50th Post! Whipped Cream a la Port and Dark Chocolate

My 50th post?!  This calls for a celebratory and EMBARRASSINGLY SIMPLE recipe.

A client asked me about Portland Palates today: "where do I find the time?"

I guess I've always been like my dad in this way.  Every 5-10 years (he has a little more experience than I) we discover a new hobby that we devote ourselves to and fall in love with.  For him it went: triathlon, country music, roses, wine, travel, and my latest prediction is photography (you should see the text pics he sends me on his less than impressive flip phone.)  Our hobbies don't die off, but just expand to new and different, while still staying loyal to the old.


For me, the list more recently goes: guitar, athletic training, running, mentoring teenagers, cooking, and now food blogging.  Who knows what's next?  Either way- the recipes keep coming and this won't be dying off anytime soon.

We had another cold front move through Portland.  We drove up to the frozen Multnomah Falls.  It's still green, but the iced splash was breathtaking.

Sometimes I get a picture of what our children might look like.  Haha, I love this innocent but excited look on Chris.

We returned home to throw some leftovers together.  And then the thought came to me: is it possible to fancy up whipped cream with leftovers?  We had the end of a bottle of Port, the end of the cream and some fruit that needed to be eaten.  NOT A PROBLEM.

Seriously, how bad could it.... wait a second!  Dark chocolate too?!

So call it indulgent, or call it genius.

Whipped Cream a la Port and Dark Chocolate


1 cup heavy whipping cream
a sprinking of sugar
2 tbls Port
1 tbls Hershey's Dark Chocolate Syrup
Fruit of your choice

Sprinkle some sugar into the cream.

Add your Port.  Port is a sweeter dessert wine that is usually fortified with brandy and aged.  A Ruby Port is less than 7 years old and a Tawny Port is older than 7 years.  Tawny is always my favorite.  So much depth.  Some of our favorites come from wineries in California, but we decided to see how Trader Joe's did with their off the shelf variety.  We were SO IMPRESSED?!  And for cheap(er) too!

Oh right... back to the main event...

Whip until stiff peaks stand, but just enough.  We don't want butter, but I do like my whipped cream quite firm.

Chocolate and Port are a match made it heaven.  And we're already in over our heads here with the indulgence, so go ahead and add the chocolate.  Not too much if you want to taste the Port.

This was so simple.  So good.  I'm really not kidding this time.  It had me at the first taste.  And the last.