Peaches, lovely peaches

I've wanted to make peach ice cream for a while and I finally did about a week ago. I bought some beautiful end-of-summer North Carolina peaches from the local produce stand and let them ripen. Letting them ripen was like torture. I wanted them to be ready NOW! About four agonizing days later, I determined they were ripe. (I even used that "trick" and put an apple in the paper bag with the peaches in order to ripen them faster.)

Mmmmmm.



The most tedious step in this ice cream recipe was peeling all those peaches, and even that was easy as the skins just peeled right off in big, smooth, sheets.

Half of the peaches were heated with honey and then pureed. Here is the puree although I think it looks more like slightly chunky egg yolks in this picture.



After that, it was ice cream as usual - heat the dairy, add sugar, vanilla, eggs, etc, chill, then churn. At the end of the churning, I added the rest of the peaches which were finely diced.

This was very good and I highly recommend it if you have four peaches around. I think when I make this again, I will amp up the peach flavor and use more for the puree. But I'll have to be careful if I do that since the added puree would contain more water and that might give the ice cream an icier texture. Steve said it would also be good with a little cinnamon. I also played with the dairy this time. If you have read my other blog entries about ice cream, you'll recall I use mainly heavy cream and half and half. I tried using half and half and whole milk once but it didn't get creamy enough. This time, I used light cream and whole milk. Voila! A winning combination that gave me the creaminess and texture I wanted while cutting out a bit of the fat.

I followed Dorie Greenspan's recipe to the letter except for the dairy. She wanted me to use heavy cream. Here is the recipe and my adaptation is noted:

Honey Peach Ice Cream
from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

4 large ripe peaches (about 2 pounds), peeled and pitted
1/4 cup honey
1 cup whole milk (*adaptation: 3/4 cup)
1 cup heavy cream (*adaptation: 1 1/4 cup light cream)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Coarsely chop half the peaches into 1/2 chunks and toss them into a small saucepan. Add the honey and bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the peaches are soft but not mushy, about 10 minutes. Scrape the mixture into a blender or food processor and whir to puree. (Alternatively, use a hand blender. *This is what I did as it's easier to clean up but be careful of spatter when hand blending the hot mixture.) Set the peach puree aside while you make the custard.

Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until very well blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon. The custard should reach at least 170 degrees F, but no more than 180 degrees F, on an instant-read thermometer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour the custard into a 2-quart glass measuring cup or clean heatproof bowl. (*I poured it through a fine mesh strainer just in case there were milk or egg solids.) Stir in the vanilla and peach puree.

Refrigerate the custard until chilled.

Scrape the chilled custard into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. While the ice cream is churning, finely dice the remaining 2 peaches, then, just before the ice cream is thickened and ready, add the peaches and churn to blend. Pack the ice cream into a container and freeze.

Baking also included recipes & suggestions for several more flavors I'd like to try: chocolate ganache, chocolate peppermint sorbet, burnt sugar, and blueberry-sour cream. Maybe you'll read about one of those some day.

Happy ice cream!

We celebrated the 4th with food, of course

How did your holiday weekend go? Ours was fun but way too short. I kicked off the weekend on Friday with TNTE club. They came over for a night of playing Shanghai (a card game that is ridiculously tension filled. "It's just a game!") and food. We had a feast of fresh figs, perfect strawberries, veggies, warm olives, cheeses, bread/crackers, and grilled pizzas. I made two.

I used my same trusty dough recipe, but I divided it in two. The first was a traditional red sauce & cheese pizza. The second was topped with leftover balsamic caramelized onions, olives, rosemary, and garlic oil.

Let me go back two days. As part of my Bon Appetit week two weeks ago, I planned to make steak sandwiches. For one reason or another, we didn't get around to making them when planned. However, it was too good a recipe to pass up, so I finally made them Wednesday before the holiday weekend. These were far from healthy, but extremely delicious. We used half a flank steak, rather than pricier filet Mignon, sliced very thinly. Topped with Camembert, bacon, and these too delicious for words balsamic caramelized onions. Wow. They are fantastic to use for just about anything that needs a rich, savory kick. I did a whole onion, so we had lots of leftovers.

Here's how to do the onion:
1) Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in skillet over medium heat.
2) Add 1 large onion, thinly sliced; saute until soft and beginning to brown, about 8 minutes.
3) Stir in 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and 2 tablespoons (packed) of brown sugar, reduce heat to low, and cook until onion is brown and sauce is thick, stirring often about 20 minutes.
4) Season with salt and pepper. (Definitely add the salt!)

Anyway, I used these onions to top the pizza. Both pizzas turned out pretty well. I had a little bit of trouble flipping one of them because it got stuck just a little on the pan, but otherwise, things turned out alright. Could have also cooked one of the crusts just a little bit more as it wasn't crispy enough.

Friday was also my first attempt making cookies n' cream ice cream. I think I almost nailed it right out of the gate.

Cookies n' cream ice cream
2 cups half and half
1 cup heavy or light cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
2 eggs
about 2/3 of a package of Oreos (I used reduced fat Oreos, for what it's worth)

Heat the half and half over low-medium heat until just to boiling point. Let cool 15 minutes. Reduce heat to low and whisk in sugar, vanilla, salt, and eggs until well incorporated. Continue to whisk until temperature reaches 170 degrees. (I use my candy thermometer to check the temp, but my nose always tells me when it's getting close to 170 because the egg smell starts to change and smell more like cooked eggs. You don't want to have scrambled eggs in ice cream.) Remove from heat and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours, overnight is better. While chilling, prepare your Oreos. I put one row of Oreos in a zip top bag and pummeled it with a heavy rolling pin. This pulverized them. Maybe a little too much, I realized. So I chopped each cookie in another row of Oreos into eighths. After chilling, remove mix from fridge and whisk in remaining cup of cream. Freeze using ice cream mixer according to manufacturer's directions. By hand, mix in the pulverized Oreos and the chopped Oreos. Transfer ice cream to containers and freeze until you can't stand it anymore and have to eat some.

I originally used 1 cup of sugar, but we all agreed it made the ice cream just a little too sweet. I think reducing by a quarter, or maybe even a half, would be just about right. Other than being a little too sweet, this tasted great. Cookies n' cream is one of my favorite flavors anyway and it's pretty hard to screw up.

On Saturday, we decided we wanted to use the other half of that flank steak for our 4th of July dinner. so Steve grilled that up after marinating it briefly in oil, chopped onions, garlic, cilantro, salt & pepper. I made a new recipe called black bean confetti salad I found on the Smitten Kitchen blog. Yum! Easy to make and tasty, good cold or room temp, and makes enough to take to a party, this salad is one I'll make again and again. Smitten Kitchen is not a cilantro fan, but Steve and I both like it so I added some but could have added more. So if you like cilantro, be generous with it. We also had two ears of corn in the fridge, so we decided to grill those, too. Having never grilled corn before, we looked up some tips. After soaking it for about 30 minutes in water (husks & all), we moved them to the grill. Steve removed much of the husk except for the inner layer. The husks gets very charred and we thought we were burning up the corn, but the husks sort of act like a little steamer. Our kernels got caramelized and charred. Most of the husks burn away, and a quick wipe with a paper towel got the remaining bits.

We washed all of this down with margaritas. Here is our feast:


Later that night, we were able to see the fireworks from our roof. This surprised us very much as we didn't expect to be able to see any. I don't think the ones we could see were the big Macy's fireworks. The ones we saw were more towards Liberty Island and New Jersey. They were good and went on quite a while.

On Sunday, we had delicious leftovers for lunch. After having more of the flank steak for lunch topped with the bean salad in sandwiches, we cooked up a pork tenderloin with many of the leftover ingredients from the weekend. On the stove, Steve cooked the pork medallions with oil, salt, pepper, onion, cilantro, and lemon juice (I was out of limes). I made rice with butter and mixed in a little bit of cooked garlic. I mixed in the left over bean salad for a quasi Cuban-style rice.

Monday was a blur and not interesting food-wise. Today is Tuesday and I still have a heap of work to do before I leave for Chicago on Thursday. I'll be out of town until next Tuesday, and Steve will have to fend for himself. I suspect he will have lots of soup. That's what he usually eats when I'm out of town.

I'll try to remember what I eat and where while in Chicago. There are so many good places there!

Fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream, redux

A couple days ago, I made my second attempt for the perfect fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream. My first attempt wasn't bad, mind you, but it was lacking a balance of flavor between the mint and chocolate, and it wasn't quite creamy enough. It was intensely minty, but the chocolate got lost. My first batch also turned out green tea green rather than a nice pretty light green. Here's a picture of it in my grandpa's Blue Bell Ice Cream bowl.



For my second batch, I upped the cream quotient and used a darker chocolate (72%). This definitely improved it, but it's still not quite what I want. The color was much improved, so I at least figured that out. Not sure how to get white fresh mint ice cream like Chestnut's . . . seems like the chlorophyll will ooze out and color the cream no matter what as the heat breaks down the cell walls. Ah, science!

In this second attempt, I thought the chocolate was the right one to use, but I thought the mint needed increased. Unfortunately, I couldn't make this batch with the full two packed cups I used in the first because I just a little short on mint. Two full packed cups of mint leaves seems to be the right amount. The second batch ice cream tended more towards the sweet-mint area and not the refreshingly bright fresh mint intensity that I want.

The second batch was also far creamier thanks to the two cups of heavy cream, but now I think it's too creamy. You know that sort of filmy, slimy, yucky mouth feel you get after eating whipped cream? Yeah, this is what happened after eating this ice cream. So I'm going to lower the amount of heavy cream and substitute half and half or light cream.

All of this means I have to make this yet AGAIN, oh bummer, to get everything just right. Steve, by the way, thought this batch was just perfect.

When I get figure out the amounts and ratios, I'll post the finished recipe. I already have the ice cream bowl freezing, but we have to polish off this batch before I'll make the other. Any excuse to eat ice cream faster is fine with me!

It's ice cream season

And baseball season. The two things to so well together. Summer is hands down my least favorite season, but that's mostly due to the obnoxious weather. I like other things about summer - baseball and ice cream being two of those things. Hot dogs and other meats cooked over the grill also can't be beat when served with cold beers or slushy margaritas. Sangria, Mexican Coca-Cola in a glass bottle*, peach sun tea, lemonade, limeade, anything-ade, are also great quenchers during the heat. I'll be able to make sun tea up on the roof this summer.

We've been grilling various things trying to get good at it. Everything so far has been good, but we are aiming for REALLY good. We've done onions, peppers, flank steak, hot dogs, rib eyes, burgers (Jucy Lucys, to be exact), and tonight Steve attempts a whole chicken. He picked out some sort of Italian-style chicken. He'll have to cut out the spine and then flatten out the chicken in order to grill it. Normally, grilled chicken is not something my taste buds clamor for, but I'm willing to give this a try. I also want to try a pizza on the grill.

To go with Steve's I-talian chicken, I'll serve up our leftover warm herbed olives with crusty bread and goat cheese, arugula salad, and we'll finish with homemade strawberry ice cream. Every night we have grilled we've eaten outside on the roof. We got furniture and enjoy sitting out there. But today has been rainy, so we'll probably only do the cooking outside.

I received the Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment kit for Christmas, and I've only used it three times. I didn't much feel like making ice cream during the dead of winter, but now that the weather is turning warmer, I'm enjoying the thought of trying out different flavors and combinations. So far, I've stuck to pretty simple flavors - vanilla bean, lemon, and strawberry. I made lemon a couple weeks ago to take to Reka's for her Memorial Day get-together. Lemon ice cream is her favorite, so I decided upon the flavor in honor of our hostess. (Thanks for the party and good food, Reka!)

The lemon was delicious. I loved it. It turned out nice and creamy but light. The lemon was just the right amount of sweet and tart. It's a keeper of a recipe. Might add some ginger next time . . .

The best part about making ice cream is that it's very simple. All the recipes are about the same and the flavorings make up the only difference. The three flavors I've made so far have all been French-style - meaning they have eggs in them. I'd like to do some ice cream without eggs.

Last night, I happened to catch a rerun of Alton Brown's Good Eats. He was making ice cream and other frozen desserts. What perfect timing! He explained that the majority of ice creams available today contain eggs. He called these ice creams "New York Style." He said the small amount of ice creams made without eggs are called "Philadelphia Style." He offered no explanation of why with eggs is NY and without is Philly. It seems like things that are the most decadent and indulgent of their kind are often called NY style. Except for the Philly cheese steak or Philly cream cheese, I guess. Ironic that NY style cheesecakes are made with Philly cream cheese. (Although, I prefer a ricotta cheesecake rather than a cream cheese one.)

Okay, I digress. Back to ice cream. Alton's ice cream recipe without eggs is pretty similar to what I've been doing with eggs. His liquid to sugar ratio is about the same, and he offered the suggestion of substituting any part of the sugar with the same amount of preserves. Interesting. That would certainly add more flavor. For example, I could have used half a cup of sugar and half a cup of strawberry preserves in my strawberry ice cream. He made a simple vanilla bean ice cream and substituted in three tablespoons of peach preserves.

I think the next flavor I'll make is mint chocolate chip. Ever since we had that mint chocolate chip ice cream at Chestnut this winter, I've been wanting to try to replicate it myself. I'll use fresh mint, which will steep in the dairy as I heat it. Oooh, I'm looking forward to it!

I'd also like to try mixing and matching dairy products to get a lower fat content ice cream. Alton said that to be called ice cream by FDA standards, the product has to be at least 10% fat. Half and half is 10% fat, which I knew thanks to my handy bare-bones ice cream booklet that came with the Kitchen Aid. Light cream has 18%, whipping cream 30%, and heavy cream 36%. I might try using 2 parts half and half and one part whole milk next time, or two parts whole milk to one part light cream. Basically, I can use any dairy just as long as the total is what the recipe calls for. This is a good thing to know when faced with a recipe calling for three cups of heavy cream and six eggs. As we all know though, the more fat, the creamier, richer, and tastier the ice cream.

Click here for the lemon ice cream recipe. I used this recipe again for the strawberry ice cream, but added a few extra steps.

Strawberry ice cream
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
3 large eggs
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
One pint of strawberries
lemon juice

After rinsing the strawberries, remove tops, and cut into pieces. Put these pieces along with 3 tablespoons to 1/2 cup of sugar into a small food processor or blender. Add a couple splashes of lemon juice. Process until it is smooth. Strain puree through a fine mesh strainer, if desired, to remove seeds. Cover and chill puree.

Whisk together 1 cup sugar, eggs, vanilla, and 1 cup of half-and-half in medium saucepan. Continue to whisk over medium-low heat until almost simmering. Do not boil. Remove from heat, cover, and chill at least one hour, preferably overnight. (I move the mix to an extra-large Pyrex bowl with a spout because the spout comes in handy later.)

After chilling, whisk in the remaining 1 cup of half-and-half and strawberry puree. Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. I also move the ice cream, which has a soft-serve consistency at this point, into reusable Chinese/Thai take out soup containers, and then pop those into the freezer. They work perfectly! Makes about one quart.

*Mexican Coca-Cola is excellent. I am not a regular soda drinker, and I rarely ever want a Coke, but Mexican Coke in a tall, ice cold glass bottle is hard to resist. Mexican Coke is made with pure can sugar which makes it light years better than American Coke, which is made with cheaper corn syrup. For more about the cult of Mexican Coke, read this. Try one next time you see it and tell me I'm wrong. New Yorkers can try Mexican Coke at Hill Country, Might be available other places, but I've had it here. Hill Country also has Blue Bell Ice Cream, imported from Texas. Try the Homemade Vanilla. It's the best around.

Ice cream in February

I love ice cream and am very happy to see this wonderful sounding recipe for maple pecan ice cream at Chocolate & Zucchini today. I am so making this. Too bad Steve doesn't like pecans - more for me!

Ice cream is actually pretty simple to make. Granted, I've only made it once, but it's really not that difficult. I received the Kitchen Aid ice cream maker attachment for Christmas, and I've used it to make French vanilla. As long as I followed the manufacturer's instructions for how to prepare the special, insulated, freezer bowl, the ice cream turned out beautifully. I had read some consumer complaints that the bowl doesn't work and the ice cream is essentially ice cream soup.

These complaining consumers must not have done exactly what they were instructed to do because I had no problems. Yes, when it's done churning, the ice cream is on the soft side but it's thick. My ice cream churned so thick, that the mixer/churner didn't want to turn anymore. When that happened, I figured the ice cream was done.

After I transferred the ice cream from the freezer bowl to individual storage containers (plastic Chinese take-out soup containers work beautifully!) and froze it a while, it was the consistency and hardness of regular, store bought premium ice cream. And tasted great.