A really souperb desert

People always talk about being able to throw a few things together in minutes and have a great meal.  I have never believed this.  I’m the type who spends at least a week planning the menu if I’m going to have guests.  I can obsess at great length about every aspect of the meal and I work myself into a special frenzy over the desert, knowing I’m going to make something too rich but really wanting an excuse to create something decadent.

Last night I realized that those people with their throwaway comments about just pulling together a meal in moments might actually be right.  It just takes a good pantry and the right recipe.

In this case my pantry included a few jars of Cherries in Wine that I put up last summer.  I guess I put in my time then because I remember an awfully long time spent pitting the damn things.  I used a recipe from Eugenia Bone’s Well Preserved.  One thing I love about this book is that for each main recipe for a preserved food, there are three recipes for using what you have just put up.

And so in two easy steps I made a fancy desert: Cherry soup with Mascarpone.  The soup is basically just a can of the cherries in wine sauce pureed in the blender, strained and served with a dollop of mascarpone topping (1 cup mascarpone, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp almond extract).  I saved a few of the whole cherries to use as a garnish which looked really pretty.  The wine soup is very winey, a totally sophisticated taste, and I was glad to have the sweet creamy balance of the mascarpone to top it off.  I was also glad to have the tiny red cups and saucers to serve it in!