Ice Cream!

Recently I bought a new automatic ice cream maker.  I have one already, but it’s one where I have to add the ice and rock salt, and it ends up making a couple of quarts, much more than I can use before it gets iced over in the freezer and goes bad.  I’ve used it a few times, but often I don’t bother, as it takes too much effort and causes a mess.  So, I got this new one from Cuisinart.  The reason why I bought it–other than it makes only 1 1/2 quarts at a time–is because it has a freezing liquid inside its container.  That means I don’t need to have ice or rock salt ready, just take the container out of the freezer right before using it, and pour the ingredients in.  Very easy.  I’ve tried it twice already:

Strawberry ice cream

For this one, I found strawberries really cheap (99 cents/pound), so I decided to put them in the ice cream.  I think next time I’d drain the berries before adding them, as they ended up freezing harder than the rest of the ice cream mixture.  The flavor was good, though.

To try it a second time, I made Fudgesicle ice cream, which is really just milk and instant pudding.  For 1 1/2 quarts, it takes 3 cups milk and 2 (small) packages instant pudding.  I tried it this time with Devil’s Food pudding.  It’s excellent, and I think this summer I’ll try it with different pudding flavors.

Fresh from the Farmer’s Market: Weeks 2&3

It’s been a couple of crazy last weeks this semester, so I haven’t blogged for awhile, even though I’ve been cooking (it helps to handle the stress).  Summer’s here, as of today 🙂 so I’ll be posting to get caught up in the next week.

Last week, I went to the farmer’s market with one mission:  asparagus.  I had gotten there too late the week before, and missed out.  This week I was prepared and showed up earlier, as my last class of the day ended early (the two things are NOT connected! :-).  It ended up that several stalls were selling asparagus for $3  a bunch.  I chose a bunch that had very long stalks–1 1/2 feet long, in fact.  I’d not seen asparagus that long before, and wondered if it was the variety, or if it was more that the farmers waited for it to grow higher before harvesting.  I’m still not sure.

The stalks were of different thicknesses, some rather thick, a few quite thin.  The first time I cooked them I chopped them into 1-inch pieces, and put all of the pieces of the stalk in at the same time.  Because of this, the soft tops were done long before the base of the stalks were.  In fact, with a few more boiling experiments (I would have steamed them but I don’t own a steamer), I found I was unable to cook the bottom halves of the stalks–no matter how long they were boiled, they were tough and stringy.  Again, the variety?  Or the way it was grown?  Not sure.  However, next time I think I’ll stick to the more familiar short stems, as those generally cook all the way through, without toughness.

This week I was thinking ahead to my Grandma’s birthday, and had remembered there was a black walnut seller at the market.  I ended up buying a pound of chopped black walnuts (yes, black walnuts!  not English walnuts!  locally grown, too!), along with some locally produced raw honey as a gift for my grandparents.  I ended up not buying any strawberries–though they smelled wonderful–because I just have too much food right now to use up.  Plus, it’s the start of summer so I’m too busy to cook for the next couple of weeks.

I’ll post later about the cake–I’m planning to use some of the black walnuts in the cake, and the rest decorating the caramel frosting.

White wine–Riesling

When making this curry recipe recently, I wanted to substitute the dry sherry with something I’d actually use, and found that Riesling would be an appropriate substitute.  So I bought this Yellow Tail Riesling to try.  It worked just fine in the recipe, and ended up as a great low-cost wine (around $8 on sale).  What I thought was notable was not only the mild taste, but also that it kept well in the fridge over several days.  I had some on Friday, and forgot about it until Monday.  Even so, when other wines would have become tart or had a bitter aftertaste, this wine was still excellent.

Fail: Crock-Pot Chicken Curry

I have a rather large container of curry powder I used for a previous recipe, and ever since I’ve been trying to find a better recipe for chicken curry.  That recipe didn’t work out so well–the chicken was excellent, but the sauce was too thick and strong of yogurt.  So, I hoped that this recipe, one that cooks in the Crock-Pot, would be better.

I was wrong.

I won’t bother to share the recipe here, other than to mention that the sauce was mainly cream of chicken soup–an ingredient that should have been a red flag.  Somehow, though, I thought the curry powder would be enough to cut the cream soup flavor.  Unfortunately, no.  The sauce comes out with a rather strong taste of cream of chicken soup.  It’s fine; if I had intended to mix together cream soup and cooked chicken, then it would have been OK.  But in this recipe, the curry flavor and cream of chicken clash.

So, I’m still looking for a good chicken curry recipe.  Suggestions would be appreciated!

Chicken curry mixed with new potatoes

French Bread

I’ve recently been going through my recipe clippings, and found this one from a past issue of Taste of Home magazine.  I always like trying new kinds of bread, so this one seemed pretty easy to make.  And it was.  The issue was that I ended up being busy with other things during rising, and the loaves ended up over-rising the second time (which explains why they grew into each other during baking).  Next time I’ll pay closer attention to this, so it doesn’t spread out too far.  Also, I’ll add more flour, as this dough was unusually sticky, no matter how much flour I added.  I had thought that 2 cups liquid was an awful lot, and I was right.  When I do this one again, I’ll make sure I have more flour on hand than I expect to use.

French Bread

2 Tb. active dry yeast

2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees)

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. sugar

4 ½-5 cups bread flour

1 tsp. cornmeal

Dissolve yeast in warm water.  Add salt, sugar, and 2 cups flour.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough.  Knead until smooth and elastic, 6-8 minutes.  Place in a greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.  Punch dough down.  Divide in half.  Shape into 12-inch long loaves.  Place seam side down on greased baking sheet, cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with cornmeal.  Make four slashes across top of loaves.  Bake at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until browned.

I will definitely make this recipe again, since my fiancé complimented it.  It’s his favorite loaf I’ve made.  He said that I could just feed him that bread, and he’d be happy!