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Preparing a Delicious Strawberry Pie

There are many things to be considered when you make a pie. First of all, make sure that all the ingredients are cold. The butter should be cubed and it is best if you could chill the flour before you make the pie. Use ice water while you prepare the pie crust. If you use warm ingredients, the result will be a tough tart crust. This is a step that should not be ignored. Plus whenever you use fruit, make sure that it is well ripened. You can make a nice flavorful pie, if you use the fruits that are seasonal, especially when you are making a strawberry pie. Listed below are two different ways you could prepare the strawberry pie.

Recipe 1

Ingredients required for this strawberry tart are:

Baked pie crust of 9 inch - 1Fresh strawberries - 1 quartWhite sugar - 1 cCornstarch - 3 spoonsWater - ¾ cHeavy whipping cream - ½ c

Preparation: In a pastry shell, arrange half of the strawberries. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar with berries after mashing it. Over medium heat, place the saucepan and bring it to a boil while stirring frequently. Whisk together water and cornstarch in a small bowl. Into the boiling strawberry mixture, slowly stir in the cornstarch mixture. Lower the heat and simmer the mixture till it thickens for about 10 minutes while you stir continuously. In the pastry shell, over the berries, pour the mixture. Before serving, chill the strawberry pie for several hours. Whip cream in a small bowl and serve this pie along with the whipped cream.

Recipe 2

Ingredients required for this strawberry tart are:

Roll-out pie crust - 2 sheetsMelted butter - 2 spoonsFor topping the crust, white sanding sugarWashed and hulled strawberries - 5 cGranulated sugar - ½ cCornstarch - 3 spoonsA pinch of salt

Preparation: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. First you have to roll out the pie crust and place it in a plate of 9 inch size and crimp the edges so that it gives the presentation a pretty look. Cut the second sheet after rolling it out into ½ inch thick strips using a pastry wheel or knife. Mix together all the ingredients for filling in a medium bowl and pour them into the pie crust. In a lattice pattern, arrange the strips over the pie top, tucking in the edges. Using melted butter, brush the top and sprinkle the sanding sugar. For 25 minutes, bakes the strawberry pie and then lower the temperature to 300 degrees F. Bake for another half an hour or till the top turns golden brown in color. Allow it to cool before you serve it along with strawberry whipped cream.

Strawberry whipped cream:

Ingredients:

Whipping cream - ¾ cVanilla extract - ½ tspConfectioners' sugar - 2 spoonsStrawberry jam - ¼ c

Preparation: In a medium bowl, beat the heavy cream till it thickens. Add the confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Continue to beat. Add jam and beat till firm peaks are formed.

If you want to learn some new and interesting strawberry pie(or as it's known in Denmark jordb?rt?rte ) recipes, then I can recommend you to take advantage from some of the best in this branche, that you can find at Isabellas place .
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Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach

Kiss Me First
by Lottie Moggach

Trade Paperback, 320 pages

Wow. The novel meets the new world of online lives.

A sheltered, intelligent yet socially stunted young women lives for her mother and her World of Warcraft, spending most of her time indoors. When her mother dies, she holes up in a new apartment and discovers a new online world - one of ethics, philosophy and new kinds of thinking.

As she gets deeper into the new Red Pill Forum (named after the choice made in The Matrix, to not be asleep to reality anymore), she is convinced to take over the online persona of a beautiful and vibrant somewhat older woman. One who wants to disappear.

Leila learns everything she can about enigmatic Tess in order to become her online. Soon she is responding and corresponding as Tess, her new persona becoming second nature.

But as she gets deeper into Tess's life, Leila forms her own attachments and finds herself embroiled in a new world of love, lies, depression and obsession.

A nothing-is-quite-like-it-seems novel that does a marvelous job of revealing human hopes and flaws along a fascinating new storyline. 


Author

A London native from a family of acclaimed writers, LOTTIE MOGGACH attended Sussex University before she began a career in journalism at The Times. There, she worked as a feature writer, book reviewer, and columnist for several years. She currently publishes in a variety of newspapers and magazines including the Financial Times, Time Out, ELLE, GQ, and others.

Kiss Me First is her first novel.

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Dine LA Menu Preview: Loteria Grill, Summer 2013

Mark your calendars for this summer's Dine LA Restaurant Week on July 15-26. To help you decide where to go, here's a preview of Loteria Grill's Restaurant Week dinner menu, available at their Studio City, Santa Monica, and Hollywood locations.

The Loteria Grill menu is $35 for 3 courses and there are three choices for appetizers:
Huarache Azul de Medallon de Res (blue corn masa oval disk with black beans, grilled beef medallion, roasted tomatillo and Poblano salsa, queso anejo, cilantro, onion)
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Cuarteto de Sopecitos de Camaron (four mini shrimp sopes, two with Morita salsa, two with salsa verde cruda, black beans, avocado, crema Mexicana)
Mini Sopes
I really liked the sopecitos and we argued which salsa we liked better. The morita is creamier while the salsa verde had a fresher taste.

The vegetarian option is Crema de Elote (cream of white corn soup, roasted corn, Poblano chile strips, quesillo de Oaxaca, crispy corn tortilla)
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The slightly sweet corn soup is poured over the cheese, corn, chile, and tortilla so that the cheese melts.
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Bison Fondue at Walliser Stube, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise (Alberta, Canada)

Walliser Stube at The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise serves fondues and Swiss-German dishes. What does Lake Louise have to do with Switzerland and why does Chateau Lake Louise have a Swiss restaurant inside the restaurant? So Lake Louise is where Canadians first delve into mountaineering and after one fell to his death while climbing, Canadian Pacific hired professional mountain guides from Switzerland to lead guests.
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The restaurant is divided into a few dining rooms. The one we were in is pretty casual. You can get a set menu with appetizers and fondue or you can order a la carte.
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Bread service

The non-fondue menu changes seasonally and appetizers may include things like Rabbit and Cornish hen pave wrapped in leek, with sweetbreads
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Some are pretty much mainstays, though, like the "Jager" Forest Mushroom Spatzle Skillet (housemade spatzle/dumplings, sauteed wild mushrooms, arugula, onion, gruyere cream sauce, emmental gratin
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The dish is quite rich and satisfying.
sauces
Main entrees include dishes with local trout, local Alberta beef rib tenderloin and bison rib eye, and Wiener Schnitzel. But, I had to try the fondue. I'm sure most of you have had fondue before at The Melting Pot or some other place. There's the well-known cheese fondue, and there's also the meat fondue cooked in beef bouillon, served with a variety of sauces as shown on the left. My favorite is the herb and garlic sauce.

The cheese fondue is made of Gruyere, Emmental, Appenzeller cheese, and white wine. The finishing touch is of your choice, with the traditional choice being Kirsch, a type of cherry brandy. I, of course, chose black truffle! Black truffle shavings in my cheese fondue, yum.
Truffle Fondue

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Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, Canada

One can easily see why Fairmont decided to build Chateau Lake Louise where it is: right next to mirror-like Lake Louise, surrounded by the snow-capped mountain of Banff National Park. Everything is reflected upon the water of Lake Louise with astounding clarity.
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To enjoy Lake Louise, all you have to do is exit the back doors of the Fairmont hotel.
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The Chateau is surprisingly a great base for nature and hiking lovers. There are trails accessible both to the left and right of this point. There's an overlook a short hike to the left. To the right there's a walking trail that goes to the other end of the lake (one hour round trip) and along the way are access points to other, longer trails including Lake Agnes (4.4 miles)
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The Fire Witness by Lars Kepler

A Joona Linna Thriller
by Lars Kepler

Hardcover, 512 pages

Psychologically tense and as fast-paced as The Hypnotist, the third book in the Joona Linna series by Lars Kepler is already a worldwide sensation, appealing to fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.

I don't know how they do it, but these Lars Kepler books just keep getting more dark, more intense and more deeply disturbing. I love them! You don't just read them and walk away, you go through every psychological twist and turn and are left contemplating what you have just read for days. Maybe weeks.

In this third Joona Linna novel, Detective Inspector Linna is facing sanctions for his previous behaviours and may even be looking at losing his job. Not one to rest for too long, he finds himself acting as observer in a brutal and complicated murder in a home for troubled young women.

His unofficial status both hampers and helps his ability to weave his way into the investigation and tries to figure out just what the hell happened and stop it from happening again.

Dark. Distubing. Brilliant.



Author
Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril & Alexander Ahndoril, both critically-acclaimed writers under their own names. Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril's first novel Stjärneborg (Castle of Stars) has been translated in several languages while Alexander Ahndoril's novel The Director, about Ingmar Bergman, was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The Fire Witness is the third book in a series featuring Detective Inspector Joona Linna. The author lives in Sweden.


Also by Lars Kepler: The Hypnotist and The Nightmare


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Vintage Enoteca, A Friendly Wine Bar With A Female Sommelier

Female chefs have gotten more attention lately, but it's still pretty rare to find a female sommelier. Well, you can meet one at the very approachable Vintage Enoteca in Hollywood: Danielle Francois. It's not a frou-frou wine bar, but a friendly, casual place where locals hang out or go on a date while trying some interesting wines. In fact, while Danielle is the in-house sommelier and part-owner, the other owner is also a woman.

Owners Danielle Francois and Jennifer Moore worked in advertising in New York City. Tired of the of the advertising world, they moved to Los Angeles and opened Vintage Enoteca, wanting to create "a casual environment to explore and sip interesting vino and eat simple, yet delicious tapas that complements the wine."

They opened Vintage on June 1st 2010 and Danielle went on to get her sommelier certification with The Court of Master Sommeliers. I took a look at the wine and beer list and was surprised at the number of unfamiliar names and varietals on both. I mean, I thought I've learned quite a bit about beer and wine over my blogging years, but still. There was Scheurebe from the Rheinhessen, a Grignolino from Piedmont or a Blaufrankish from Burgenland. The only word I recognize there was Piedmont!

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Anyway, I came in for a casual wine pairing dinner, starting off with a refreshing glass of Pascal Bellier "Reverie" Brut Rose from Loire Valley, France. This sparkling rose is 100% made of pinot noir grapes and going to be perfect in the summer months to come.

The food, as they claimed, is simple and affordable. The small bites are $6 and all the salads, flatbreads, and paninis are $10.

While it wasn't on the tasting menu, one of the other writers had heard a lot of their Crispy Duck Cracklings Salad ($10) and wanted to try it. The salad was composed of blue cheese, blistered baby tomatoes, arugula, creme fraiche dressing, and topped with duck cracklings.
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I'm glad we got to try this salad, tossed with the right amount of dressing. Of course, it's the duck cracklings that made it special.

Asparagus Salad (English pea, pickled fennel, chorizo chips, herb anchovy vinaigrette - $10)
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This was paired with Palomino: La Cigarrera Manzanilla NV, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain.
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Nope, not a white wine. This is a sherry! This dry sherry pairs very well with the anchovy vinaigrette, cutting the saltiness and fishiness. Danielle explains that the dry sherry pairs well in general with salty snacks.
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