ice cream ice cream!!

dark chocolate ice cream

So, last week I made a life-altering decision that i am pretty sure will enrich and fulfill my summer nights forever. ....or for a long time.

yes, it's true. I bought a Cuisinart ICE-21 ice cream maker. and it is beautiful, and my new favorite toy! It doesn't require the fuss and mess of salt and ice, however you need enough freezer space to fit the bowl in for a good 12-16 hours. (it contains a liquid that freezes solid) my freezer is tiny and chock full of junk, and it still fit, so i am sure most people will have no problem fitting one in their freezer. It makes 1 1/2 quarts of ice cream, which I loved because it's enough to enjoy for a few weeks but it's not so much that i need to go purchase a superfluous freezer to house all of my delicious creations.

the recipe i used was found via cooking light.com, and let me tell you, it was a winner.

you will need:

    1 1/3 cups sugar
    1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark, hence the blackness of the ice cream)
    2 1/2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk, divided
    3 large egg yolks
    1/2 cup half-and-half
    2 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I had 85% dark chocolate on hand)

to prepare:

Combine sugar and cocoa in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in 1/2 cup milk and egg yolks. Stir in remaining 2 cups milk. Cook 12 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160°, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Place half-and-half in a microwave-safe dish; microwave at high 1 1/2 minutes or until half-and-half boils. Add chocolate to half-and-half; stir until smooth. Add half-and-half mixture to pan; stir until smooth. Place pan in an ice-filled bowl. Cool completely, stirring occasionally.

Pour mixture into the freezer can of an ice-cream freezer; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Spoon ice cream into a freezer-safe container; cover and freeze 1 hour or until firm.

My ice cream maker froze this stuff to a soft-serve consistency in less than 20 minutes! Like magic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yummy!

Check the link for nutritional info! (a bonus :) )

if you have an ice cream maker and love chocolate more than life, i suggest you make this immediately, so we can talk about how good it is! (by the way, you must eat this in a cone. like, must)

deep, dark, delightful

dark chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting

i haven't actually made a new recipe or cooked a real meal since about the last time i posted. i did have a cooking date last week with my momma, and we made jambalaya via skype, but i forgot to photograph it. and honestly, it was delicious but it's brown. it doesn't look pretty. but i will still share the recipe, which as far as i'm concerned came from my grandmother.

i have made several pizzas, because my diet mostly consists of mozzarella, basil, olive oil, garlic and various carbs in many combinations. it just doesn't seem like something anyone cares to see 1000 times.

but around 11 pm last night i was needing to A. make something, i just needed to. B. eat some chocolate. like pronto. so i found the recipe for dark chocolate cupcakes i had been drooling over for a while from How Sweet It Is, but i needed a frosting recipe too. (i really wanted the total chocolate package) so i googled this recipe too.

they are awesome, almost too rich to finish just one. (i never think anything is too rich, pretty much ever) and both recipes were super easy and fast--always a plus when you're operating under chocolate induced psychosis. at midnight. on a saturday.

note: my first attempt at the cake mixture was a failure--i think my melted butter was too warm and my milk too cold, resulting in a weird, root beerish (foamy and bubbly) appearance...the butter formed teeny little balls.....weird. very weird. so i refrigerated it for a few minutes the second time and although the batter was thinner than i expected the cake turned out fine.

Chicken (or turkey) Jambalaya


you will need:

    2 TBL salad oil                                                

     ¼ tsp. thyme or marjoram or both

    1 cup green pepper, chopped                                    

     3 cups water (I used chicken stock)

    1 cup onion, chopped                                                

    1 ½ c uncooked rice (I used brown rice, which required a longer cooking time)

    1 clove garlic, minced                                                 

    1 to 2 cups cooked chicken or turkey (I poached chicken in stock, see above)

    2 tsp. salt                                                             

    1 to 2 cups cooked ham or sausage

    pepper to taste                                                             

    1 small can mushrooms (I omitted this)

    2 tsp.  (or more) Worcestershire

Heat oil and cook green pepper, onion, and garlic until tender.  Stir in seasonings and water and simmer 10 minutes.  Mix in rice, chicken or turkey, and ham or sausage.  Cook covered over low heat for 25 minutes or until rice done.  Add mushrooms with a little of their liquid.  Cook about 5 minutes longer.

If using brown rice, I'd check it after 40 minutes, stir it every so often during that time, and add more liquid if needed and continue cooking until rice is no longer "al dente" if you will.

baking

so the last 4 days have been full of flour, sugar, mixing, and...starting over. a lot.

i must have used a whole bag of flour. had to!

 i made pizza dough this weekend, but forgot pictures. so i'll just give you the recipe.


From Food Network Magazine: (Italian issue)

you will need:

    1 1/3 cup warm (105 degrees) water
    1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) active dry or instant yeast (I've tried both)
    1 TB sugar
    3 TB olive oil, plus more for brushing
    3 3/4 c flour, plus more for dusting
    1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Sprinkle sugar in bowl with the warm water, stir to dissolve. Sprinkle yeast packet on top, let rest 10 minutes, until foamy. Stir in olive oil.

Combine flour and salt, pour in yeast mixture and mix with a wooden spoon to make dough ball.

Dump ball onto a floured surface, and knead for a few minutes--until lumps are gone. Form 2 balls. Brush 2 large bowls with oil, add one ball of dough to each, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1-2 hours (until doubled in size). Roll out and bake at 500 with toppings, or wrap tightly in plastic and freeze in a ziplock. (this works extremely well! just take out to thaw in fridge before rolling out as usual)

brownie pudding

 saturday evening i was craving something chocolatey and delicious, so of course i whipped up Ina's brownie pudding. (she doesn't actually call it this in her book, but it's what i have dubbed it--maybe because i saw it online!)


I used hershey's special dark cocoa powder (for the first time ever) and let me tell you...i am never going back! it is incredible. but the 2 sticks of butter and heap of sugar probably help a little.


this pudding is served hot, but since i had leftovers, i tried it cold and i must report it is just as delicious this way--maybe even more so. I've never been a huge fan of hot desserts. especially things that are hot and topped with ice cream. i am a dessert purist; i don't like things mixing. i'd rather have a bowl of ice cream or brownie alone than a brownie hot fudge sundae. i don't get whats so great about it. but this dessert is the mecca of chocolatey baked goodness if that's your thing.

i posted this, and came back to fully explain this dessert. it is gooey and soft and batter like, but it also has a crispy, crunchy perfectly crisp thin crust in top that makes a truly glorious cracking sound when you first pierce it. you will eat about a quart of it. get out the sweatpants and go crazy people!

pound cake batter--yum!!

batter. i want to eat it like this

 next up, for a few birthdays at work, i whipped up a pound cake.

yum!

The recipe is from my beautiful fairy godmother, and I can tell you right now, if you are not lucky enough to have a fairy godmother, I feel sorry for you. she is the most magical and special person I will ever know. and has bestowed upon me the greatest pound cake recipe! :)

Grandma Taylor's Pound Cake



you will need:

    6 eggs at room temperature
    2 sticks of butter, at room temperature
    3 cups flour
    3 cups sugar
    1 cup sour cream ( i don't think it need to be room temp, but i take it out with the other ingredients)
    1/4 tsp baking soda
    1/4 tsp salt
    1 1/2 tsp vanilla (i usually use about this much, just taste to check)
    *1 1/2 tsp extract of choice (I love almond, but you could use lemon, etc)

*note: this is a very large amount, so i would start at 1/2 tsp and taste, adding more if necessary. you don't want it to overwhelm you. especially if you are the only person alive who loves almond extract (ahem, like me) and you will not be the only one consuming this cake.


 Preheat oven to 325. Butter and flour a 12 cup tube pan.

Beat sugar and butter on high speed until fluffy. Add eggs individually, mixing after each. Add flour, salt, soda mixture and sour cream alternately until fully incorporated. Add vanilla and other extract, tasting to be sure of flavors. Pour into tube pan, and bake for 1 1/2 hours. be sure to check doneness at about 1 hour, you don't want to over bake! Cool in pan 10 minutes, turn onto plate. Can be sliced and stored in airtight container for a few days. If it lasts that long.

mini sausage and cheddar quiches

sunday i decided to try my hand at mini crustless quiche. i have been seeing lots of these around the food sites and thought it was a great idea for me--easy to eat, individual, easy to reheat! and the convenience of not needing crusts was perfect. i just took my favorite quiche recipe from The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook (page 202 if you were wondering!) and subtracted the crust, and fiddled with the temperature/bake time. this part was not as successful as i would have hoped--they turned out fine, but not as brown and "done" as i would have liked (and as i have seen in others' photos). the normal recipe calls for a bake time of 50 minutes at 325, so i just shortened the time.

I think the real solution is the bake at 400 for about 15-20 minutes. The higher heat will give you that browned edge i so adore. besides that they were great and so fun! and i ate a few for breakfast one morning--it was perfect! like a mini omelet. just microwave for 45 seconds to a minute.

you will need:

    1 pound Jimmy Dean Hot roll sausage (any really, but the Hot has great flavor and is not spicy)
    1 1/2 c (6 oz) shredded cheddar cheese
    1/2 c chopped onion
    1/4 c chopped bell pepper
    1/2 tsp dried basil
    1/8 tsp garlic powder
    4 large eggs
    1 cup milk
    dash paprika


Brown sausage, drain, cool. combine sausage, cheese, onion, pepper, basil, garlic powder and paprika in a bowl and mix. Crack 4 eggs in a bowl, whisk, add milk, whisk. With an ice cream scoop or spoon, spoon about 1 TB of sausage mixture into each cup of a greased muffin tin. (just make sure they aren't overflowing with filling) Pour a splash of egg mixture in each filled cup, being sure not to overflow. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, check and bake a few minutes more if needed.



there you have it. i am exhausted just retelling it all to you. happy baking.

a note on chocolate chip cookies.

in this post, i said i wanted to try the chocolate chip cookie recipe.

well, i did. during my week from hell two weeks ago, i prepared the dough and refrigerated it for 36 hours (longer than it said to but i couldnt make them until then) and they turned out, well, awful.


i was to say the least, very disappointed. the post i found the recipe at (link above) said how amazing these cookies were and blah blah on and on. i must have screwed something up along the way but mine, baked on a pizza brick/baking stone for several minutes longer than called for still turned out gooey--and not in a good way. so gooey that after sitting out of the oven for a few minutes, they drooped pathetically into piles of goosh off the end of my spatula before i could even attempt to place them on a cooling rack. i tried 2 different times to bake these, both times with utter failure.

this has never happened to me before. i don't know what happened but all i can say is i felt jipped and i'll never get that flour back. and now all i want to do is make my normal cookie recipe, which as it happens is delicious and always comes out perfect.

i'm going to need to do a lot more of that exercise junk if i'm going to be eating decadent baked spaghetti and cookies...

as promised...

chocolate mousse pie

i realize this somewhat blurry, bumpy rugged photo may not convey the true deliciousness and richness of this dessert appropriately, but it's safe to say its the most addicting, creamy, chocolatey delight there is.

i halved this recipe, and still ended up with this. oh lord.


you will need:

    crust:

3 cups chocolate cookie crumbs (i use teddy grahams)
1/2 cup melted butter

    filling:

1 lb chocolate chips, or equal amounts of chocolate bars chopped (pretty sure in bars its 16 oz. of chocolate)
2 whole eggs
4 eggs, yolks and whites divided (room temperature)
2 cups whipping cream
6 Tbs powdered sugar


for the crust:

crush the cookies into crumbs by placing in a zipper bag and smashing or rolling with a can (of whatever...beans, tomatoes etc). dump into a bowl and pour in the butter, stirring to coat.

press into a 10" spring form pan and chill for 30 minutes


for the filling:

you can do one of two things to melt your chocolate.

1. you can place in a microwave safe (preferably glass) dish and melt for 30 second intervals, stirring in between. this is the quickest way

but be warned--if your chips/chocolate are not fresh fresh fresh they can burn and congeal. its gross and if you havent melted your share of chocolate in a microwave, i suggest you fast forward to option 2

2. place chocolate in a glass/metal bowl (you don't want plastic!) small enough to place on top of a saucepan. fill the saucepan with enough water that it just touches the bottom of your bowl--this takes a little finessing, you don't want to bowl floating around, but the water needs to be touching.

simmer (heat until the water bubbles some, NOT boiling) water, stirring chocolate the whole time. this is the double boiler method and its basically burn proof.

it may mean more time and dishes, but its worth it if you fear burnt chocolate.

moving on

let your melted chocolate cool to a lukewarm temperature and then stir (whisking is easiest) in the 2 whole eggs.

once combined, stir in the 4 yolks only, and continue whisking. this may take a while, as this thickens the chocolate considerably--make sure it isnt lumpy or your mousse will have chunks of chocolate in it. while this is not really a bad thing...it's also not very smooth and moussey like.

^ if there is a biceps-endowed man in your house, this may be a good time to ask for his help, unless you are just a buff monster yourself. 

in the bowl of your mixer, whip the cream and powdered sugar until light and fluffy (soft peak stage) which basically means until you can pull up your whisking attachment and the cream will hold its little peak. google it if you arent sure.

get a new bowl for your mixer, or transfer cream and clean the bowl, and beat your egg whites until stiff--you want a thick foamy consistency, but don't over do it.

alternately mix in equal parts whipped cream and egg white, stirring to combine, being sure the mixture is thoroughly incorporated.

 pour the mousse on your pie crust and chill overnight, or at least for 6 hours.

if your gluttony is not sufficiently satisfied, top with whipped cream and enjoy the resulting coma.



no dinner tonight, my gluttonous rampage of the refrigerator yesterday left me in quite a state. i may be eating again by friday or so...