Brunch-Tastic Boozy Lemon Berry Jars

Last week S and I escaped to L.A. for an anniversary/birthday weekend with P&R.  Good times, but I wouldn’t want to live there.  The driving, the parking, the valets, the no-walking thing.  Enough with the cars already.  So now we are back in the New York groove and ready to pick it up with one good-loookin’ and smooth brunch dish.  You just know this will kill it even before the first taste.   Berries, lemon, sugared crème fraiche, mint. Yes sir, I’ll take two.

• Blueberries, raspberries, quartered strawberries.  Macerate with fresh lime juice and agave nectar.  And a splash of Grand Marnier or limoncello — allright allright.
• Lemon cream:  equal parts crème fraiche and mascarpone.  Lemon zest and juice, vanilla sugar, splash of vanilla extract.  Whip up until smooth.
• Wash mint, pick out little bunches of the best looking leaves.
• In a small Mason jar (or a glass, whatever): berries on the bottom, spoon of lemon cream over, sprinkle with granola (for some crunch).  Top with mint leaves.

Vanilla sugar is easy breezy.  Every time you scrape beans from a fresh vanilla bean, toss the pod into your sugar container.  That’s it.

The Takeaway:

This is just a gimme — simple and really good.  I served these as a starter for the Lady’s birthday brunch a couple weeks ago.  But you could do this as a dessert (maybe with a touch more of the booze).  And it lends itself to assembly-line service.  I did the berries and lemon cream ahead, and at service put out 12 of these in about a minute thirty.

p.s. Occupy Wall Street still happening here.  Last week, Kanye West and Russell Simmons spoke.  Russell has a net worth of over $500M.  Kanye wore a $350 shirt.  This week, Alec Baldwin came to support the crowd.  You may recognize him from his Capital One Bank commercials.  On my walk home Tuesday night, it was raining.  I noticed many of the OWS crowd found shelter at the McDonald’s across the street on B’way.  McDonald’s is NYSE listed with a market cap of over $91B.  One of the more interesting OWS signs recently was a big peace symbol a young woman had drawn.  Except she didn’t do the middle line all the way to the bottom of the circle.  So basically it was a Mercedes-Benz ad.  Now that’s humor…