Cooking Show: Summer Treats!

We filmed an episode of the cooking show last week, with a "Summer Treats" theme.

I thought it would be a good idea to prepare a few recipes that met the following requirements:

1. Refreshing on a hot day
2. Will not heat up your kitchen because you won't need your stove or oven.

I almost met the requirements with all of the recipes.

Raspberry Lemonade

Check.  Met requirements 1 and 2--refreshing and no cooking involved.  Click here for the printable recipe.

Ice Box Cheesecake with Berries

Refreshing, and no baking required!  Here's the printable recipe.

This brings us to our final recipe, the only recipe that didn't meet requirement number 2.

Toasted Almond Butter Toffee Crunch Ice Cream

(Printable Recipe)

You need the oven for four minutes to toast the almonds and the stove for six minutes to melt the toffee ingredients.

I suppose that you could make the almond toffee a day ahead of time so that all you would need to do on the day you make the ice cream is chop it up and add it in.

I can't promise, however, that the toffee won't disappear if you prepare it too far in advance.

In the words of Dan, Our Awesome Camera Man (best spoken with a lilting Irish brogue): "Forget about the ice cream!  We'll just eat toffee!" --Dan's proclamation when he sampled the toffee.

Fortunately, the recipe makes more toffee than you will need.  Plenty to mix into the ice cream, with enough left over for snacking.

Ice Box Cheesecake with Berries

Okay, the summer heat has finally appeared here in the Northeast, which prompts me to find ways to cook without actually cooking.  

You understand what I mean, right?

This ice box cake fits the bill.  There's no cooking at all--just layers of graham crackers and a cream cheese/whipped cream mixture.  Topped with berries.

Make this ASAP, while berries are still in season!!

Today's Playlist

• "Rag and Bone"...The White Stripes
• "Rollover D.J."...Jet
• "Someday"...The Strokes
• "In One Ear"...Cage the Elephant
• "Holiday"...Green Day
• "Everybody Talks"...Neon Trees

Ice Box Cheesecake with Berries (10 to 12 servings)

Printable Recipe

• 14 graham crackers (full-size, with 4 sections)
• 3 cups whipping cream
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups assorted berries

Line a 9" x 13" baking pan with half the graham crackers, in a single layer.  Break them to fit if you need to--you will be covering them with the whipped cream so nobody will ever know if they're not straight and perfect!

Whip the cream in the bowl of your mixer with the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes.  Add the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract and whip until completely incorporated and fluffy.

Add the cream cheese (cut into 1" chunks) and whip until it is thoroughly mixed and smooth, with no lumps (about 3 minutes).  Test it to be sure there are absolutely no little lumps hiding in there!

Spread half of the cream mixture over the graham crackers which you've already layered into the pan.  Top the cream with another layer of graham crackers, then spread this layer of graham crackers with the remaining cream.  Top with the berries.  Refrigerate for at least one hour to enable the graham crackers to soften.

 Enjoy.  

Toasted Almond Butter Toffee Crunch Ice Cream

Naming this recipe Toasted Almond Butter Toffee Crunch Ice Cream may seem like overkill, but I wanted to make sure to describe all that is wonderful about it.

Toasted Almonds.

Butter Toffee.

Crunch!

Making your own ice cream takes a teensy bit more effort than opening up a carton or visiting your nearest ice cream parlor, but it's so worth the time and effort!  Especially when it's as yummy as this.

I'm also experimenting with my blog--I'm not going to post as many step-by-step photos.  You may have noticed that I haven't been posting as frequently as I used to!  The time I spend setting up the photos (and let's face it, I don't even know how to take a decent photo) and then incorporating them all into a blogpost could be time better spent writing more blogposts!  As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome (I appreciate all of your emails/comments)!

Today's Playlist

• "Basket Case"...Green Day
• "Don't Make Me Wait"...Locksley
• "Dead!"...My Chemical Romance
• "Chelsea Dagger"...The Fratellis
• "Hey There Delilah"...Plain White T's
• "Death Letter"...The White Stripes
• "Always Where I Need To Be"...The Kooks
• "Short Skirt/Long Jacket"...Cake

Toasted Almond Butter Toffee Crunch Ice Cream (Approx. 1 Quart)

Printable Recipe

Toffee ingredients: 

• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup slivered almonds

Ice Cream ingredients:

• 2 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• pinch salt
• 4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

Gather your ingredients.  Along with your ice cream maker, you will also need two bowls for an ice bath and a thermometer.

You can see that I took the photo after I had made the almond toffee.  Here's a quick rundown of how to make the toffee:

Place the slivered almonds (in a single layer) onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Place the baking sheet into your unheated oven, and then set the temperature to 350 degrees.

By the time your oven reaches 350 degrees, the almonds should be just beginning to toast.  I took this photo after the almonds reached my desired temperature; you can see that they are just barely brown around the edges, which is exactly how you want them to be!

While the almonds are toasting, prepare the butter toffee.  Don't roll your eyes and tell me that you can't multitask! It only takes five minutes, and if by chance your oven reaches 350 degrees before you're done, simply remove your baking sheet from the oven while you're stirring your toffee.

To prepare the toffee:  melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  As soon as the butter is melted, stir in the brown sugar.

Stir continuously until it begins to boil.  Continue to stir for an additional 4 to 5 minutes while it boils, until it becomes sort of spongy and pulls from the side of the saucepan and sort of holds itself together.  

Here is a video of what you can expect it to look like.  After 4 minutes, the mixture was holding together and reached the spongy, pulling-away-from-the-pan stage.

(And now that I am posting this video, I am realizing how ironic it is that I am trying to streamline my step-by-step photos yet here I am actually posting a cooking video for the first time.  Even though it's only nine seconds long, leave it to me to complicate things when I'm trying to simplify.)

Remove your toffee from the heat and immediately pour it over your toasted almonds.  Allow it to cool as you prepare your ice cream.

Set up your ice bath now: you will need a large bowl, half-filled with ice cubes.  Pour water into the bowl so the ice cubes are covered.  Place a smaller bowl into the larger bowl so that it is sitting in the ice water.

Heat the whole milk in a small sauce pan over low/medium heat until it reaches 175 degrees.  Do not let it boil!  Once it reaches the desired temperature, stir in the sugar and the pinch of salt.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Temper the egg yolks:  Stir about 1/3 cup of the heated milk into your lightly beaten egg yolks, then stir the tempered egg yolks into the saucepan.  Return the heat to low/medium and stir continuously until the temperature reaches 160 to 175 degrees.  The mixture will thicken (thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Remove the thickened mixture from the heat and pour it into the small bowl set in the ice bath.  Stir to dissipate the heat.  When the mixture has cooled slightly, whisk in the heavy cream and the almond extract.

Refrigerate the cream mixture until completely cooled (about 1 hour).  After the mixture has cooled, freeze in your ice cream maker according to your manufacturer's directions.

While the ice cream churns, chop your toffee.

Break your large piece of toffee in half.  Did I tell you that you will have twice as much toffee as you will actually need?

No need to thank me for giving you a toffee recipe that makes enough to allow for the snacking you will do as you're chopping it to add to your ice cream.

Chop half of your prepared toffee into pieces about 1/4- to 1/2-inch in size.  You want them to be substantial enough to know that there is toffee in that ice cream, not teeny crumbs!

Add the chopped toffee into your ice cream maker during the last 30 seconds or so before it finishes churning.  Or you could stir them in manually.

When the ice cream has finished churning, you can either eat the soft ice cream immediately or transfer it into a freezer container to harden in your freezer.

Enjoy.

Cooking Show: Italian Recipes!

We recently filmed another episode of the cooking show.

My friend, Nick, joined me and we prepared a few recipes that showcased our love of Italian food (and drinks)!

(Click on the links to be taken to the recipes.)

We started off with Limoncello Limonata.  We made our own fresh-squeezed lemonade and added 

Limoncello.  

Next, Spinach, Pomegranate & Feta Salad, with a Balsamic Vinaigrette.  I usually make this salad with grilled chicken, but tonight we omitted the chicken because we didn't want the salad to compete with our main dish:

Braciole!

Nick and I both agree that braciole is one of our favorite Italian recipes.  My recipe for braciole doesn't stray too far from old school-- rolled with garlic, parsley and cheese and simmered in a red sauce.

I think there is another show in our future.  Nick has some creative methods of preparing braciole with different fillings and sauces...at some point we are going to film Braciole Part II!

Finally, Cannoli Dip!  

You have to do a teensy bit of advance prep--but once the ricotta has been drained you can whip this up in about 2 minutes.  Break a few ice cream cones and pizzelles into bite-sized pieces and start dipping!

Spinach, Pomegranate & Feta Salad with Chicken

If my husband had his way, we'd be grilling steak several times a week and serving those steaks with a side of potatoes.  He's totally a meat and potatoes sort of guy.

If you've followed my blog at all, you know quite well that I don't cook red meat very often.  Chicken recipes outnumber steak recipes, 43-6.

A teensy bit lopsided, for sure.

I don't think he shares my affinity for salads, but I sure am grateful that he doesn't complain;  better yet, he really LIKED this salad! Caitie and I liked it so much, I figured that I better blog about it so that I'll remember the combo of ingredients that I used.

Today's Playlist

• "Seven Nation Army"...The White Stripes
• "All Apologies"...Nirvana
• "Re-Education"...Rise Against
• "What I Got"...Sublime
• "Brain Stew"...Green Day
• "Bulletproof Heart"...My Chemical Romance"
• "Level"...The Raconteurs

Spinach, Pomegranate & Feta Salad with Chicken (serves 2-4)

Printable Recipe

Salad ingredients:

• 6 cups baby spinach
• 1 pomegranate, seeded
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped chives
• 8 oz cooked chicken, sliced

Dressing ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• salt and pepper, to taste

Gather your ingredients.

There's really not much prep to this recipe--remove the seeds from the pomegranate, zest the lemon, slice your chicken and chop the chives.  Mix up the dressing and then throw it all together!

This is how I remove the seeds from a pomegranate: first, using a sharp knife, score around the outer shell.

Pry the pomegranate open along the score lines.  Hold each half over a bowl (seed side-down), and bang the sides of the pomegranate half with a wooden spoon.  

Most of the seeds will fall into the bowl.  There will be some left inside. I use my fingers to pull the remaining seeds out, but if anyone has any suggestions for easier methods to de-seed a pomegranate I'd love to hear about it!

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients in a small bowl until combined.

Place the spinach, feta and pomegranate seeds into a large bowl.

Drizzle with the dressing.  Toss to combine.

Place heaping servings into individual bowls. Top with sliced chicken and sprinkle with chives.

Enjoy.

Cooking Show: Our Favorite Ina Garten Recipes

The theme for our most recent cooking show was suggested by a friend of mine who absolutely loves, loves, LOVES Ina Garten.

"Have you ever thought of doing a show featuring Ina Garten recipes?" was all she had to say to convince me that it would be the next theme for the show.  So we picked out a few recipes (I admit we had trouble narrowing it down to a few!  We'll have to do another show in the future).

 

We started with Pomegranate Cosmos.  Whew, they sure do pack a punch.  After a few sips, we all agreed that they were extremely refreshing and would be a great summer cocktail!

Next up: Cape Cod Chopped Salad.  Was it my love for arugula that made me choose this recipe?  My affinity for Cape Cod? My fondness for adding fruit to my salads?  Because...bacon?  Who knows?  The only thing you need to know is that this salad is out-of-this-world delicious! 

I asked my friend, Trish (an expert on all things Ina), if she had a favorite Ina Garten recipe.  Her reply:  "Shrimp Scampi!"  I googled it and the first recipe that popped up was for Ina's Baked Shrimp Scampi, which was not the scampi recipe that Trish was referring to; however, we both agreed that it looked so good that we had to give it a try!

This scampi was outstanding.  It didn't take long to disappear!  One of the participants in our dining room audience may have asked me for the recipe before she even swallowed her first bite, it was that good.

The last recipe we prepared was my recipe for Croque Monsieur, which I've altered over the years but the first time I made it I followed Ina's version.

 Do you notice anything else in this picture, something I haven't mentioned yet?

Truffle Tots!!

Not an Ina Garten recipe, but I did promise in a previous blogpost that I would post about my truffle tots soon-- click here to be taken to that recipe!

Croque Monsieur on a Croissant!

I don't know when I first became aware of the French ham and cheese sandwich known as Croque Monsieur.  Somewhere, someway, I either read about it or heard it mentioned often enough that I knew what it was, even if I had no idea what it really looked like.

My obsession, however, truly began in 2009...when I saw It's Complicated.  I'm glad "Thou shalt not covet the belongings of Meryl Streep's movie character" is not a commandment because I would still be saying penance. Hopefully, you've seen this movie and know what I'm talking about!  In the moments between the times I was laughing uncontrollably, most of my thoughts while I watched this movie were along the lines of

-"I want her house!"
-"I want her garden!"
-"I want her bakery!"
-"I want (John Krasinski's character) to be my future son-in-law!"
-"I want her purple suede boots!"

The food scenes were drool-worthy.  In one scene, when she took a baking pan out of the oven I think I may have actually said out loud, "What is that!?"  And when Alec Baldwin's character answered the question for me and said, "Is that croque monsieur?" I mentally made a note that I just had to make croque monsieur for myself.  After I bought a pair of purple suede boots, of course.  I'm still waiting for my future son-in-law to come and sweep my daughter off her feet.

She's going to hate me for writing that.

As luck would have it, Ina Garten's Croque Monsieur  popped up when I googled this recipe for the first time.  I've made a few adaptations--I use significantly less cheese, and instead of bread I decided a French sandwich calls for a croissant, oui?

Individual Braciole

There are probably as many different braciole recipes out there as there are chefs to cook them!

Different fillings, different preparation methods--adjust the fillings to suit your taste.

I keep my filling really simple--just garlic, parsley and romano cheese.  Just enough to season the beef!

If you google "braciole" you'll find lots of different variations.  I like to cut the flank steak into individual portions, which goes against the grain--pun intended, ha!--of some purists.  Others butterfly the steak so there is one huge, albeit thinner, steak to roll up.  Some people add pine nuts, additional spices, bread crumbs, sliced cheese, sausage or prosciutto.  I'm sure I left out lots of other possible additions.  Feel free to fill your braciole with whatever ingredients you like!

Today's Playlist

• "Learn To Fly"...Foo Fighters
• "Another One Bites the Dust"...Queen
• "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"...The Clash
• "Troublemaker"...Weezer
• "Back Against the Wall"...Cage the Elephant
• "The Denial Twist"...The White Stripes
• "Love and Affection"...Neon Trees
• "Chelsea Dagger"...The Fratellis

Cooking Show: Mother's Day!

We taped a cooking show last week with a Mother's Day theme.  Even though Mother's Day is still a month away, we figured we'd throw some ideas out there for those who are looking to cook up something special for Mom!

My friend, Maribeth, cooked with me.  You can see her apron in the background of this picture...we wore our special "Mommy's Helping Hands" aprons that our daughters made us for Mother's Day when they were in kindergarten.  

I don't know how many of those aprons from Mother's Day 2001 are still in existence...I think that there could be a few other moms from the Daisy troop who are as sappy and sentimental as Maribeth and I, and I'd bet they still have their aprons. (hint: Joanie, Sophia & Tina--I'm talking to YOU!)

What did we cook?  Well, we thought we'd come up with a menu that featured recipes we wish that someone would make for us.  On Mother's Day, or any day!

To start the day:  Cap'n Crunch French Toast with Berry Syrup.  With whipped cream on top.

Of course I neglected to take a decent picture during the show.  It's that dish in the center.  Click here to be taken to the printable recipe.

Here's an archive picture, from last month.  

I wish that I had cut into it, so you could see the crunchy goodness of the outside and the fluffy contrast of the inside!

Maribeth and I sipped our Raspberry Lemonade Martinis while we cooked.  We think Mom might appreciate these drinks on Mother's Day as well!  To make them (serves 2):

• Rim 2 martini glasses with sugar
• drop a lemon drop into each glass
• combine 1 1/2 oz limoncello and 1 1/2 oz Stoli Razberi vodka in an ice-filled cocktail shaker
• shake well, then evenly strain into the glasses
• top with 4 oz pink lemonade
• add a twist of lemon
• cheers!

Watermelon Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette.  Because after eating Cap'n Crunch French Toast for breakfast, this light & tasty salad is about all Mom will be able to handle for lunch!

And a lighter dinner would probably be a good idea as well.  These Open-Faced Tomato Sandwiches with Garlic Mayo & Pancetta fit that bill!

And for a sweet finish on Mother's Day, you can't go wrong with Sliced Pear with Prosciutto & Honey!