Baileys Ice Cream

I followed this minus the chocolate shavings. I was indeed looking for a recipe that would just use Baileys straight out, like on the order of cups as opposed to tablespoons which is lame. So I was happy to have found this one!

Following the same general principle as the other homemade ice creams, I made this with the 1 cup heavy cream to 1 cup whole milk ratio, the half cup of brown sugar (I don't like regular white sugar... it's lame), and three whole eggs. The main difference here was the Baileys reduction and the fact that this was a lot smoother and softer in the end, mainly due to the alcohol. It was still fairly icy but a lot easier to scoop out, that's for sure. Yay for Baileys!

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

I love homemade ice cream! I don't think I can ever go back to storebought again! But I don't think I can eat homemade either since it's so good I won't be able to stop!!

This is vanilla here, made with one Tahitian bean and some extract. This was take two of my vanilla attempts, where I actually didn't curdle the eggs. My very first time, I ended up curdling the eggs somewhat. That batch had two Madagascan vanilla beans. I saved that first batch anyway and it ended up tasting way better than this one, after salvaging the curdled texture with the hand blender. The Madagascan vanilla bean ice cream (not pictured) had a lot more lovely specks from the two vanilla beans than this one. I loved scraping those seeds! I plan to throw the used pods in my agave nectar to make vanilla agave, and also into my container of powdered milk, to make vanilla milk! (I don't have a jar of sugar or else I might have just done the whole vanilla sugar thing.)

I will say it was quite challenging to get a smooth texture without the machine. I tried the stir-every-thirty-minutes method but it still ended up somewhat icy. Oh well. The photo in that link looks about as icy as mine so I guess that's as good as I'll be able to get.

Recipe wise, I opted for using the whole egg rather than (1) foregoing the egg or (2) just using egg yolks. Why, you ask? Well my two favorite storebought vanilla bean brands are Haagen Dazs and Green & Blacks. They both use eggs, and the latter actually uses the whole egg. So there, you ice cream yolk-only snobs! What else...? A bunch of recipes suggest a 2:1 ratio of heavy cream to milk, but I went for a 1:1 ratio (whole milk) and it turned out fine! Half a cup of sugar (brown) for my 1 cup cream and 1 cup milk... 3 whole eggs. You bring the milk to a simmer with the vanilla seeds infusing in there. Then you pour the milk into the egg/sugar mixture so that the milk can sort of cook it, and you keep mixing the custard until it becomes slightly thick. Then you pour that into the cream and basically let it cool for a few hours or overnight, then commence the freezing process.

Yay!

Lavender Cheesecake Ice Cream

This was an unintentional concoction leftover from my botched lavender cream filling (too liquidy to pipe into cupcakes) and the leftover lemon cream cheese topping. I just mixed them together and froze the resultant, and there you have it! The lavender shines through! Very rich though.

Irish Stuff

He he he! More stuff that won me over for a few bucks! Bath and Body Works had these special edition St. Paddy's Day antibacterial hand sanitizers, which I swiped. Party City had these little Irish rubber duckies. How cute! I snagged a few too. Sometimes, smiles can be had for a matter of $1.

Trader O' Joe's Stickers

He he he! The little kid inside of me asked for these stickers at the cash register of the local Trader Joe's, and the lady gladly gave it to me, saying that I've got munchkins, have I? I just smiled. Normally, I couldn't care less about the balloons and stickers they give out to little kids, but this was different! Also, I like how they change TJ's to fit whatever nationality... Trader Joe, Trader Jose, Baker Josef, Trader Giotto, Trader Ming, Trader O' Joe... what else is there? I forget. Very amusing though. Trader O; Joe is my favorite!

Vanilla Cupcake With Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting and Roasted Pistachios

This was supposed to be a lavender cupcake with lemon frosting, but I botched the lavender cream (stepped the lavender buds and all, but try to whip up heavy cream without the right equipment). So it's just plain old vanilla... the boring vanilla too (extract rather than bean). I'd made a cream cheese frosting before so I had confidence going into this one (the buttercream from the previous post was way harder than the cream cheese in my opinion).

The most annoying part of this was chopping the pistachios, again because I didn't have the right equipment. It wouldn't have been as annoying had Kevin not been sleeping, but he was so I was relieved when I was done making chop chop chop noises with each nut.

I actually liked the taste of this one way better than the Guinness and Baileys, but it seems like people like the latter more. Maybe I need the girly tea crowd for this cupcake, especially since this would have had the lavender going as well. I didn't have any Earl Grey on hand (it's all at work!) or else I might have gone for a lavender Earl Grey type flavor...

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes With Baileys Frosting

Yay for recipes that have Irish spirit! I basically followed this version to the tee. Last year, I'd attempted too many substitutions, using M&Ms for the ganache, and brownie mix for the cake base, and using a mini loaf pan instead of a muffin pan. Not this year, said I.

The result? Beautifully made Guinness cupcakes! Comments? I personally would forego the chocolate ganache. It would save me having to worry about what to do with leftover heavy cream. I thought it was chocolate overload, although coworkers loved the ganache. It prevents you from really tasting the Guinness or the Baileys in my opinion. It was also too hard to pipe into the center of the cake so I ended up placing a dollop of it atop each cake, below the frosting, which was also pretty hard to pipe. I ended up with a bunch of gaps. Hence the walnuts to try to hide the gaps. Haha!

I'll make this again one of these days... maybe next year's St. Patrick's Day.

Mache With Beets, Pistachio, and Mixed Vinegar Dressing

No dairy in this thing, you criticize? Well the greens actually have calcium, much like spinach does! Anyway this again was refreshing but not satisfying. I liked the vinegars (black and white from Modena) and how they were a sharp contrast to the sweet beets. Later, I tried the vinegar on arugula and I think the tang of the vinegar actually works better with the sharp arugula bite.

Mache With Shaved Ivernia, Sliced Almonds, and Mango Dressing

Name says it all, unless you don't know what Ivernia is, in which case let me tell you it's a cheese from Kerrygold. If you don't know what mache is, visit your local Trader Joes and pick up a bag of it in the salad greens section. Very refreshing albeit not too satisfying.

Harissa

I liked the name "harissa" so I bought this in hopes of a flavorful meal. This particular blend consists of hot red chile, red bell pepper, preserved lemon, tomato, vegetable oil, salt, citric acid. The manufacturer description mentions an "unforgettable, intense burn." It was way more than that! It was about the hottest thing I've ever had! I couldn't take more than a taste. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of this jar. There are plenty of recipes using harissa but I need to find a way to tone this fire down!

Nori and Pinenut Seitan

I had this box of vital wheat gluten and decided to disposition it once and for all by making seitan out of it (as opposed to throwing it in breads which would take forever to use up). Now the pronunciation of "seitan" apparently is arguable, but I prefer the emphasis on the second syllable, such that it rhymes with "John." While looking this up, I came across a blogger who preferred to pronounce it like "Satan" because it's fun to think about eating Satan. Haha!

So I liked kneading this thing. It came together almost instantaneously and was spongy and fun. Herb-wise, I threw in cumin as the predominant flavor, along with sage, rosemary, and thyme. After boiling the stuff for a good hour and watching it balloon in size then shrink back down, I cooled it and then made a weird cold dish with it using crumpled seaweed and pinenuts. Interesting, but I don't think I'll be making this again.

Lazy Salmon

Talk about lazy. Bought the frozen, marinated salmon from TJ's, popped it on top of the rice in the rice cooker, and mixed the entire thing with spinach. Didn't look pretty but it sure was satisfying =P.

Dingle Pies

In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day and my love affair with Ireland, I decided to attempt these Dingle pies, named after the town of Dingle on the west coast of Ireland. There are several recipes out there but this is the one that I followed.

Having never made pastry dough before, I was a bit hesitant and made myself watch a couple of clips on Youtube to see how people actually prepare the pastry dough, since the preparation is where one makes or breaks the pastry dough... Believe me, I would have opted for pre-made pastry dough had it existed (I've only seen graham cracker pie crust, phyllo dough, and puff pastry).

So anyway I cut in the butter/oil blend with some knives and probably added too much ice water (but it still looked so dry and crumbly!). Also, I should have just used the egg yolk instead of the entire egg for the wash. But it came out fine in my opinion... It could definitely be improved as far as using all butter and adding less water, now that I know the crumbliness gets taken care of when rolling the dough out. Either that, or I might try another recipe where the flour to fat ratio is much less than this one. Having more fat in the dough might make it easier to work with.

Oh and about the filling, I was paranoid and basically cooked the filling before stuffing the pies. Supposedly, for things like Cornish pasties, one has to refrain from pre-cooking the filling in order for the meat pie to be an official pasty. But I was not concerned with that, and plus these are Dingle pies, not Cornish pasties! Oh and I ended up substituting sweet potato instead of regular potato for the filling and it came out deliciously!

So anyway I might make this again. I brought over my whole wheat pastry flour, and I invested in a rolling pin and pastry brush. So the Dingle pie will be rearing its head in my kitchen one of these days...

Cahill's Porter Cheese

This Cahill's Porter Cheese, along with the Dubliner original and Dubliner with Irish Stout, are my absolute favorite cheeses to date. I love the complex, dark brown marbled look of the porter veining its way through the cheddar. Its taste is actually quite mellow in my opinion-- not sharp at all and no obvious porter taste, but more of a subtle hint of the dark malts. I just eat this straight and am always excited when I spot it at TJs!

Ivernia Cheese

Holy schnapps! "Piquant" hits the nail on the head as far as this Kerrygold Ivernia cheese being "agreeably pungent" in taste and "engagingly stimulating and provocative" (using terms from the definition of piquant). There is definitely a sharp bite to this but the bite is "agreeable" unlike the way more pungent cheeses hit my taste buds. I'm talking about super pungent cheeses like Cashel Blue, which I admit I did NOT like despite the fact that it is Irish. Gorgonzola does not even come close to the Cashel Blue. Anyway, this Ivernia... it's interesting and different in taste, and much harder than any of the other Irish cheese I've had thus far. I might consider getting it again although this did not make it onto my list of favorite cheeses. It's got a cool-looking font though!

Mojo Butter Lettuce Salad

For some reason I was craving butter lettuce, so I grabbed a bag from TJs, threw on a scoop of nonfat Greek yogurt, and crumbled chips from Late July's mojo green multigrain chips (with cheese and a hint of lime). This was very much like a taco salad in my opinion, with the chips imparting most of the flavor, the yogurt standing in as sour cream, and the lettuce adding its two cents. So no meat I guess.

I love Late July, along with brands like Kashi and Nature's Path... Actually, the only reason I bought these chips at all was because I was on a quest to find green-colored chips for an upcoming St. Patrick's Day potluck. I wasn't having much luck until I stumbled on these at Whole Foods for $1.50 per bag on sale, which was not bad. I snagged a couple of bags. Afraid that it may not be green enough, I also bought the veggie flavor of the Pirate's Booty rice/corn snacks since an employee there could vouch for the snacks being green. Of course, later I found the stupid green tortilla chips I'd been looking for all along at Ralphs (guacamole-flavored green chips) so I decided I could eat these mojo things myself. Haha! Of course later, I found even more green chips (spinach and artichoke potato chips) which I bought as well. When it rains, it pours...

Lemongrass Pork and Wilted Lettuce

We made this lemongrass marinade with some dried lemongrass (I didn't have the fresh stalks on hand), olive oil, soy sauce, and garlic. We didn't have fish sauce so we just dropped it. The pork was then pan-fried with some lettuce thrown in at the end. The lemongrass flavor was definitely there although more subtle than I'd imagined (probably due to the fact that we used dried rather than fresh lemongrass). The pork needed some tenderizing, in terms of consistency, but we were satisfied with the taste. Yay!

Boiled Cactus With Garlic

I love trying new things (when I'm not lazy that is), and this cactus is one such example. We decided to just go simple and boil these. My friend wanted to throw in garlic as it boiled, which seemed like a good idea to me. So the texture was a bit like okra as far as the slipperiness. It tasted kind of tangy and refreshing... light.   It worked very well with the lemongrass flavors we had as part of our meal. After googling around a bit, I believe this is called "nopal" (plural being nopales), and they can be used in a variety of ways, from salads to egg dishes. Here's the basic Wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal) but if you google for nopal recipes, you will see a slew of them...

Cactus

¡Muy interesante! My friend managed to find this package of cactus at a local Food 4 Less, much to my surprise. So I went on to learn that cactus is apparently as much a staple in Mexican cuisine as something like green beans or cauliflower is in the states. I would never have imagined that. It's curious that I've never been exposed to cactus in any of the Mexican food I've had, all these years. Without having stumbled across this tidbit of new knowledge, I would have thought that cactus would have to be found at some upscale market and served in gourmet restaurants! More on the actual taste etc. in the next post...

Celery With Sunflower Seed Butter

After watching a coworker munch on celery with peanut butter, I was inspired to do likewise with some leftover celery stalks and this sunflower seed butter I'd picked up from Trader Joes. For someone who doesn't really care for raw celery, this was very addicting (probably due to how much seed butter I smeared on each piece!). Next time, I will do this again but using that roasted almond butter with flaxseed. Can't wait!