Berry and Dark Chocolate “Parfait”

Summertime in the City!

Okay…sorry for being MIA for such a long time, life has been crazy…First off, it’s official, we’re buying a house! Second, we had a house guest for over a week that required a lot of extra time from us…Third, training has taken a lot of my time, preparing for a number of races in the coming weeks. However, the biggest time drain is the house purchase…

So…we are very excited to get out and do (free) activities around town this summer! This dessert was a result of one of those activities. Yummy, cheap, and oh so satisfying on a hot summer evening!Home ownership…

With it comes lots of paperwork, lots of stress, and lots of money to part with to achieve the “American Dream”.

Luckily though, we have a great Mortgage Broker that is helping us through the lending process, lots of races and work outs to help relieve the stress, and lots of free activities in the city of Houston to keep ourselves busy that is light on the pocket book!

One evening a few weekends ago, we decided to try one of those free activities downtown for a romantic date. It was a showing of the silent movie Girl Shy alongside the Two Star Symphony, sponsored by KUHF, the local NPR station (tomorrow is Metropolis…we are definitely going!). Only cost to us was the parking ($10) and the dessert that we brought (essentially free, as we used stuff we had lying around)…

The inspiration for this dessert was berries that were bound to go bad soon, whipping cream that was on sale, and dark chocolate chips (that we always have around…because…a girl needs her chocolate!).

Thus…

Ingredients:

• sliced strawberries
• blueberries
• 1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 tsp Vanilla (double strength, use 2 tsp for regular strength)
• ~0.25 cup dark chocolate chips (more or less, to taste)

Method…

Combine heavy cream and vanilla in large bowl and whip with electric hand mixer until the mixture gets enough air into it to become a whipped cream (this takes a bit of time, ~5 minutes or so, increase your hand mixer speed gradually throughout the process so it doesn’t get too messy).

Slice strawberries if you haven’t already and wash a few handfuls of blueberries.

Get out a nice resealable container if you are transporting (as I suggest, great for a picnic) to assemble your dessert for two into…

Place a layer of berries, followed by a few dollops of whipped cream, followed by more berries and a handful of chocolate chips. Top with more whipped cream and finish with another handful or so of chocolate chips.

Perfect and picnic ready! Pack with ice and you’re ready to go off to where ever you want your cheap/free date! Don’t forget to pack two spoons

Before the movie, we also did a cheap dinner of feta stuffed lamb burgers on homemade whole wheat buns and topped with homemade tzatziki. Very yummy, but that recipe will have to wait for another day…didn’t get good documentation of that and it could use just a bit more tweaking

How do you live thrifty during the summer months? What kind of free events do you attend in your area?  I’d love to hear more suggestions on how to live cheap and live it up during the summer!

Oh yeah…

Nutrition (serves 2):

• 332 cal
• 26 g fat
• 25 g carb
• 3 g fiber
• 2 g protein

Not the best choice for dessert…but certainly you could do a lot worse!