SPEEDY ICE CREAM

SPEEDY ICE CREAM

From mid-May to early October, I’m a frozen food addict. Ice cream, sorbet, popsicles, frozen watermelon—during heat waves like we had this weekend, I could subsist (and have in past lives) entirely on coconut popsicles without a second thought. (When, for instance, one’s salary as a young wee thing makes air conditioning a luxury out of reach, replacing solid food with popsicles is an adequate solution. Consult your physician before attempting this non-medically supported diet plan.)

Now I’m fortunate to have an ice cream maker, which gets a lot of use during the warmer months. It’s not in the holy trinity of useful appliances (mixer, food processor, immersion blender), but it’s close. My beef with homemade ice cream, other than its somewhat questionable nutritional value, is the cooling time for a thickened base. If you make a traditional custard with eggs, the time it takes to cool from 170° to between 40 and 45°, the optimal churning temp, can seem interminable when the outdoor temperatures are almost as high as the custard’s. Even a sorbet made with simple syrup needs a goodly amount of chill-time.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve experimented with a quick-and-dirty no-heat ice cream base. You can use granulated sugar, maple syrup, or (best) an infused simple syrup that you’ve made in advance. Freezing your fruit helps, too. Purée everything in a blender, strain it through a sieve if you’re feeling fussy, and then churn immediately. Now, you should know that this kind of ice cream is best on the day it’s made. Leftover, it can be too icy: it doesn’t have adequate binding properties to hold up for long in the freezer. But the potential flavors are almost endless: it’s easily made dairy-free, and with so little time spent in prep, you can make a new flavor every day. So far I’ve made two kinds of blueberry—which is a great fruit to try, since it has a lot of natural pectin. The pectin keeps the ice cream smooth and thick without any additional thickeners. I’ve also used cucumbers instead of fruit for a cucumber-mint spin: highly recommended as the final note of a steamy day.

Here’s a basic formula for 1 1/2 quarts:

1 cup chopped fruit, frozen if possible

3 cups milk (I use So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk for some vegan guests, but 2% cow’s milk is great too)

1/2 cup to 1 cup sugar or simple syrup, to taste (for the cucumber-mint variety, see recipe below)

1/2 cup Greek-style plain yogurt (optional)

Blend together with a blender or immersion blender until smooth. Strain through a sieve, and pour immediately into an ice cream maker. Churn until frozen according to manufacturer’s directions.

Cucumber-Mint Simple Syrup

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup warm water

Skin peelings from 1 unwaxed cucumber

Handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped

Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan over high heat. When the sugar dissolves and the syrup begins to burble, reduce the heat and let it thicken for 2 to 3 minutes. When the syrup is thicker and somewhat slow-moving in the pan, add the cucumber peelings and mint. Stir, and let infuse off the heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Strain and cool completely. This is an excellent addition to iced tea or cocktails.

Stay cool out there,

Kristen

image via here

Comfort Me with Apples

COMFORT ME WITH APPLES

Well, the results are in: we didn’t win the Philly Chili Bowl this weekend. I know! But reader, the competing chilis were not only respectable: they were delicious! They were inventive! One memorable brew used Chinese five-spice powder instead of a traditional chili powder. It was an ingenious spin: Chinese five-spice powder is a custom blend of punchy flavors, much like a chili powder. Think of it as a first cousin by marriage. It’s pungent, it’s full, it’s balanced—try it in your next chili. Other noteworthy stews were spinoffs: there was a seafood chili with a creamy cheesy broth that packed a punch. There was a chili gumbo: fresh, peppery, and full of good acidic flavors. And the meats—by golly, the meats! There was beef, pork, shrimp, chicken, venison, rabbit, oxtail, bison, and tofu, the Great White Not-Meat. And to make a killer evening even better, a portion of each chili was siphoned off for donation to Project H.O.M.E.

It was a great experience, and I can’t wait for the next cook-off. But of course, a win would have been a welcome result. While we licked our wounds, we settled in with some forgiving wedges of my husband’s apple pie.  The recipe is a riff on Sam Sifton’s recent offering in the New York Times Magazine. A few Golden Delicious storage apples later, and the smell wafting from the oven was balm for our dented pride.

From Pie Fidelity, Feb. 19, 2012

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 1/2 pounds apples, peeled and cored, then cut into wedges (5 large will do it)

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 recipe all-purpose pie dough

1 egg, lightly beaten

1. Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the apples. Stir to coat the fruit and cook. Meanwhile, whisk together the spices, salt and 2/3 cup sugar, and sprinkle this over the apples, stirring to combine. Let the apples soften, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Sprinkle the flour and cornstarch over the apples and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for another 3 to 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat, add cider vinegar, stir and allow to cool completely. (The fruit mixture will cool faster if spread out on a rimmed baking sheet, but why dirty another dish?)

2. Place a large baking sheet on the middle rack of oven and preheat to 425°F. Remove one disc of dough from the refrigerator and roll it out on a lightly floured surface until it is roughly 12 inches in diameter. Roll it onto the pin, and using the pin, move the dough over the pie dish; unfurl it directly into the dish. Press to fit neatly, trimming it to leave a 1/2-inch overhang. Place the pie dish in the freezer while you work with the top crust.

3. Roll out the remaining dough on a lightly floured surface until it is roughly 10 or 11 inches in diameter.

4. Remove pie crust from freezer and spread the cooled pie filling into it. Cover with remaining dough. Press the edges together, trim the excess, then crimp the edges with the tines of a fork. Using a sharp knife, cut three or four decorative steam vents in the top of the crust. Lightly brush the top of the pie with egg wash and sprinkle with remaining tablespoon of sugar.

5. Place pie in oven and bake on hot baking sheet for 20 minutes, then reduce temperature to 375°F. Continue to cook until the interior is bubbling and the crust is golden brown, about 30 to 40 minutes more. Remove and allow to cool, about two hours. If you have a windowsill handy, cool it there. Eat with a schmear of self-pity.

Better luck next time.

--Kristen

A Date with Dates

Ever since I was young I was exposed to a wide range of foods. I always loved pulling off the leaves of my artichoke, dipping them in a lemony butter sauce, and scraping the meaty part off with my teeth. I wasn’t sure what to make of the earthy goodness of fresh deep red beets. I think I thought they tasted like dirt, which was kind of cool to me if I didn’t think about it too much. Like the artichokes I liked the mechanical task of shelling pistachios to get to the salty sweet gem of a nut hidden inside. I could go through handfuls at a time. Dates, though, were something I could never get into. I think it had something to do with the fact that my mother would try to pass them off as dessert. Dates are a lot of things. According to organicfacts.net they are naturally fibrous, rich in vitamins and minerals, “help in fighting constipation, intestinal disorders, weight gain, heart problems, sexual weakness, diarrhea, and abdominal cancer.” But they are not dessert.

It’s interesting how your tastes can change over the years. Even though I enjoyed a wide range of flavors as a child, there were a lot of things I didn’t like. It may have had more to do with texture, though. Today, I like many of the things I couldn’t stomach as a kid: mushrooms, hollandaise sauce (and eggs over easy, probably my favorite food), oysters, clams, and dates.

Dates have a sweet mealy goodness to them. The mealy part is what I couldn’t get past as a child. That and I expected a refined processed corn sugary sweetness that dominated all the other foods I counted as desserts. Maybe it’s because I steer clear of corn syrup these days and am looking to eat foods that are more food than chemicals or maybe it’s because I have sharper teeth and stronger enzymes to better handle more fibrous foods, but now I actually enjoy eating dates, especially when they are rolled in coconut and have an almond embedded in them. As much as my taste buds have grown and even though I like to snack on dates now, I will never consider them a dessert.

Geoff

Zesty Lemony Soup and More

Zesty Lemony Soup and More

This weekend was a busy one of errands and laundry, but I found time for a couple of good food excursions. One, I will give you the secret to good chicken soup. (Or vegetable soup—works fine for either.) I can usually take or leave basic chicken soup, but this zesty trick has made a lover out of me. First make your soup, any way you like. When you’re about 15 minutes from eating, add a big handful of tiny pasta—I used acini di pepe—plus a peeled, cored, and finely diced apple and the finely chopped zest from one lemon. (Just use a thin knife to peel off long pieces, avoiding the white pith as you can, then chop.) Simmer gently until the apple is soft and the pasta is just done. Whisk together the juice of a lemon and 1 egg (or 2, if making more than 4 servings), then temper it with a ladle of hot broth, whisking quickly so it doesn’t scramble. Pour the whole lot into the pot, stirring quickly. Your goal is not egg drop soup; it should look as though you just added a cup of luscious, naughty cream to your otherwise healthy soup. (This technique is from a Greek soup called avgolemono.) Taste and add more lemon if you like.

Now! You’ve saved some calories for dessert, yes? I’ll tell you about part one of my project this week:  to make a passable petit four—but vegan, and without soy or tree nuts—for a friend’s High Tea (her daughter has allergies). I started with a highly recommended petit four tutorial from VeganYumYum (the génoise recipe was attributed to Bryanna Clark Grogan). I used soy-free Earth Balance and rice milk. This was probably THE best white cake I’ve ever made: light as air, sweet but not too, and had some nice elasticity. I laboriously sliced through sections, slapped on some apple jelly I had in the freezer, and tightly wrapped each mini layer cake. Step 2? Visit a cupcake-making friend in D.C. on Friday, and foist the decorating on her.  I’ll share the outcome next time.

-Kristen

Image via here.