I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream

Yesterday was one of those sunny, spring-almost-summer days where the sky is blue, the air is clear and you just want to be outside, in the sun, eating ice cream and hanging out with someone you love.  On our way home, my daughter asked for ice cream and the playground.  We decided we needed portable ice cream and the idea of making cones was born.

I searched around the internet a bit and ended up using this post as my guide.  I used Food Network’s Gale Gand’s recipe but I halved it since there was no way I needed that many cones.  I also burned my fingers a bit and there were a number of cones that went directly into the disposal since it took a few tries to get both the timing/heat of the Panini press/method of rolling just right.

My advice to you is this:  be patient.  Also, be prepared to burn your fingers a little bit.  It’s worth it.

Ice Cream Cones

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup powdered sugar

3/4 cups flour

1/2 Tablespoon cornstarch

Directions

In a small bowl whisk together the sugar, flour and cornstarch.  Set it aside.

In a medium bowl, with a whisk or a hand mixer, beat the cream and vanilla, just until it thickens and becomes sort of mousse-like– don’t whip it into whipped cream.

Add the dry ingredients to the cream and stir to combine. You’ll end up with something between pancake and cookie batter.   Let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Enlist help with the clean-up.

Meanwhile, make a little cone template. I used a file folder on which I had traced the outline of a roll of packing tape and cut it out.  I taped it together into a little cone shape.

Heat up your Panini maker.  I found that the best setting for mine was actually the highest.  Drop about a tablespoon of batter onto the Panini maker and cook for roughly one to two minutes.  The little glob will turn into a sort of oval-ish shape.

Place your mold in the middle of your dough.  Wrap the dough around and make sure that it overlaps so that you don’t end up with a little hole in the bottom of your cone.

You have to work quickly because the cone will be very hot.  As it cools it will stick itself together and that will happen within 30 seconds.

Let it sit on the mold for a minute or two while it cools.

Even with the smaller recipe, I ended up with a number of small cones.  They were delicious.

And we got our portable ice cream for the playground.  Yum.

Birthday Dinner

A note, while we are in Boston and in the middle of events which are unprecedented, I thought perhaps we needed a distraction.

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It’s April which means that it’s time for my beloved  “adopted brother” T.’s birthday dinner.  He requested the same thing as last year with the exception of spinach instead of zucchini.  He also asked for carrot cake, which was a good thing, as I have an overabundance of carrots just now.  Chalk that up to absent-mindedness in the grocery store.  But it led to delicious cake.

I used a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated The New Best Recipe, which is a great cookbook.  After much consultation, T. decided on carrot cake, no raisins, yes to nuts and a cream cheese frosting (not a vanilla bean cream cheese frosting).

Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

For the cake:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 pound carrots

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups canola oil

For the frosting:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened  but still cool

5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened but still cool

1 Tablespoon sour cream (I used plain greek yogurt)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven 350.  Cooks Illustrated says to grease and line a pan with parchment– they also want you to use a 13 x 9 pan. I used two eight inch pans and I forgot the parchment.  Either way, use the parchment– I regretted not having it.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.

In the food processor, fitted with the large shredding disc, or by hand, shred the carrots (make sure you washed and peeled them first).

Fold the carrots into the dry ingredients so that they are coated and set it aside.

Wipe out the food processor and fit it with the steel blade. I think this would also work in a stand mixer.  Process the eggs and sugars until combined and frothy.  While the machine is running, pour the oil through the chute  and process for about twenty seconds more.

Scrape this into a large bowl.  Stir in the carrot/dry ingredients.

Continue to mix until there are no streaks of flour left.

Pour into the prepared pans.  Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Reverse the position of the pan halfway through. Let them cool on a rack for about two hours.  Run a knife around the edges and then try to flip them out.  If you used parchment, this will be successful.  If you didn’t, try a soft spatula around the edge that you sort of tuck under in order to help loosen the cake.  If you end up with big holes, well, that’s why frosting was invented.  While the cake is cooling, make the frosting.  In the food processor, with the steel blade (again, I think a stand mixer would work just fine), combine the cream cheese, butter, sour cream (yogurt) and vanilla.  This should take about five seconds according to CI but it took longer for me because my butter wasn’t soft enough.  I had to scrape down the sides a few times.  Once these are all combined, add the sugar and process again until smooth.  Two notes:  one, I had to make two batches of frosting in order to have enough (just double the recipe above) and two, I totally didn’t take photos of the frosting making.  So sorry.  Frost your cake.  You could get fancy and make carrots.  Save some of the frosting and separate into two small bowls.  Color one orange and one green.  Use this link for a tutorial on how to make the carrots and which decorating tips to use.  Try to space your carrots more evenly than mine so that everyone can have a piece with a carrot on it.  We served it with vanilla and chocolate ice cream. It was so good.  Half was eaten by the end of dinner.  Happy, happy birthday my dear brother T.  So glad you have a permanent seat at our crazy family table!!!

Kiss Me, I’m (1/4) Irish!

Living in Boston means that St Patrick’s Day is a true holiday. There’s the parade in Southie, the green beer everywhere and the long standing tradition of corned beef and cabbage. I’ve heard, though I am not sure it is true, that there are more celebrating the day here than in Ireland itself.

In my younger, before children days, I’d go my favorite Irish bar, conveniently located a block from where I lived at the time. The Hippo and I spent many an afternoon there, talking with Mike, the older Irish bartender, who would tell us we were too pretty to put up with crappy guys or that we were too cute to stay single for long. St. Patrick’s day there was like any other day but more crowded and more green.

Now that I have two kids, three jobs, two pets and assorted other responsibilities, my bar days are pretty much over.  I am ok with this, as I never really took to green beer anyway.  I’ll be spending the day of the parade at the ballet (talk about a 180!).  Tonight, however, I celebrated through food, making corned beef and my own version of colcannon.  I share it with you in case you, too, have moved past your green beer days.

Corned Beef and Colcannon, 1/4 Irish style

Corned Beef

1 first cut brisket (I use the Wellshire Farms one) with the seasoning packet

Enough water to cover

1/2 cup brown (or dijon but brown is better) mustard

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup water

Directions:

Throw the corned beef along with the seasoning into a slow cooker. Cover with hot water so that the meat is submerged by about an inch.  Cook on high for 8 hours.  Take it out and put it on a sheet or broiler pan.  Let it start to cool a bit and heat your oven to 350.  In a small saucepan, combine the mustard, water and sugar.  Cook over medium high heat for about five minutes, so that it starts to reduce a bit.

Brush some over the top of your meat and put the meat in the oven.  Cook for about half an hour, basting every five to ten minutes.  Take the meat out and let it rest for about five to ten minutes before slicing.

Colcannon (sort of)

Ingredients

4 potatoes, peeled and sliced into even pieces

1 stick of butter (yes, I said a stick)

2-3 tablespoons sour cream or plain greek yogurt

1/2 onion, chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

several handfuls of fresh spinach, washed and dried

Directions

Place potatoes into a saucepan and cover with water.  Add a generous amount of salt.  Boil over high heat until potatoes are soft.  Drain and add the potatoes back to the pot.  Mash them.

In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter.  Add the onions and garlic and cook until soft, taking care not to let the garlic burn.  Add the spinach and mix until it wilts.  Dump the whole thing in with the potatoes and mix well with a large spoon.  You may need to add a bit of milk or more butter or sour cream/greek yogurt to get the texture you like.

We also made brownies, at the toddler’s request.  They were great- fudgy and sweet and just the right amount of crunch on the top. We used this recipe.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Don’t forget to wear green and be safe!!

 

Chag Semach!

Chag Semach!  It’s Purim or what I think of as the Jewish Halloween.  When my husband asked me what the story was, I will confess that I had to go look it up.  I could only remember a few key words… Queen Esther, Hayman, gallows, the annihilation of the Jews (again) and a three pointed hat.  Click here   for a better explanation.

The upshot of it is that we spent Saturday making Hamantaschen, the traditional Purim cookie.  I used the recipe posted on one of my favorite Jewish websites, Kveller.com.  No photos as I made it but I did get one of the finished product.  We made strawberry, apricot and (untraditional) chocolate.  I wanted to make the poppy (mohn) filling but it was too complicated.  Maybe next year.

 

First Birthday Cake

So, we were going to have a big first birthday party for our son but then Nemo (if anyone can offer an explanation as to why they named this storm after a loveable clownfish, I’d be up for hearing it) happened.  It was a lot of snow with a lot of clean-up and not a lot of places to put the snow. We ended up not having the party but G. and I made the cake for M. anyway.  It’s important to have a first birthday cake, complete with party hats, even if the party goers are your mother, father and sister.

I used the recipe I wrote about here, which is the same one I used for my daughter’s first birthday.  It’s a great cake and the story involves my grandmother, a cookbook author and several email exchanges.  I even got the frosting right this time!

(See the two little finger marks over there on the right side?  That was G., “checking” the frosting for me.)
Now, that’s how you eat cake.

 

Comfort

Over the last week or so I’ve been craving comfort food.  For me, that means things like mashed potatoes, stews, soups and sugar.  Lots of sugar.  More on that later.

To be comforting, I made the Braised Short Ribs from Dinner: A Love Story, my new favorite cookbook and website.  They were delicious and may make it into the comfort food rotation.I also did my holiday baking.  That fulfilled the sugar needs.  This year rather than making for individuals, I made for groups.  That is, I brought cookies of all kinds to the guidance department meeting, biscuits and scones to the elementary team meeting and cookies and bars to the front office.  I tried Ina Garten’s Chocolate Chunk Blondies which were so. good.

I also made Walnut Snowball Cookies.  Which were also full of buttery, sugary goodness.

All in all, it was a week of comfort food.  I am now on vacation so will try to get a few more posts up- a tip on pomegranates and a yeast-free pizza dough.

Until then, I hope you are enjoying your holiday season.

Puddle of Cookie

This year for Thanksgiving we had a bit of shake-up, the end result of which was that we a) had Chinese take-out, which was delightful and b) I made a few desserts.  One of which was a gluten-free cookie, taken from The Hippo’s Blog.  I will tell you that I think her cookies were probably better since I had to make a few substitutions due to a lack of proper ingredients (I’m just saying, maybe someone had a few drinks the night before Thanksgiving so that she couldn’t drive to the store and mistakenly assumed that it would be open on Thanksgiving day.  It wasn’t.).

Nonetheless, they were good.  I totally recommend making them if you can.  They’re both chewy and crispy at the same time.  I made mine slightly too large so that they didn’t cook through the whole way and some of the centers got left on the silpat.  So make yours smaller.

Puddle Cookie (mostly the Hippo’s recipe, found here)

Ingredients

3 cups confectioners sugar

2/3 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

2 1/2 cups pecans, toasted and chopped (I actually used about 2 cups of slivered almonds and 1/2 a cup of pecans)

1/2 cup egg whites (about three large eggs)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon instant coffee or espresso powder

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350.  Line a sheet pan with silpat or parchment paper.  Don’t skip this part, trust me.

Toast the nuts either in the oven or in a pan.  Pay attention because if you can smell them, they’re about to burn.  I toasted mine in the oven at 350 for about 5 or 6 minutes.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl.  It seems like a lot of sugar (it is) but it will sort of melt down as you add the liquid of the egg whites.

Mix well and add the egg whites.  It will get really sticky but mix well anyway.

Drop by small spoonfuls (less than a tablespoon) onto the parchment or silpat.  Place about six to a sheet- they will spread a bit when baking.  Bake for about ten minutes.  You should remove them when they look dry and crackly.  If you take them out too early, they will be wet in the middle and won’t come off the cookie sheet in a whole cookie. Let them cool on the sheet for a few minutes before you move them to a rack to cool.

Happy Halloween 2012

Around here we’re recovering from Hurricane Sandy.  We were lucky- we didn’t lose power, no trees came down and our basement is only mildly damp.  Others weren’t so lucky- I have friends both near and far without power and with no hope of it returning for some time to come.  Wherever you are, I hope that you are safe, dry and ready to celebrate Halloween.

For some scary food ideas, try these posts from my Halloweens past:

Halloween: Eyeball Cupcakes, Ghastly Ghosts (potatoes), Green Gruel with Eyeballs, Mummified Meatloaf

Scary Dinner: Carrot Fingers, Frankenpeppers, Tarantula Cookies

Halloweeeen: Ghastly Ghosts (cookies)

Scary Dinner 2:  Blood Soup with Eyeballs, Pumpkin Grilled Cheese, Spiderweb Eggs, Worms In Dirt

Halloween Snacks:  Vampire Apples, Cheezy Monsters, Owl Cupcakes

 

Halloween Snacks

If you’ve been reading along here or if you’ve browsed the recipe index (which is totally due for updating….one of these days), you’ll know that I love the food part of Halloween.  For the last few years I’ve tried to make a “scary” dinner each Halloween.  You can see what I’ve made before by clicking here, here, here, and here (included there are ghastly ghosts, mummy meatloaf and eyeball cupcakes, among other things).  This year, because I suddenly have both less time in the kitchen and a somewhat picky eater around, I went for less of a dinner theme and more of a snack kind of thing.

The recipes I used can be found via Dinner: A Love Story blog (my new favorite) and Hungry Happenings.  You’ll also note that this is the most processed I get in my cooking.  While most of the time I bake from scratch, this year I opted for both cake mix and pre-made frosting.  Hey, it’s a once-a-year kind of thing.

Vampire Apples

Ingredients

apple, peanut butter (optional), slivered almonds

Directions:

Slice your apple into lip shaped wedges.  I used an apple corer/slicer and then cut those wedges in half.

Spread a little bit of peanut butter across the bottom apple (or you could use cream cheese or nothing, up to you- I was hoping to get a little bit of protein into the toddler).

Shove a few silvered almonds into the other half of the apple, to look like teeth.

Put this half on top of the peanut butter half.  Repeat.

Cheezy Monsters

Ingredients

8 oz cream cheese

8 oz shredded cheese (I used a taco cheese mix)

1/2 cup bacon bits

more shredded cheddar cheese

a few slices of white cheese

food markers or black olives

Thin pretzel sticks

Directions

Mix together the cream cheese, shredded taco cheese and bacon bits.  I used the food processor because I’m lazy like that.

Make sure it’s all combined well.

Let it sit while you prepare the rest.  Slice eyeball shapes from your white cheese.  You could use a fondant cutter but I used a corer of some kind- not sure if it was meant for apples or strawberries or what- it was Grandma’s- but it worked perfectly for this.  I then colored in the eyeball with a food marker.  You could also use thin slices of olives, I think.

I see you….

Break the pretzel sticks into halves or thirds.

Pour your shredded cheese onto a plate.  Using your hands, scoop out small amounts of the cream cheese mixture and roll into balls.  Drop them into the shredded cheese and press gently so the cheese will stick.

Place on a platter. Dab a little bit of the cream cheese mixture from the bowl onto the tip of the pretzel stick.  This will be the glue for the eyes.

Place an eyeball on the stick – gently!

Stick this into the cheese ball.  Repeat as many times as you like- some of mine had one eye, some had two and one had three.

I struggled with the mouths.  In the end, I tried an almond sliver, colored with a food marker, a pretzel stick, a piece of green olive and cheese colored with a marker.  The original post used black olive slices.

I think they’re pretty cute, if I do say so myself.  And rather tasty, if you like cheese.  Which I do.

Owl Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes (any flavor.  I used boxed chocolate)

Chocolate frosting (a buttercream type, if you’re making from scratch)

Oreos (or other chocolate sandwich cookie)

M & M’s – orange and brown (eyes and beak)

Directions

Make your cupcakes.

Make sure that someone is around to help you lick the bowl.

Once they’ve baked and cooled, frost them.

Separate your cookies so that you have two with white filling for each cupcake.

Place two cookies on each cupcake to be the eyes.  This would have worked better if I had made the tops of my cupcakes flatter but I didn’t have the time to be nit-picky.

Add one orange M & M between the cookies for a beak.

Dab a tiny bit of frosting on the back of two brown M & M’s – put it right over that “m”.  Place them on top of the white part on each cookie, for eyeballs.

Try not to die because they’re really, really cute.

My Little Pumpkin

Before I had children I would wonder all the things that all parents wonder:  “Will they be happy?  Will I be a good mother?  Will I ever sleep again?” I also worried about all the things most parents worry about:  “How expensive will it be?  How will I potty-train?  Will I ever sleep again?”  Because of my profession, however, I also worried about a lot of things that not a lot of people tend to worry about:  “Will my kids end up with anxiety/depression?  Will they be on the autsim spectrum?  Will OCD be a problem?”

I still worry, now that I have two kiddos, but it’s a bit more tempered.  Which doesn’t mean that I don’t still have my worries.  Now that it’s fall, there are pumpkins everywhere and I have to tell you, it worries me a little, tiny bit.  My little pumpkin at home? Well, she’s obsessed with pumpkins everywhere.  OB-SESSED.  Every time she sees a pumpkin, she’s all, “PUN-KIN!  PUN-KIN!  THREE PUN-KINS!!!”  It’s as though she’s won the lottery and she’s being paid in pumpkins.  They’re even indulging this obsession at daycare:

FOUR pun-kins!

So I figure, if I can’t beat her, I’ll join her.  I made some delicious pun-kin cookies with a cream cheese icing.  They weren’t too sweet and were just the right mix of spicy and flavorful.  Plus, the texture was halfway between a cake and a cookie.  Can’t go wrong.  And, of course, G. was so thrilled that she told the hippo all about her cookies via a phone call.

Pun-kin Obsession Cookies

(via Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

Directions

Preheat oven to 375.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and pumpkin pie spice.

This is her favorite part of any cooking activity.

In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar.

Add the egg and mix well.  Then add the pumpkin and the flour, alternating between the two.  Do this in two to three stages.

Mix well and enjoy the pretty orange color.

Drop by tablespoonfulls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or silpat.  Leave some space between them as they will spread a bit. Bake for 15-20 minutes, rotate sheets halfway through.  Let them cool on a rack.

Steal a bite of one before you frost them.  So yummy.

Make sure to keep all little ones entertained.

While the cookies are cooling, make the icing.  I mixed up some cream cheese with extra pumpkin pie spice, some softened butter and some confectioner’s sugar.  No measurements, sorry.

Ice the cookies once they’re cool.

Do your best not to eat them all in one sitting.  Save some for your little pumpkin.