It's amazing how even just a small break can make you miss the blogging world so much. Although I was able to browse a few blogs and comment while I was preparing for my exam, it was not nearly as much as I would have liked. Not to mention it has been quite literally a month since my last post. Luckily, Daniel was able to carry a good bit of the blogging load so we didn't completely loose touch. But how some of you blog everyday or every other day by yourselves I have no idea, kudos to you. But after weeks of reading, writing, editing, having mini breakdowns, etc. etc., I can assure you from experience that this is a wonderful ice cream treat to take a second and unwind with.
Perhaps just by coincidence, the few blogs I was able to browse the last few weeks all featured or mentioned using rhubarb in some interesting way. I'd never had rhubarb. Never had any desire to have rhubarb. I kind of have a strong texture discomfort with cooked soggy fruit. Even though rhubarb is technically a vegetable, since texture seems to be the biggest turn off for most people when it comes to this elusive tart pink stalk, I had stayed far away. But, when I cam across not one, but two recipes for chilled rhubarb treats in a cookbook and on one of my favorite blogs, I couldn't help but give it a try. Unfortunately, both called for rose water however, and as much as I procrastinate, a trip across town was not possible at the moment. Instead, I elected to make not one, but two ice creams. One tart and tangy rhubarb concoction, and one sweet perfumed lavender concoction.
Rhubarb and Lavender Swirl Ice Cream For the Rhubarb:
2 Cups Rhubarb cut into 1 inch slices
2 Tbsp Salted Butter
1/2 Cup Light Brown Sugar
1 tsp Almond Extract
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Buttermilk
1. Place everything except the heavy cream and buttermilk into a heavy saucepan. Over medium heat, allow rhubarb to simmer until soft, but still holding its shape, about 10-15 minutes.
2. Remove from heat. Crush rhubarb pieces with the back of a wooden spoon. Combine rhubarb with heavy cream and buttermilk. Chill in refrigerator at least six hours.
3. Freeze according to ice cream maker directions. For the Lavender:
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Whole Milk or Half and Half for a slightly more decadent dessert
1/3 Cup Honey
1 Tbsp Dried Lavender Flowers
1. Place all ingredients in medium heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer and continually stir until mixture begins to thicken, 15-20 minutes.
2. Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve to remove lavender flowers. Chill in refrigerator at least 6 hours. Freeze according to ice cream maker directions.
To combine
1. Once prepared, place rhubarb ice cream in container, preferably wider than taller for better effect.
2.While the lavender ice cream is preparing, soften the rhubarb ice cream so it will mix well.
3. Once the lavender is complete, gently place lavender atop the rhubarb mixture. With a small spatula or knife, swirl the two ice creams much as you would when you marble a cake.
4. Freeze for a few hours to set.
For mine, the lavender ice cream was a barely tinted white, so the colored swirl did not show quite as much. You could optionally include a few drops of food coloring to achieve a better swirl effect if you would like.
The ice cream itself is a rewarding experience exciting different tastes as it dances across the palate. To offset a little of its decadent creaminess, I brought made some almond cornmeal short bread cookies to pair with it, but you could use any slightly less sweet, crunch cookie to pair well.
Nonetheless, this is the type of ice cream that demands you stop, relax, and enjoy it for just a little while. Enjoy!
During the week, primarily Daniel or myself prepare our meals separately, with very little help or input from the other. Either I’ll do most of the cooking at night before Daniel gets home, or if I’m working on something at the house, Daniel takes care of it. Saturday evenings are more or less our only opportunity to actually cook a meal together, so often when we do, it can get a little elaborate. However, with the beautiful weather we had this weekend, and with it being Labor Day weekend, we of course had to grill something. And seeing as how this was one of the few truly collaborative meals we’ve gotten to prepare together recently, we will be writing this post together!
Unlike the typical rib connoisseur, my tendency is not toward baby back, rib tip, or any other mainstream pork barbecue cut, instead leaning toward a meaty country-style pork loin rib. These are behemoths compared to the baby back, often served at your neighborhood barbecue joint, unless you happen to live in Memphis or some other barbecue haven which utilizes some variation. My idea for the sauce mixes a recent adventure of ours to the Jazz and Rib Fest here in Columbus, which I recommend if you are in the area next July, and a trip to a tiny barbecue joint in Mobile, Alabama, called Dreamland BBQ. It is one of those establishments that if there is no indicator within a mile of what that building is, you know it is a barbecue joint. The smoke wafts through the floorboards and around the room. From the chunks of fall-off-the-bone chicken to the stacks of white bread they serve it with, I can still envision the big guy sitting by the pit on a bar stool. Anyway, memories are strong entities and gave me something to think about when I was preparing the barbecue sauce.
3 Vinegar Barbecue Sauce
6 oz. can tomato puree
1 C. white vinegar
½ C. apple cider vinegar
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1 t. smoked paprika
1 t. liquid smoke
2 pieces of bacon chopped fine
3 T. canola oil
1 t. chili powder
3 garlic cloves
Salt and pepper to taste
Brown bacon and vinegar in saucepan for a couple minutes. Add vinegars, oil, liquid smoke, chili powder, paprika, and tomato paste stirring until combined. Simmer on low until thicken to desired consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Country Style Grilled Ribs
3 to 4 Servings
2 ½ # country style pork loin ribs
3 vinegar barbecue sauce (as mentioned above)
Soak ribs in barbecue sauce for at least an hour up to a day. Reserve some sauce for after cooking. Prepare grill for indirect cooking so ribs will not char too bad before being cooked through. Grill for approximately twenty minutes depending on grill’s temperature. Make sure ribs are 165 degrees near the bone before taking them off grill.
Although you can clearly see Daniel’s prowess at the grill, I remain unable to channel an inner Bobby Flay, which makes keeping the oven off difficult sometimes. When it came time to choose a side, all I really wanted to go with the ribs was a piece of corn bread or a biscuit. At first, I decide to give in and just use the oven, but as I pulled out the small cast iron skillet (the only real way to make corn bread), I had a flash back to a camping trip Daniel and I took for my birthday while we were living in Florida.
During the trip, we decided we were going to try to cook, and I had mixed up some corn bread before we leftand put it in the cooler, with plans to cook it over the camp fire. It makes a nice mental image imagining the corn bread slowly cooking as the campfire flames lick the edges of the pan. What actually happened however, was that by the time we had pitched the tent, it was extremely dark and I had somehow managed to leave our flashlights behind….so we had to cook in the dark. I have no idea what the corn bread looked like, but judging from the taste, it was probably a black color. Smiling at this memory, I decided to use the iron skillet in a similar manner and try to grill the corn bread.
The result was much better than we anticipated. The sweetness from the red pepper and corn complimented the slight smoky flavor created by grilling, and as you can see from the picture, the corn bread turned out to be just slightly browned on the bottom giving a nice crispy sweet crust as we took our first bite.
Grilled Corn Bread with Roasted Red Peppers
Makes 4 Servings
½ Cup Corn Meal
½ Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tsp Baking Powder
¼ Tsp Garlic Salt
Dash Salt
1 Egg Yolk, beaten
½ Cup Milk
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil, Plus 1 tbsp
¼ Cup Frozen Corn
1 Green Onion, Diced
½ Roasted Red Pepper, diced
To grill: Grease small cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon oil, letting most sit in bottom of the pan. Once grill is ready, place skillet on grill rack and allow to preheat 3-5 minutes before placing batter in pan.
To bake: Grease small cast iron skilled with approx ½ tablespoon oil, wiping sides and bottom of pan with paper towel to remove excess. Place skillet in oven and preheat to 400 degrees.
Blend first six ingredients. Add egg yolk, milk, and vegetable oil and mix until just moistened. Add corn, red peppers, and green onion, and stir just until well distributed. Pour batter into greased pan.
To grill: Leave pan on bottom rack, direct heat, until top appears solid, 8-10 minutes. Remove immediately carefully handling iron skillet, and allow to cool.
To cook: Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove and allow to cool.
Optional: You could add shredded cheese while still warm to top of corn bread and allow to melt while still warm.
As a side with dinner, slaw was a logical pairing with the barbecue since the two go together like apple pie and ice cream. We found a nice big head of purple cabbage at the farmers market earlier that morning. After we got home, we added some vinegar and pickled sweet banana peppers to compliment the vinegary nature of the barbecue sauce and let it marinate until supper that night. It is not a traditional slaw without the mayonnaise, but has a cleaner more earthy taste to round out and complete our colorful tribute to summer.
So, now that we’ve taken you through most of our meal, now its time for my favorite part, dessert! There are few things more refreshing or rewarding over the summer than homemade ice cream, and with the end of peach season so close, I couldn’t resist making a peach ice cream. I could agonizingly describe the rich taste and luxurious texture of the ice cream, but instead I think Daniel put it best after one bite: “Greek yogurt is delicious on its own. With peaches, even better. Make it into ice cream…[takes another bite, closes his eyes].” I think that meant he approved. Enjoy!
Peach & Greek Yogurt Ice Cream
2 Cups Whipping Cream
1 / 2 Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla
8 Egg Yolks
2 Cup Greek Style Yogurt (whole)
2-3 lbs Peaches, peeled, pit removed, and diced.
First, whisk the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl. Heat whipping cream and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, just until a gentle boil, stirring to prevent scalding.
Slowly pour cream and sugar mixture into egg yolks, whisking constantly to prevent eggs from cooking. Return mixture to stove, add vanilla and cook over low heat until custard thickens. Pour into bowl over diced peaches and mix well. Fold in yogurt until well combined. Refrigerate until cold. Once the mixture is chilled, add to your ice cream freezer. Follow manufacturer’s instructions & freeze until ready.
Please, if you have problems with cholesterol, high blood pressure, please, pretty, pretty please, don’t read this post. I don’t want to be held responsible.
I finally finished up this quarter with the aid of too much caffeine, significant sleep deprivation, and of course the help of my wonderful husband. So, as I gleefully handed in my two final papers, I contemplated what to make for Daniel to tell him thank you for the week full of delicious brain food he prepared while I typed away and mumbled incoherently to myself. Immediately I thought of a recipe I cam across during a break. While I was working on papers, I would continually daydream about a recipe recently posted by Not Without Salt for Bacon Caramel.
Yes, bacon, and caramel.
So, thinking about little else, I head home and start cooking, hardly noticing in my post-finals stupor that yesterday was probably the most humid day Columbus has had since we’ve been here. Looking back at the weather now, I see that we had 97% humidity. Not candy making weather. This is what came out:
I was hoping that I was worrying for nothing and that it eventually would set, even if it took a little while. Surely it would set. It had to. My mother is an incredible candy maker, surely, it would set. I waited three or four hours, nothing. Stuck it in the fridge, still a gooey, sinfully delicious, but a sticky mess nonetheless. I decided to add wax paper and leave it in the freezer overnight. In the morning, it was slightly more solid when you initially took a piece, but quickly melted into a sticky lump. I’m not a good sport often times when things to work out correctly, so I contemplated throwing it away. It was obviously not going to turn into the delicate square, photo worthy and distributable caramels I was hoping for, and the only way to eat them would be with a spoon.
A spoon...Sadly, when I think spoon, my mind immediately jumps to ice cream. I don’t know why, and yes, its probably unhealthy. Nonetheless, the more I started thinking about, the more I thought the texture would work very well as a caramel swirl in ice cream, since it would not become incredibly hard, nor would it melt into the stick messwhen trying to eat it. I quickly tried to put together a recipe for an ice cream that I thought would complement the sweet salty flavor of the caramel. Although I can envision these working beautifully and decadently with a dark chocolate ice cream, I wanted something that would allow the flavor of the caramels to shine through a little more.
I immediately thought of a sour cream based ice cream, but shockingly, we don’t buy sour cream. Ever. We just don’t use it. When I make a cheesecake, I get a small container, and any that’s left typically goes to waste. What we did have was a nice Greek style yogurt that I’d been snacking with during finals. I didn’t want anything too sweet, the caramel is plenty sweet on its own, but I did want to taste more than plain yogurt.What I finally decided on was a brown sugar custard with approximately half the amount of sugar, and the addition of the Greek yogurt.
The combination worked out perfectly. The ice cream had a velvety texture that quietly enveloped the indulgent caramel and added a nice palate-cleansing tang at the finish. The only problem with the final product however, is that the balance achieved between the sweet, salty, and tangy flavors prevents any one or two or three….or however many… bites from seemingly like enough!
Thus the caution above. Consider yourself forewarned. Enjoy!
Brown Sugar & Greek Yogurt Ice Cream with Bacon Caramel Swirl
2 Cups Whipping Cream
1 / 2 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla
8 Egg Yolks
2 Cup Greek Style Yogurt (whole)
Bacon Caramels (made on a humid day, or removed approximately one minute after reaching boiling point)
First, whisk the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl. Heat whipping cream, sugars, and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat, just until a gentle boil, stirring to prevent scalding.
Slowly pour cream and sugar mixture into egg yolks, whisking constantly to prevent eggs from cooking. Return mixture to stove and cook over low heat until custard thickens. Pour into bowl and whisk in yogurt. Refrigerate until cold.
Once the mixture is chilled, add to your ice cream freezer. If your ice cream freezer has a spot to allow for mix ins, when ice cream is taking shape and there are approximately 5 minutes or so left, start slowly adding in the bacon caramel at room temperature. If not, once ice cream freezer has finished, transfer ice cream to container and pour caramel in slowly, folding to obtain a swirl effect. Freeze until ready.
