Been messing around with pannacotta and this one comes up as my favourite.

Folks around here keep telling me the local food has been wonderful. Perfect peaches! Amazing watermelon! The BEST corn! Wonderful blueberries!!

Well, here is my opinion of these same local foods: Mealy. Watery. Tough. Bitter.

I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe at times. Or else my tastebuds are on sabbatical.

PS: I remember so fondly going out to the food stalls on Grandville Island in Vancouver and getting perfectly mounded boxes of fruit. Oh...the cherries!

1787397276158.png
 
Last edited:
I am particularly fond of this version.
Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Adapted from Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Servings: Makes 6

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Assorted frozen berries (such as blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries), thawed

STEPS

1) our 2 tablespoons water into small bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Lightly spray six 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups with nonstick spray.

2) Heat cream, lemon peel, and sugar in medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring just to low boil, stirring occasionally. Add gelatin mixture; remove from heat. Stir until gelatin dissolves. Cool mixture to lukewarm, stirring often. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla; divide mixture among prepared ramekins. Refrigerate panna cotta until set, about 4 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

3) Using small sharp knife, cut around panna cotta in each ramekin. Place plate atop each ramekin and invert, allowing panna cotta to settle onto plate. Top with berries and serve chilled.
 
People don’t know how good fruit can be because they’ve never had it. When I go to the farmers market, to the peach guy stand, he usually has about seven different kinds of peaches cut up so you can taste them. I always hold back and try to duck behind people so he doesn’t ask me what I think of it. I swear there’s only about a two week window where peaches are decent.
 
PS: I remember so fondly going out to the food stalls on Grandville Island in Vancouver and getting perfectly mounded boxes of fruit. Oh...the cherries!

I thought the blueberries we got here were excellent until I tasted the blueberries in Vancouver, when we visited my sister in July. But the cherries I got here at Publix were often as good as those in Vancouver.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20260731_123227258_HDR.jpg
    IMG_20260731_123227258_HDR.jpg
    5.3 MB · Views: 1
I thought the blueberries we got here were excellent until I tasted the blueberries in Vancouver, when we visited my sister in July. But the cherries I got here at Publix were often as good as those in Vancouver.

Oh the blueberries! Friend and I went to Oregon to visit my friend’s sister who was in the path of totality for a solar eclipse several years back. (Bucket list item) When she served some fruit with breakfast, I literally asked what these things were the tasted so good. They were blueberries, but not like any blueberry I’d ever tasted in California. They were so good that we went to the U pick blueberry farm where she got them and spent half a day picking blueberries that my friend and I packed the car with in a cooler for the drive home. Pounds and pounds of them. I was hoarding them in my freezer when a power outage created freezer burn after I only made a few batches of muffins. She since moved out of Oregon and I no longer have a blueberry connection. But I swoon at the thought of them.. I think the variety was called New Jersey.

When I was a kid, the neighbor next-door had the best cherry tree, and when the new neighbors moved in, they foolishly cut it down. We do get very good cherries here though, friends of my parents had a cherry orchard and I used to cut through one to walk to high school.
 
By the way, I also put a layer of 'Marron Whiskey' (pronounced marrrrrron wheeskee) across the top of the pannacotta. It was a superb addition. Chestnut puree with whiskey. It's expensive and was a gift from France so was glad that the choice I made worked well.
I am particularly fond of this version.
Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Adapted from Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Servings: Makes 6

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Assorted frozen berries (such as blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries), thawed

STEPS

1) our 2 tablespoons water into small bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Lightly spray six 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups with nonstick spray.

2) Heat cream, lemon peel, and sugar in medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring just to low boil, stirring occasionally. Add gelatin mixture; remove from heat. Stir until gelatin dissolves. Cool mixture to lukewarm, stirring often. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla; divide mixture among prepared ramekins. Refrigerate panna cotta until set, about 4 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

3) Using small sharp knife, cut around panna cotta in each ramekin. Place plate atop each ramekin and invert, allowing panna cotta to settle onto plate. Top with berries and serve chilled.
A nieghbour just knocked on my door with 2 c. of fresh buttermilk. She makes butter.

So I will give your recipe a try.

Best blueberries are the back-breaking-to-pick wild ones. On very short stems among the rocks with the sun slamming down on them. They just explode with flavour. But one has to fight the bears for them and it seems right to leave them for the bears. I cottaged all through my kidhood with bears all around but never grew to like/trust them much.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top