the potatoes loosely—they must stay warm to retain their fresh quality, and they must have air circulation or they develop an off-taste. At serving time, bring the water to the simmer, beating the potatoes with a wooden spoon; then beat in more hot milk or cream and soft butter to your taste.

Notes/Results: Oh yeah, there's nothing wrong with super buttery, super creamy mashed potatoes and these are definitely that. Excellent comfort food and the leftovers (yes I did leave some) are going to be mixed with canned salmon, coated in panic and fried up as fish and potato cakes. I love garlic mashed potatoes and will try Julia's recipe at some point but I'd be perfectly happy making these again.

Linking up with I Heart Cooking Clubs where this month we are featuring Needs Must Cooking making any recipe we want from our current featured chef, Julia Child and/or any of our other 19 chefs, and adjusting ingredients to what we have on hand.

I'm also sharing it at the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "The German Heiress" was provided to me by the author and the publisher Harper Collins via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.  You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.

 

Chickpea Alphabet Soup: Vegan Pantry Comfort for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

I had a more exotic Persian soup planned for today but I wasn't feeling it this morning and my soup vibe was craving something simple and comforting. I had happened on bags of alphabet pasta in the ethnic food aisle on last week's grocery run and I decided to make a vegan version of chicken alphabet soup, replacing the chicken with chickpeas.

I used the veggies I had on hand--leeks, carrots & celery from the veggie drawer and frozen corn and peas. You could of course use whatever you like and have on hand and any small pasta shape or rice.

Chickpea Alphabet Soup
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Makes 6 Servings)

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, white & light green parts only, well-cleaned & sliced
2 small carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
8 cups broth (I used non-chicken bouillon + Trader Joe's Vegan Chicken-Less Seasoning)
2 tsp Trader Joes 21 Seasoning Salute
1/2 tsp celery seed
2 bay leaves
1 (15-oz) low-sodium canned chickpeas
2/3 cup frozen corn kernals
2/3 cup frozen peas
1 package (7 oz) dried alphabet pasta
sea salt and black pepper to taste
fresh chives for topping

Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed soup pot over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots and celery, and cook about 10 minutes until vegetables are softened. Add garlic and cook another minute or two. Add broth and spices and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, then add frozen corn and peas and return to a boil. Add alphabet pasta and cook according to package directions (about 7 minutes). Season soup to taste with salt and pepper, sprinkle with chopped fresh chives if desired and enjoyed. 

Notes/Results: Yep, this is what I wanted today--something simple, easy and nostalgic--the perfect comfort food soup. Alphabet pasta is always fun to eat and the chewy chickpeas make it satisfying. I enjoyed a big bowl for lunch today and look forward to taking it (or heating it up at home on my work at home days) for lunches this week. I would happily make it again. 

Let's see who is in the Souper Sundays kitchen! 

Shaheen of Allotment2Kitchen shared Sweet Potato, Sweetcorn and Red Pepper Soup and said, "...Again, its another soup made mid week for light lunch at home.This was a lightly spiced  Sweet Potato and Sweetcorn soup enhanced with red peppers. I like a bit of texture, so partly blitzed my soup with a handheld blender. It had a really nice flavour and colour."

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor brought Rye Bread and Orphan Soup and says, "Today I want to share this nice loaf of rye bread. It was baked in a loaf pan instead of a round loaf so I could make some sandwiches and toast for breakfast. Last but not least, here is a hodgepodge of veggies I am calling Orphan Soup. There were tiny bits and portions of veggies languishing in the crisper. Seven asparagus in great shape but not enough for a side dish serving. One single yellow crookneck squash, onions, a few green beans,  four ears of corn that needed cooking pronto and two boneless chicken thighs. I am not wasting anything."
  

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog made Carrot Cumin Seed Soup and said, "If you are looking for a quick, easy, and healthy soup, my carrot cumin seed soup recipe may be just what you are looking for. It's soothing, warming, and delicious. … This is a nice light soup that would taste heartier with cooked rice, cauliflower rice, cooked chick peas, or cooked gluten free noodles added to each bowl."

Thank you to Shaheen, Tina & Judy for joining me this week!

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.
If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "You and Me and Us" by Alison Hammer, Served with a Basil Arnold Palmer (Made with Ina's Fresh Lemonade)

It's Friday! Isn't it odd how much the days run together with the whole social distancing/stay home thing? And I say that as someone who is dividing my days being at the office and working from home. If I didn't have a couple of set days where I venture to work (in my mask of course), I feel like I'd have no idea if it was Friday or Tuesday or Saturday. But Friday it is, and I'm happy to be celebrating it by being today's stop on the TLC Book Tour for You and Me and Us by Alison Hammer. Accompanying my review is a refreshing Basil Arnold Palmer (made with Ina Garten's Fresh Lemonade) inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Notes: 

The heartbreaking, yet hopeful, story of a mother and daughter struggling to be a family without the one person who holds them together—a perfect summer read for fans of Jojo Moyes and Marisa de los Santos.

Alexis Gold knows how to put the “work” in working mom. It’s the “mom” part that she’s been struggling with lately. Since opening her own advertising agency three years ago, Alexis has all but given up on finding a good work/life balance. Instead, she’s handed over the household reins to her supportive, loving partner, Tommy. While he’s quick to say they divide and conquer, Alexis knows that Tommy does most of the heavy lifting—especially when it comes to their teenage daughter, CeCe.

Their world changes in an instant when Tommy receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, and Alexis realizes everything she’s worked relentlessly for doesn’t matter without him. So Alexis does what Tommy has done for her almost every day since they were twelve-year-old kids in Destin, Florida—she puts him first. And when the only thing Tommy wants is to spend one last summer together at “their” beach, she puts her career on hold to make it happen…even if it means putting her family within striking distance of Tommy’s ex, an actress CeCe idolizes.

But Alexis and Tommy aren’t the only ones whose lives have been turned inside out. In addition to dealing with the normal ups and downs that come with being a teenager, CeCe is also forced to confront her feelings about Tommy’s illness—and what will happen when the one person who’s always been there for her is gone. When the magic of first love brings a bright spot to her summer, CeCe is determined not to let her mother ruin that for her, too.

As CeCe’s behavior becomes more rebellious, Alexis realizes the only thing harder for her than losing Tommy will be convincing CeCe to give her one more chance.

You and Me and Us is a beautifully written novel that examines the unexpected ways loss teaches us how to love.

Hardcover: 432 pages

Publisher: William Morrow (April 7, 2020)

My Review: 

I get to select my review books months in advance which is good and bad. It's bad because when I picked books back in December, the Coronavirus was not yet a thing and I didn't know that by March, I wouldn't want to read sad books. It's good because if I had banned sad books from my life, I would have missed You and Me and Us and that would have been a shame because it is an excellent book with some tear-jerking moments, but also plenty of hope and some humor too.  Even before you get to the back cover blurb, you know things aren't going to go well for the characters with the tagline "One Family. One Last Summer."  As the book begins we meet Alexis Gold, who is a better business owner and executive than she is a mother to her 14-year-old Cecilia (CeCe). The parenting is done by Lexie's husband Tommy, a psychologist who works from home and is there for CeCe when Lexie isn't. Lexie has been too busy to notice how bad Tommy's cough has gotten and is a bit blindsided when he tells her he has terminal lung cancer and rather than prolong the suffering for him and his family, he wants to forgo treatment and make the most of the time they have left by heading to their beach house in Destin, Florida. The place has special meaning as it's when Tommy and Lexie first met during the summers she spent with her grandmother, and it's where Lexie's best friend Jill still lives. Unfortunately, Tommie's ex-wife is also there for the summer filming a television series and CeCe is obsessed with becoming an actress and Lexie wants the woman far away from her family. The summer unfolds from the perspectives of Lexie and CeCe mostly, and their already strained relationship is in danger of fracturing more as they deal with their grief and Tommy worsens. 

OK, I made it sound like a downer, but it really isn't, instead it is a touching and beautifully written debut novel with very real characters and relatable family drama. Did I tear up? Yes, several times. Did I ugly cry? Maybe once and it was actually cathartic. Did I smile or laugh? Yes, often. Did I end up happy I read it even during a pandemic? Most definitely. The pages flew by and I was sorry to see it end as I wanted more time with this family and their friends. I really enjoyed You and Me and Us and would love to read a follow up and will look forward to more books by Alison Hammer.

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Author Notes: Founder of the Every Damn Day Writers, Alison Hammer has been spinning words to tell stories since she learned how to talk. A graduate of the University of Florida and the Creative Circus in Atlanta, she lived in nine cities before settling down in Chicago, where she works as a VP creative director at an advertising agency. You & Me & Us is her first novel.

Find out more about Alison at her website, and connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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Food Inspiration: 

There is a good amount of food in You and Me and Us as CeCe is a budding chef and Lexie's friend Jill owns a cafe/bakery. Mentions included a dinner of white fish, sauteed spinach and tiny roasted purple potatoes, sliced baguette with fresh mozzarella, Roma tomatoes and torn pieces of basil, Cheetos, onion rings, barbecue sauce, curry, Arnold Palmers, cream cheese eggs, ice cream, fried green tomatoes topped with lump crab meat, white wine, cheddar and caramel popcorn (Chicago mix), chocolate chip cookies, iced vanilla latte, cheese Danish, popcorn with fresh butter, rose wine, grilled chicken breasts marinated in olive oil, lemon, thyme, rosemary, garlic and black pepper, potatoes, pita, grape popsicles, souffle, Tropical Chicken Salad, crab cakes, cheeseburger, chips and candy, Fla-Vor-Ice pops, chocolate wedding cake with caramel icing,  string cheese, pizza, Bloody Marys, cheesecake brownies, deli platters, tea, coffee, Long Island iced tea, champagne and sparkling grape juice.

For my bookish dish, I had to go with recreating CeCe's Arnold Palmer that she "elevates" from the artificial lemonade and black tea mixes that Lexie's grandmother used by using sun tea, fresh lemonade and muddling fresh basil. The Arnold Palmer (half iced tea & half lemonade) never fails to put a smile on my face because I have a good friend who loves them and orders them frequently. The smile is because we went out to lunch at a new restaurant in Waikiki a few years ago and he ordered one--only to be informed by the waitress that they were not on the menu. He (nicely) pointed out that they had both lemonade and iced tea on the menu and requested that she ask the bartender to mix the two, and she replied that they couldn't deviate from the menu as they wouldn't be able to ring it up correctly in the register. I would have given up but he calmly ordered an ice tea and a lemonade and a glass of ice and mixed his own. We still laugh about it.

For my version of CeCe's drink, I used a basic black English Breakfast tea and for the lemonade, rather than stirring it together I used Ina Garten's blender recipe that I made and posted about two years ago (here). It's great when you don't want to make a simple syrup or bother with stirring the sugar until it dissolves and the blender pulverizes the ice so that it is nice and icy cold. I "muddled" fresh basil in a glass (Using my wooden muddler) and poured the liquid on top (mixed half-and-half). If you don't have basil, CeCe also considered rosemary and mint which would also be delicious.

Fresh Lemonade
By Ina Garten via Barefoot Contessa at FoodNetwork.com
(Yield 1 1/2 Quarts)

1 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice (5 to 6 lemons)
1/2 to 3/4 cup superfine sugar 
1 cup crushed ice
4 cups very cold water

Place all the ingredients in a blender and process until completely smooth. Serve over ice.

Notes/Results:  It's so good! I know it looks like beer in the glass because I needed to grab the natural light for the photos and didn't let my blender-made lemonade settle before I took pictures--so you can see the foam. I love the addition of the basil and it does elevate this classic drink with it's sharp herbal kick. It also brings out the toasty notes of the black tea and works well with the sweet-tart lemonade. I am happy to have a pitcher of these for the weekend. (I will "muddle my basil as I go to keep it fresh) and I think this will be my summer drink (the nonalcoholic one at least!) ;-)

Linking up with I Heart Cooking Clubs where April is a month-long Needs Must theme--cooking the ingredients we have or can get using the recipes from our 20 featured chefs. 

I'm also sharing it at the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "You and Me and Us" was provided to me by the author and the publisher Harper Collins via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.  You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.
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