I should preface this slightly with a note about my ice cream maker. Mine is such that it is essentially a pre-frozen bowl which is used, rather than the ice and salt or anything subsequently stuck in the freezer. So my method may be a touch different from your own.
You will need: 1. ~1 cup bing cherries, halved and pitted. 2. 1/2 bar dark chocolate. 3. 1 cup milk 4. 2 cups heavy cream 5. 3/4 cup sugar 6. 2 large eggs.
First things first. Make sure all your dairy ingredients are chilled, as well as eggs and such. So, first step is to slice open the cherries and pitt them. Do you have a fancy cherry pitter? Good for you! I, alas, do not. I used a knife and just dug out the pits with my thumbnail. Bing cherries were on sale. It was $2 for a pound of them, so I bought a pound and decided to be picky and select my way through them, using only the choice and firm cherries for the ice cream. I got roughly a cup or so worth of halves. Now, here is an alternative you may wish to consider. I did NOT use this alternative but I am mentioning it nonetheless. Halfing the cherries is nice for texture and flavor. However, there's not a whole lot of surface area exposed to the cream. You may want to slice them a little thinner. It might also be worthwhile to take a few extra cherries and simply crush them (or slice them thinly, then crush them) to collect the juice. The reason? The end result has a fairly delicate cherry flavor- but then, cherry garcia actually doesn't have a strong cherry flavor either. It's up to you. Try a batch, see if you like it, adjust accordingly.
Cover the cherries and stick them in the fridge.
I bought a bar of Hershey's All Natural Extra Dark, made from 60% cocoa. It costs about as much as a regular chocolate bar. You don't need to get anything too fancy, but you want some nice dark chocolate. Now this is important. High cocoa percentage means it will melt very readily, so hold the bar fairly lightly with the bar in the foil as much as possible. Make sure your kitchen isn't too warm. With a knife, shave off about half the bar. I alternated between scraping and shaving, getting nice little curls and the like. Don't hack off chunks but don't worry too much if it seems a little thick- it will be breaking up and such. As soon as you are done, cover the bowl and shove it into the fridge. If you were anything like me, now if the time to wash your hand off.
Do not bother to set up your stove top. Nothing is getting heated. Why not? Because that chocolate will simply melt into the milk and be done with. But the whole point is to have these little delicate flakes of chocolate. Does that mean that the ice cream will have raw eggs in it? Yes. Deal with it. So.
Crack open the two eggs, and whisk them until they become light and fluffy- 1-2 minutes. Then slowly add the sugar- I added it 1/4 cup at a time, whisked until dissolved, then added a bit more. You want to keep whisking until it gets fairly thick. Will all of the sugar dissolve? Likely not- but whisk it a couple of minutes anyway to dissolve as much as possible.
To this, add your cup of milk, whisk it, then your two cups of cream, and whisk again. If everything was properly cold, dump your cherries and chocolate in. Whisk the cherries and chocolate in with a few strokes- you don't want the cream mix warming too much and melting the chocolate, and you don't wan tot break up the chocolate if you can help it. Stick the mixture into the fridge for a good hour or two. From here, follow instructions accordingly for your ice cream maker. The shot below was taken VERY quickly as I was giving it a quick stir before I shoved the bowl, covered, back into the fridge. Thoughts. You may be able to add the chocolate to the ice cream as it stirs and freezes. I didn't because I worry about it breaking up, and a little bit of the chocolate going into the cream might be nice. The couple of hours allows the cherries to flavor the cream a bit. however, if you tried the alternative above, then pour the cherry juice in with the cherries.
This is a delicious home-made version of cherry garcia- one of my absolute favorite ice creams. Let me know what you think. I'd also take some suggestions as to what to do with the greater portion of a pound of cherries.
Edit: I made this again this weekend and I used even more cherries, this time taking out a number and squishing them by hand and pouring the juice and the flesh into the ice cream. The result was a nice purple ice cream with a much more pronounced cherry flavor. I also, for the fuck of it, added about a teaspoon of almond extract. Its the kind of thing that gives a nice background flavor that the other flavors springboard off of. You may not notice the taste, but you notice its disappearance.
Sometimes you just need the soothing comfort of a childhood favorite -this is so quick and easy to make. Gotta love it.
3 tablespoons butter or margarine 1 package (10 oz., about 40) regular marshmallows OR - 4 cups miniature marshmallows 6 cups Rice Krispies
1. In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.
2. Add KELLOGG'S RICE KRISPIES cereal. Stir until well coated.
3. Using buttered spatula or wax paper evenly press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray or buttered lightly. Cool. Cut into 2-inch squares. Best if served the same day.
Store no more than two days at room temperature in airtight container. To freeze, place in layers separated by wax paper in airtight container. Freeze for up to 6 weeks. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.
The Ultimate Brownie is absolutely the best brownie recipe I've ever found. It is tall like a cakey-brownie, but is dense like a fudgy-brownie. I just made a batch tonight and the house is full of a gentle chocolate scent - irresistible! It's easy to make and pretty forgiving if you tend to toss in a bit more this and less that like I do.
8 ounces unsweetened chocolate or fine quality 70% dark chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
5 eggs
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt (I cheat and only use 1/2)
2-1/2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F/190 C/ 170 Fan.
Grease a 9 x 13 pan. You can also bake this in 2 round cake pans, etc.
1. Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat; set aside.
2.In a mixer, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes. (If you use a Kitchenaid type mixer, 5 minutes may be enough.)
3. Blend in alternately chocolate mixture, flour and salt until just mixed. Stir in the nuts.
4. Pour into prepared pan/s.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes. (Don't overbake.) If you are using 2 round pans, 30 minutes may be enough. Just check to prevent burning. Brownies will start to shrink away from sides of pan as it nears doneness.
6. Cool and frost if desired, but that is not necessary.
These brownies are dead gorgeous. Believe me, I know. You can wrap half of them in a freezer proof bag and save for later. Or you can take any extras to work and win the abject gratitude of the entire staff.
These are super easy to make - only needs a bowl and a spoon to mix up. Make sure the bananas are very ripe for best flavor.
Ingredients - basic recipe with notes on how I actually make it
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed (note - depends on size, I used 5 of the dinky ones we get in the UK) 1/3 cup melted butter - unsalted 3/4 cup sugar (note - I used 1/2 cup - depends on how ripe bananas are) 1 egg, beaten (note - I used 2 eggs - why? Because I'm the Mommy) 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon baking soda Pinch of salt 1 1/2 cup of flour 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (toasted or raw) dashes of spices of your choice - I use cinnamon, nutmeg
Method
No need for a mixer with this recipe. Get out a comfy mixing bowl and big spoon
1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.
2 Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla.
3 Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.
4 Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated. Fold in the chopped walnuts.
5 Pour mixture into a prepared (this means well buttered) muffin tin.
6 Bake for 25-30 minutes. (My crazy UK fan oven did them in 23 - so check after 20 min to see how done they are) Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.
It's been a while since I've posted so I figured I would put up somethign quick and easy (even though I have photoes and such of other recipes, I haven't bothered writing them up yet so yea).
Note: The origional recipe calls for garlic powder rather than onion,m and parsely flakes rather than thyme. I can't speak for that as I haven't tried it. I'd love ot hear from someone who tries both. I just don't have either garlic powder or parsely leaves here (or, more properly, I didn't see either and I'm not prepared to empty out the cabinet to find out)
Directions: 1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. 2. Combine (by hand, it's quite fast) the bisquick, milk, 2 tbsp butter, cheese, 1/4 tsp onion powder. 3.Put dough onto baking sheet in ~1/4 cup sizes (roughly 1.5-2inch diameter) Should make about 12. 4. Combine melted butter, thyme, rest of onion powder. 5. Search for brush. Fail to find one. Grab small spatula and try your best to "brush" the butter mixture onto the tops of the biscuits as a wash. 6. Stick in oven for 15 minutes. 7. Eat.
Possibilities for alterations: 1. Add 1 tsp old bay seasoning to the dough and/or a tsp paprika. 2. Try different cheddars. I used Cracker Barrel Extra-sharp white. You may like something more mellow, or use an aged cheddar for a richer flavor.
This isn't so much a post as a request, or two requests. One is that people post a recipe for tomato sauce. I can and have made it and it was nice, but it essentially consisted of me shoving a bunch of stuff I thought would be good into a pot, boiling the shit out of it and going at it with a potato masher to smoothen it out. Mind you it still came out really nice.
The other is for people to reccomend their favorite nice pasta sauce, store-bought. Don't say the word mushroom- canned mushrooms I find completely disgusting. I don't need cheeses or meat- I'm talking straight-up tomato sauce. I can never remember the brand, but it's either Ragu or Prego (I think Prego) which I cannot stand because it has an incredible amount of stabilizers, to the point you can barely taste the tomatoes.
But I want something nice and tasty. My brother and father used to like Mama Rizzo's, but I find it too watery. I want something that actually tastes like....well, a tomato sauce. It's store bought so it won't be awesome. But something reasonably palatable which you actually enjoy, not just what's on sale or whatever. I don't eat a lot of pasta, so when I do and I'm going to use sauce, I want to use nice stuff. I don't always have time to make the stuff fresh (or even to make it fresh and freeze it) so this would be really handy for me.
Pretty much mix everything together nicely, then adjust for taste. I started with 2 tablespoons of relish and 1 tablespoon lemon and it was okay, but a bit heavy on the mayonnaise flavor. Adding more relish and lemon really made it much better and the mayonnaise gave a nice creaminess rather than being a heavy flavor. I saw a recipe that recommended sticking it all into a blender, but I like mine with a little texture and it seems a bit of a lot of cleaning for such a small thing. Note that this makes a hell of a lot so you might want to either cut the amounts used or simply store it for another day. Or make more fish, whatever. The pickle juice I used was the brine from some pickles bought on Essex street, so you know it’s the good stuff. Joanna gives it two thumbs up.
The Fish.
Now, I’ve never deep fried anything so this was a bit new for me. Luckily, my lovely assistant Joanna handled that part of it. Now this is a variant of the classic beer batter. However, beer batter tends to taste a bit like, well, beer and neither Joanna nor I really care for the flavor. So instead, we substituted seltzer. It gives it a nice, lightness which you get from beer, but without the instrusive flavor. We ended up with a batter which was crunchy but with a fairly delicate flavor that allowed the flavor of the fish itself to come through.
1.2 pounds of cod
2.2 cups flour
3.2 cups cornmeal
4.3 cups seltzer
5.2 eggs
6.1 teaspoon pepper
7.1 teaspoon salt
8.A shitload of vegetable oil
Directions:
1.Head to your local fishmonger. Seriously- as with all fish, the fresher, the better. We, being in Chinatown, have a few within easy walking distance. I dunno what the usual price is but we got about 2 pounds worth (2 large fillets) for $11.50 and this stuff was really nice. Yes, that’s right- I’m eating fish from a Chinatown fishmonger. Again. If I come down with heavy metal poisoning some day, you’ll know why.
2.Debone the fish and slice into pieces roughly 2”x3” (some wiggle room is fine of course- but we found that too big took a bit longer to cook- although that might have been because of the oil temp- more on this later.)
3.Dump the vegetable oil into a big pot and put it over a high flame. We used vegetable oil because we didn’t want any flavors from the oil affecting the taste of the cod (papa, I’m talking to you- don’t use goddamn peanut oil or olive oil or mustard seed oil or hair oil or whatever unless you want your fish to taste like anything but fish). You need to let the oil pre-heat for about 10 minutes before it will be the right temperature. Some people have thermometers, I do not.
4.Combine all the dry ingredients together with a whisk. The corn meal is, I admit, a little odd. I was afraid that it would make the batter gritty. As a matter of fact, it didn’t since it ended up being crisp. However, it still strikes me as rather odd. I looked up several recipes and they all recommended it, so I used it but it still seems a touch odd to me. As I said, because they were fried to a nice crispness, it wasn’t a problem, but I still think it seemed wrong. Thoughts from across the pond?
5.Crack in the eggs and add half the seltzer, THEN stir. With the amount of dry ingredients involved if you try stirring having only added the eggs, you will end up with a large ball of goo in the middle of your whisk. Once the mixture is homogenous, add the rest of the seltzer and keep mixing. You may need to adjust the amounts of seltzer and flour and cornmeal. My original amount I used 1.5 cups each of the flour and cornmeal, and 2 cups of seltzer. That ended up being too thick. I added another cup of seltzer (yes, I thought it was foolish adding so much at once, but there you have it). It ended up being watery. I added 1/3 cup each of corn meal and flour So really it’s not 2 cups each, it’s 1 5/6 cups each but close enough, says I. Anyway, the consistency should be roughly that of a thin pancake batter. It should coat your fish, but not glop on.
6.Take your fish and dunk them in, good and covered. Let some excess drip off.
7.Take battered fish and carefully drop them into the oil. Now this is delicate- the oil MUST have been preheated, or you’re fucked. How do you know the temperature is okay? Well, you never really know for sure until you add your first piece. However, you can try testing with a drop of just the batter. It should bubble like crazy, but not dangerously so. That’s about all I can tell you. Joanna got nervous after a while and turned down the heat. After a while we noticed some of the pieces were taking forever to cook and weren’t browning. I suggested turning the heat back up- worked like a charm. So keep the heat up on high the whole time, if you can.
8.Leave the fish in the oil for ~7 minutes. By this point they should be a nice gold and brown. Take them out with tongs or a mesh scoop or whatever (do NOT use plastic- it’ll melt). Put them onto a plate covered with a few paper towels and let cool a minute or two.
9.Dunk cooked fish into tartar sauce and enjoy!
Note: The amount of battery is ludicrously more than you need for only 2 pounds of fish.I’m giving the measurements I used because I know that they work, but feel free to half this. That said, this is actually healthier than you might think (among other things because of the clean oil, etc.). Make sure you let the oil cool before you chuck it- and please do throw it out, don’t save it.
One thing I rather liked about this recipe was that it was pretty cheap. It mostly used stuff I had around the house. The only things I needed to buy were the fish and the oil (we don’t use much oil in my home). I am telling you this- after 1 pound of fish, you will be full, so if you plan on adding chips (not fries unless they are steak fries. Real chips are meant to be chipped off of a potato) then you can probably feed four with this recipe.
One other thing. Some recipes call for salting your fish before you dip them in the batter. I’m not a huge salt guy and I’ve had fish that was too salty because they did that. I also know that when Bobby Flay (*asshole*) was doing that on the show, the guys from A Salt and Battery were looking over saying “Oh no, he’s salting the fish…” in a “look what that idiot is doing” kind of voice. Their fish and chips have consistently been rated as the best in the western hemisphere, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
You can add things like paprika to the batter to give it a little spice. However, to my mind the batter is mant to be fairly subtle in flavor and act as a nice baseboard for the fish to come from. The fish, being cod (you can use other white fish, but cod is really traditionally best) is fairly light in flavor itself, and so is easily covered up. The big flavoring I would use is the tartar sauce.However, should you get ahold of some malt vinegar, sprinkle some over your fish and give it a try- let me know how it comes out (I don’t have any on hand, but was more interested in the tartar sauce anyway)
I should also say- I despise tartar sauce, and have since I as a little kid. However, a few years ago I finally tried some and to my surprise I enjoyed it. I discovered what an absolute world of difference there is between home-made (which is surprisingly easy) and store-bought tartar. If you, like me, hate both mayonnaise and tartar sauce, give this recipe a shot- you might be surprised.
Edit: I have now tried the recipe by changing one or two things. First, got rid of the corn meal. Also, added some salt and pepper to the batter itself. Third, let the oil run hot the whole time- yes it bubbles at first but it will go down within seconds. I also tried making a slightly thicker batter and not letting as much drip off post-dredge. My conclusion- there's a leeway in the thickness of the batter. However, it is a good idea to really let the majority of the excess to drip off. Otherwise you get pieces curling up on themselves, or giant globs of the stuff you're biting into, etc. And don't be afraid to let it go an extra minute or two- you really want them nice and golden- if they're too pale, you can eat them but they aren't as nice. Added to this, the lack of cornmeal definately improved the flavor and texture. We also tried chips- not so hard all in all, but not so interesting. We made the tartar sauce int he morning and let it sit throughout the day until we cooked- made a huge diffrence- learn from this.
You don't need to get anything too fancy, but you want some nice dark chocolate. Now this is important. High cocoa percentage means it will melt very readily, so hold the bar fairly lightly with the bar in the foil as much as possible. Make sure your kitchen isn't too warm. With a knife, shave off about half the bar. I alternated between scraping and shaving, getting nice little curls and the like. Don't hack off chunks but don't worry too much if it seems a little thick- it will be breaking up and such. As soon as you are done, cover the bowl and shove it into the fridge. If you were anything like me, now if the time to wash your hand off.
