Further adventures in ice cream! Strawberry-Banana Cheesecake

I don't normally eat ice cream out of a martini glass, but there you go.

So the second part of my ice cream tomfoolery was this delightful pink concoction.  I didn't really expect that I would taste anything other than strawberry, but in fact I tasted the banana.  I'm not sure I got the cheesecakie flavor, though.  Nevertheless it was quite refreshing!  So here are the ingredients:

2½ c. hulled whole strawberries, coarsely chopped

¾ c. plus 2 tbsp. sugar (divided: pay attention to this because I messed it up by not reading carefully)

1 tsp. unflavored gelatin

½ c. milk

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 c. heavy cream

1 small banana (squishy is okay), peeled and coarsely chopped (okay I didn’t know the banana was supposed to be chopped until this instant.  Who cares?  It’s going in a food processor anyways.)

4 oz. cream cheese, cut into chunks

In a medium bowl, stir together the strawberries and ¼ c. of the sugar.  Letstand until the sugar dissolves and the juices are released (which happens less nicely if you use ¾ c. sugar instead).  In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the milk.  Let stand, stirring once or twice, until the gelatin softens, about 5 min.  I find both milk and gelatin unspeakably gross, so this step was pretty much revolting to me.

In a medium saucepan, stir together the remaining ½ c. plus 2 tbsp. sugar, the lemon juice, cream, and gelatin mixture.  Bring almost to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring, until the gelatin dissolves.  Let cool slightly.

Transfer the cream mixture into a food processor.  Add the banana (chopped, or whole if you’re like me).  With the motor running, add the cream cheese, several chunks at a time.  Process until the mixture is smooth.  Add the strawberries, processing in pulses until the berries are chopped “moderately fine” (or, screw that and just do what feels right).

Refrigerate, covered, until very cold (4½-24 hours; mine stayed in for about 22).

Stick it in your ice cream maker and have at it.  I’m sure you know the drill.  Let it firm up in the freezer for an hour before serving it.  This one will also keep for about 2 weeks.

 Ice cream is my favorite food group.

Homemade Ice Cream! Chocolate Double-Malted Milk

It’s summer, and even though I don’t need an excuse to eat ice cream (I would sit inside watching it snow outside and still be chowing down some coffee ice cream) I now have an excuse to make it.  Also my dear seester just bought an ice-cream maker and suggested we make stuff “together” but actually on opposite sides of the country.

So, I made two ice cream flavors that I found in this book:

I love this book.  I bought it for like $3 and the recipes are great.  Plus it gives you fun historical facts: for example, I learned that Thomas Jefferson loved vanilla frozen custard, and that he was frustrated by the unavailability of vanilla “sticks” in America.  The other thing you need to make these recipes is an ice cream maker.  Here’s mine:

Pretty old school.  We’ve had it since I was very small.  Something to note before you get started:  you need to plan in advance!  You will probably need to freeze part of your ice cream maker for at least 24 hours, and the mixtures themselves need to chill for at least 4 hours (and up to 24 hours).  This is undoubtedly heartbreaking news for my sister, who is not a planner.

We’ll start with the Chocolate Double-Malted Milk ice cream.  Here are your ingredients:

1 tsp. unflavored gelatin

2 tbsp. cold water

(scant) 2/3 c. sugar

3 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1½ c. heavy cream

1 c. plain malted milk powder (NOT chocolate, although I’m interested to test what that would taste like.  Mmm, super-chocolate)

1 ½ c. half-and-half or light cream

2 tsp vanilla extract

½-¾ c. chopped malted milk balls, frozen (to taste)

In a small bowl, stir the gelatin into the water.  Let stand, stirring one or twice, until the gelatin softens (5 min.)  In a 2-quart saucepan, stir together the sugar, cocoa, and salt.  Slowly whisk in the heavy cream and gelatin mixture.  Heat the mixture over medium-high heat, whisking until the gelatin dissolves (your mixture will start out pretty thick and then turn pretty smooth—that’s how you know).  Remove from heat.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the malted milk powder into the half-and-half until the mixture is completely smooth.  Stir the half-and-half mixture and vanilla into the cocoa mixture until smooth.  Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until hot.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.  Cover and refrigerate until very cold, at least 4½ hours and up to 24 hours (I did mine for about 6, just FYI).

Once the mixture is cold, pour it into the ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.  When the ice cream is pretty solid, add the chopped malt balls.  Freeze the ice cream in a Tupperware for at least an hour before serving.

 And voila!  Homemade ice cream.  Delicious.  And it stays good for about 2 weeks, but I have a feeling ours won’t last that long.  Stay tuned for Strawberry-Banana Cheesecake Ice Cream!!

Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-'n'-Cream Cookies!!!

I mean, wow.  My theory is, the longer a recipe's title, the better the outcome.  So you already know these are gonna be good.  Although the title IS monstrous.  Maybe we should call 'em "CCCnCCs."  Anyhow, take a look at these babies:

The recipe is basically a normal chocolate chip cookie recipe, but you add crumbled Oreos along with the chocolate chips.  I was so happy when I found this on Lovin' From the Oven because I LOVE Oreos.  Looking for a late night study treat?  I recommend Oreos dunked in coffee.  Or, even better, try these out.  Basically the only thing I changed was that I doubled the recipe, which was a good call because they disappeared in an instant.

2 sticks softened butter (I never soften my butter, but that's my thing.  You do your thing)
3/4 c. sugar 
3/4 c. brown sugar 
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla 
2 1/2 c. flour 
1 tsp baking soda 
1 tsp salt 
20 Oreos, broken into pieces (they should be small, but don't worry too much because trust m, they'll get broken in the mixer)
 2 c. chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

Cream the butter and sugars together until combined.  Add eggs and vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in thirds.  Mix well.  Add the Oreos and chocolate chips and mix until just combined.


Drop balls of dough (about a tablespoon or a little less is a good size) onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 10 minutes.

Simple, huh?  So delicious too.  A great way to trick people into being your friends.

Pasta with Shrimp and Tomato-Cream Sauce

So today I fell very suddenly and mysteriously ill.  I spent the entire day reading food blogs, and wishing I could cook instead of being in bed.  When I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman, I decided to make it tonight, mysterious sickness be damned.

Om nom nom, right?  So let's do it.

Here are the ingredients:
1 lb. penne (Or whatever you want.  I'm not judgmental like that.  Plus I won't even know)
1 lb. shrimp
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 c. white wine
8 oz. tomato sauce
1 c. heavy cream
3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. olive oil
basil and parsley, to taste (I recommend about a tablespoon of each)
salt and pepper, to taste

First, peel, de-vein and rinse the shrimp.  Heat a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of oil in a skillet, and fry those suckers up.  A couple minutes should do the trick.

 Okay, now you might want to put some water on to boil.  And, when it boils, maybe put that pasta in.  I'm not going to tell you when to do it, so pay attention.  I know you're on top of it.

Now, chop some onions and garlic.

I'm pretty good at chopping onions, but I suck at chopping garlic.  Slippery little bastards.  So sometimes I use this really handy thing.  You just stick some garlic in and roll it around on the counter.  It's great.  A little tricky to clean.

Now, briefly return to your little shrimps.  Cut them up into bite sized pieces.  I had a system where I cut the heads and tails off in one slice, and then cut the body in half.  But do your own thing.

Once that's done, heat the rest of the butter and oil in a pan.  The pan should be pretty large: eventually it'll hold the pasta, shrimp AND sauce.  When the butter is melted, stir in the onions and garlic.  Then, add the wine.  Mmm, sizzly.

Then add the tomato sauce, followed by the cream.

Yum.  Okay, now we chop our herbs.  Then, add things to our sauce, in this order:
Shrimp-->Herbs-->Pasta (did you forget about the pasta?  Because it should be cooked and strained by now)

Stir it up and it's ready to eat!  It really was delicious.

A Bacon Explosion

This is my first post, and it is actually several months late.  But my page was looking so gloomy and empty that I couldn't wait to make something new, I wanted to post something I'd already done.

So here is our Valentine's Day Bacon Explosion.

Pretty glorious, eh?  Neither of us have much interest in Valentine's Day really, but we do like an excuse for ridiculous quantities of meat.  So when we saw the recipe for the Bacon Explosion, we had to try it.

Many have blogged about it, and now I number among them.  The recipe is pretty simple, and not terribly exact.  So here goes.

2 lb. bacon
2 lb. Italian sausage
1 jar of barbecue sauce
1 jar of barbecue seasoning rub

Now, preheat your oven to 225 degrees.  And in the immortal words of Liz Cheney: let's get cookin'!

Okay, the first step is a lattice of bacon.  I like the squishy-squishy feeling between my fingers.  You should use about half the bacon.

To me, this is fantastic.  Is anyone totally grossed out?  Then don't scroll down.

Fun with close-ups!  Yaaay.  Okay, next step: sprinkle some of your barbecue rub over the lattice.  Sorry I don't have a picture of this step, I'm very new at this.  Now, once you've got it all seasoned and delicious, smoosh the sausage over the lattice.  Yes, all of it.

Less delicious looking, huh?  Don't worry, the lattice comes back.  But first, we have to fry up some bacon.  You know how to fry bacon right?  If you don't, google it or something.  Anyhow, here is a picture of that action:

Mmm, bacon.  Also, don't make fun of our crappy stove and lame-ass paper towels.  We're cooking in a dorm kitchen, we do what we can.

Now, once the bacon is all fried up and drained, you crumble it into small pieces, and sprinkle it on top of the sausage.  Then you load that up with barbecue sauce and rub.  Then, you start to roll it into a log.  It's very important to roll the sausage first, and THEN roll the bacon around it.  Like so:

MMMMMMMMmmmmmmm....

Once your log is finished, it should look like this.  My boyfriend and (vegetarian) roommate were pretty stoked.

Then you slather the outside of your meat log in barbecue rub, and stick it in the oven.  It should cook an hour for each inch of diameter.  Example: ours was about 3 and a half inches thick, so we cooked it for 3 and a half hours.

Exciting, no?

Here's the trick though: you can only eat this on Valentine's Day, because, as we all know, that is the day that calories don't exist.  Also Thanksgiving, but you have to make it with turkey bacon.

As far as serving suggestions go, it's pretty great just on its own.  But we also tried slicing it into hamburger-sized wedges and eating it on rolls with cheese and extra barbecue sauce, and that was worth doing as well.

Enjoy, my fellow fatties!