Shuck Beans & Sweet Tea

Yum. Looks good, right?

Matt’s sister bought us a Cuisinart Ice Cream maker a few years back and I’ve barely used it so since it’s been so warm here lately, I decided this weekend would be a good time to give it a workout with Alton Brown’s Chocolate Ice Cream recipe. It’s a delicious, rich, flavorful ice cream and it’s not even that tough to make.  I’ll show you how below, with pictures even.

You’ll need:

• 1 1/2 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder, approximately 1/2 cup
• 3 cups half-and-half
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 8 large egg yolks
• 9 ounces sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• dash of salt

And of course an ice cream maker. You could try the old fashioned kind like my mom used to use, but I don’t know how it would work with this recipe. I think it should be okay though. Here’s mine:

Trust me, anything that starts with this is a good thing:

Okay, so here we go. It’s easy, I promise! I will tell you though that while it’s easy, it does take a long time to make. Give yourself a full day to get it where you want it. You’re not going to be able to whip it up as a last minute snack for the family.

Add one cup of your half and half to a medium saucepan over medium heat, along with your 1/2 cup of cocoa powder. Stir with a whisk until well-mixed. Add the rest of the half and half and your heavy whipping cream.

Bring the mixture just to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat. Set aside while you mix your egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. Whisk the eggs until they turn a pretty light yellow and then add your sugar. Mix well.

Now temper about 1/3 of the cream mixture into that.

Pour the remaining cream mix in and return to sauce pan to heat over a low flame. Stir frequently. You’ll notice it’ll start thickening up and turn a darker brown.

I had to use real self control in order to stop myself putting a straw in that and going to town. I am a saint.

Once it gets to the point that it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and has an internal temperature of 170 to 175,  we’re ready to move on. Note that it will take some time for it to thicken up, so don’t panic if you’re still stirring and stirring ten minutes in. You’ll get there. This is what you’re looking for:

Remove from heat and pour into a bowl. Alton Brown just leaves his sitting at room temp for 30 minutes, and you can do that. I chose to speed things up a little and give it an ice bath instead. You still have to leave it there for 30 minutes, but it cuts down on the amount of time in the next step.

It looks like a big ol’ bowl of puddin’ sitting there.

After your thirty minutes, remove from ice bath and add in your pure vanilla. I also added a dash of salt, though I don’t know if Alton would approve. I think the salt brings out the chocolate flavor just a little more. Alton also recommends putting the bowl in the fridge for 4 to 8 hours, but let’s be real. My boys had no intention of waiting 4 hours, much less 8 for ice cream. This is where our ice bath comes in handy. It brings the temperature around to where we need it more quickly, without ruining the consistency of our mix.  Just place the bowl in the freezer, not the fridge, for 2 hours, not 4. When you remove it it will be  thicker, but still not ice cream so add it to your ice cream maker then run for 35 minutes or so.

At this point it’s going to be soft serve and if you just can’t wait anymore, you can call it good and go for it.

We couldn’t wait so we had a bowl and it was damn good.

I put the rest in the freezer and left it over night to finish it up. That’ll get you the more traditional hard ice cream. Oh. Man, this is the best:

ENJOY!

Matt found this on another website and while he prefaced it with, “I think your eggs are just fine…” I think he’s secretly trying to tell me something. Which is okay. Cause I prefer honesty. And I’m spiking his meals with cyanide anyway, so he may as well enjoy it while it lasts!

So I didn’t invent this method and to be honest, I haven’t even tried it yet. But a lot of people swear by it, so we’ll see.

Here’s the link: Best Scrambled eggs. Evar. I’m not going to re-post it here because that person on that website did it and you can read it there and also I am lazy and don’t feel like it.

Enjoy!

Since today is Cinco De Mayo we are doing Carne Asada and Margaritas for dinner and I thought I would share my recipe since I haven’t posted anything in a while.

CARNE ASADA

For Carne Asada we marinate the meat (flank or round steak, and sliced very thin) for at least a half hour with honey, garlic, cilantro, white wine vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and Dr. Pepper or Root Beer.   This probably sounds like an odd combination but each of these items have their purpose and I wouldn’t leave anything out.   We try to do this the day before and it is delicious.  We put all of those things in the blender and then pour it over the meat in a a food saver bag and suck all the air out, this helps to marinate quicker and better.  If you don’t have a food saver you can just put in a Pyrex dish or similar, put plastic over it so it doesn’t stink up the rest of the stuff in your fridge.

The next day we take the meat out of the marinade and cook on the grill for only a few minutes at high heat.  Take off the grill and let sit for at least 5  minutes before cutting very thinly, if you cut as soon as you take off of the grill then you will lose all of the juiciness and it will be very dry.  Then put in corn tortillas warmed up on your comal, traditionally these tacos are topped with chopped onions, cilantro, a squeeze of lime, salsa and guacamole but you can add cheese and sour cream or whatever your heart desires.   I say “we” because this is usually a family project – Sam and Jeremy help a lot.

We serve this with Spanish rice and beans sometimes but sometimes we just have the tacos by themselves.

MARGARITAS

I can’t have the sugar that comes in those easy to serve mixes that most people use so here is my recipe for Margaritas. You can add Grand Marnier for a Cadillac Margarita and a premium tequila but we just use the cheap stuff and leave out the Grand Marnier.  If we have a lot of people over then I make these by the pitcher and  let everyone help themselves.

I make my own simple syrup because it is very expensive and hard to find.  It is very easy: boil two cups of water and then pour in two cups of sugar, mix with a wooden spoon let cool and store in the fridge until ready to use, you can store for up to a month.

Fill a glass with ice, add 1.5 oz of  Tequila, add 2 oz of Triple sec, top off with Roses Lime Juice and a dash of simple syrup and enjoy!  You can salt the rim first if you’d like.  I am trying to cut down on my salt intake, although I do love it!

Let me know how it turns out if any of you try these recipes.  Sorry, I am not specific with measurements. It is hard to work that way…

I got a new set of knives for my birthday! Woot! Getting older does have its privileges. Though that’s the only one I can think of at the moment.

Anyway, I had a 3 pc Wüsthof set on my Amazon wishlist, but Matt outdid himself and got me the six piece set instead. They’re bloody brilliant. I made potato soup yesterday and the new knife cut through those babies like they were made of butter. Word! I get so excited about those little things.

Made these for a game night with my brother’s family. The boys did most of the decorating, I just did the baking and nagging. Can’t make cupcakes without a healthy heaping of nagging!

Cute, huh? Recipe is easy. It’s basically just yellow cupcakes (yes, yellow is a flavor) and chocolate cupcakes for the body. Then tint your white frosting with the appropriate colors. I used yellow sprinkles for the “sesame seeds” but you can use actual sesame seeds as well. Just brush the tops very lightly with water to get them to stick.

That’s it. It’s a fun and quick little treat and the kids got a kick out of it.

Enjoy!

I was down all day with a severe migraine so when dinner came around I didn’t want to go through too much hassle. Therefore, I made my sister’s croissant chicken bake for dinner. It was easy-peasy and oh, so delicious. If you’re looking for a quick, hearty meal that can be whipped up with minimal effort, I highly endorse this one.

Here’s a quick run down of the ingredients:

• Whole, roasted chicken
• Two tubes of ready-made croissants
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 lg. can of cream of chicken soup

Start by buying a whole roasted chicken. You can roast one yourself, obviously, but because we’re going for convenience here, I purchased one already roasted. Most grocery store delis carry them. I actually picked mine up yesterday when I did my weekly grocery shopping and just stored it in the refrigerator overnight.

Strip the meat from the chicken and add one cup of shredded cheddar cheese. You can add more if you like, but I found a full cup to be plenty for us. I also tossed in a sprinkling of salt and pepper. If you want to get creative you could add some ground celery, onion flakes, parsley, etc. I didn’t try it myself because I wanted to follow the recipe my first time out, but I might next time.

After the chicken, cheese, salt and pepper are mixed you can open your croissant tubes. Again, you can go for homemade croissants here, but it defeats the purpose of “quick and easy” as a meal choice. A word of caution if you’re using ready-made croissants: don’t take the tubes out of the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them. If you allow the dough to get to room temperature it basically turns into a doughy mess that’s hard to separate. Once you’re ready to stuff them just separate all the dough triangles and scoop a healthy spoonful of the chicken into each. Roll them up and set in a casserole dish. No need to oil your pan, surprisingly, it didn’t stick.

As Karen said, they won’t be pretty.

Even less so after you top with the can of Cream of Chicken soup:

Not that appetizing, right? Trust me, it’s beautiful and delicious when it’s all cooked up.

And that’s pretty much it. Bake in oven at 350 degrees until golden brown. Like this:

It turned out delicious. It was the perfect comfort food after a long week on the road full of restaurants.

I served it up with a little corn and some broccoli au gratin. As you can see, it went over well with Yeti and the boys:

Enjoy!

I’ve been cooking, I promise. It’s not like I’ve let the Yeti and the boys just go hungry all these weeks. But I’ve also been busy. There were a couple dishes I intended to blog about, but I’ve not had the time to stop and take the photos to accompany the entry. I guess I decided without pictures it wasn’t going to attract much interest. Maybe I need to amend that and just try to get pics when I can so it doesn’t keep me from updating.

I do have a few things to post though, so I’ll try to get them up here soon.

In the meantime, here’s some other stuff.

Over at Cooking Issues there’s some interesting things to do with ketchup. I’m not sure I would like it, but it’s clever all the same.

Sometimes, I just need a little inspiration to get me going.

I’ve been promising Matt that I would try to make these for him, but I keep forgetting. He thinks I’m doing it on purpose. Yes, that’s right. I go to secret meetings wherein I have a crew of people who help me think of ways to torture him and that’s how I decided to conveniently “forget” his Sliders.

I WON’T forget to make these tomorrow, however. Since, you know, they’re for me —  though I will share with Matt. I guess.

Also, my niece chose her wedding cake flavor and design, so now that I’ve got some direction, I’m going to give it a couple practice shots. April will be here before I know it.

That’s it for now.  Thanks Karen and Troy for pitching in!

There many variations of this recipe but I simplified mine and it was delicious and incredibly simple to make.

Ingredients:

1. 2 tubes crescent rolls
2. 1 roasted chicken
3. cheddar cheese
4. cream of chicken soup

Directions:

1. remove chicken from bone and shred or dice into cubes
2. mix chicken with cheese and add a little salt and pepper if wanted
3. roll out croissants and place a little of the mixture in them and roll back up, they won’t be pretty but it doesnt matter.
4. pour cream of chicken soup over mixture
5. bake at 325 until golden brown, remove from oven, let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Mmmmmm. I loves me some fig preserves, and I can buy them around here, but they just aren’t the same as the ones my grandma (Mom-Mom) used to make. Mom-Mom’s figs were dark and sweet, texturally complicated, and just plain to die for. I learned to make them a couple of years ago, with my Mom-Mom’s recipe and some guidance from my mother. It’s basically 3 parts of figs to two parts sugar (yeah, that’s a lot of sugar), and enough water to cover the packed down figs by about 2 inches. That’s it. Put the pot on the stove and put the spurs to it until it’s boiling, then lower the heat to a rapid simmer and cook for several hours, stirring frequently, until the figs are dark brown and starting to break apart and the syrup is thick and richly fig flavored. When they’re done, you can can them in the traditional way, but if you only make a little bit, you can just refrigerate them. They’ll keep for a long time in the fridge, but they don’t last very long at my house. If my *%&*$ fig tree had made more this year and the *$&^% birds didn’t eat half of them, I’d have had about 16 pints. Alas, no joy, so I made roughly 4 pints and gave half to mom. She likes them as much as I do. (And almost as much as the birds.) Next year, I’ll be posting a recipe for Mockingbird jambalaya accompanied by Blue Jay fricasee. (J/K) (Maybe)

Cooking the figs down. Almost ready.

All finished and ready to eat.

Now, all you need is some fresh, hot bread, a little butter, and a good appetite.  Toast works well, too, and cream cheese is awesome spread beneath a couple of these sweet nuggets.

I made some shortbread the other day, using a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. It’s a very simple recipe, really–shortbread is pretty simple itself–butter, flour, salt, and sugar. But, those folks at Cook’s Illustrated really do some work on their recipes, so I figured this one would come out swell. It did. Everyone who’s tried some has raved about it. The texture is great, the flavors are subtle yet straightforward, and it’s a cinch to make. Here’s a link to the recipe and some pictures of the one I made.

Best Shortbread

I found the springform pan does help with the molding and will keep the cookie in pretty good shape.   I experimented and molded one with the pan, but baked it without the pan around it,and it was almost identical. So, it’s up to you.

Ground Oats

I used a coffee grinder that I only use to grind spices to make oat flour out of the oatmeal.  It’s almost impossible to get the coffee flavor out of one, but with spices like pepper or mustard or anything else, just grinding something like bread or crackers or oats will clean it up well.  Waste a quarter cup of oats and the grinder will be fine.

Butter and Dry Ingredients

Mix these together on the very lowest speed, lest you flour your kitchen well.  It will look like it’s not going to come together, but suddenly it will.  Don’t over mix it, though.

I made a double batch

This is fresh out of the mixer.  Since I made a double batch, I cut it in half with my bench knife, and patted the two halves down in the springform pans.  I smoothed it out with a spoon, like the directions say.  It doesn’t have to be absolutely flat and perfect, though.  Too much handwork and the butter will get soft.  I cut out the middle with my biscuit cutter, but I don’t bake the biscuit cutter in the oven.  I just leave it like that.  That little two-inch shortbread bonus cookie is for the cook, by the way.

Here’s what it looks like out of the oven:

Just barely golden and yummy.

That’s it.  Makes an awesome Christmas cookie, and you can mix in nuts or dip it in chocolate if that turns your crank.  Enjoy!