Recipe Recap #30

Hello friends! Happy Tuesday to you!  My regular day for sharing my weekly Recipe Recap here at Addicted to Recipes.  Today I am looking back at the recipes I posted the week of August 25 - 31, 2012.  Here we go...

Italian Cream Soda

Banana Blueberry Muffins

Top 10 Recipes from 2012

It's countdown time!  It's New Year's Eve!  A day all about counting down...and time to add my Top 10 of 2012 into the mix!  What a great year with so many fabulous recipes - both that I found and tried, and all those fantastic recipe at my weekly Scrumptious Sunday Recipe Link Party!  Thank you for helping me maintain my addiction.

Here are my Top 10 Recipes of 2012, as picked by you, my readers! (Click on the recipe name to take you to the full recipe!)

10) Nanaimo Bar Ice Cream Cake

 

9) Carrot Pineapple Raisin Bran Muffins

8) Italian Cream Soda

7) Fudgy Nutella Brownies with Cream Cheese Icing

6) Baked Not Fried French Fries

 

5)  Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

4) Chicken Pot Pie Cupcakes

3) Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork Sandwiches

2) Spaghetti Squash Casserole

1) German Apple Cake

 

 

Wishing each and every one of you a very Happy New Year's!  Have a safe, fun-filled evening!

 

Italian Cream Soda

At the beginning of the summer, Ann at Sumptuous Spoonfuls shared the recipe for Very Berry Italian Cream Soda.  I picked it as one of my features from Scrumptious Sunday that week...how could I not?  Cream soda, my favourite soda from when I was a kid!  And her photos looked so tasty.  And it was the start of summer, and this summer I made sure we enjoyed all sorts of new summery beverages!  So, not too long after featuring the recipe, we made it....and well...the verdict is below!  Here is the recipe that I used (a little different than the original...we don't have mulberries here, and I didn't substitute any other berries):

Syrup:
Strawberries - approx 1 lb fresh - washed and cut up
Handful of fresh basil leaves - washed
1 cup water
1/2 cup - 3/4 cup sugar (sweeten to taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a saucepan, put the strawberries, basil, water, sugar and vanilla.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Stir occasionally.  Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the berries break down, approximately 15 minutes.  The sauce will be bright red.  Strain the syrup (I strained a few times) and pour into a glass container.  Refrigerate. 

Once the syrup is cool, you are ready to make your cream soda!  Here is what you will need:

Glass
Ice
1/2 cup Club Soda
3 tablespoons syrup (we like ours sweet)
2 tablespoons half & half

Fill your glass with ice.  Add in the club soda and syrup.  Pour the cream over top (and like Ann tells us, watch the beautiful art that the cream makes in the glass!).  Stir, and enjoy!

VERDICT:
These were so so so tasty.  A hit with the whole family!  (well, the baby is too young to have soda)  Ann shared a winner!  We enjoyed several of these over the summer (thanks to a wonderful crop of strawberries and basil in our garden!). I liked mine a little more berry-ful than the orginal recipe - so I often used 3-4 tablespoons on the syrup in my soda.