Brownie Ice Cream

Brownie Ice-Cream

Last time I made vanilla ice-cream, I served it with brownies. That got me thinking, why not add brownies into the ice-cream? I decided to give it a whirl and I was so pleased with how it turned out!

You will need:
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
4 large egg yolks
6 brownies (about 1/3 of a 9x13 pan) (You can add more or less, depending on your preference!)

1. In a medium saucepan, warm milk, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup of cream.

2. Using a sharp knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean and add them to the hot milk mixture, along with the vanilla pod.

3. Remove milk mixture from heat, cover, and let it steep for 30 minutes.

4. Re-warm the vanilla milk mixture.

5. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks. Add 1/8 cup of the milk mixture to the eggs and whisk until combined.

6. Pour yolk mixture into milk mixture.

7. Stir constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens.

8. Remove vanilla pod (rinse and wipe clean, you can re-use it!).

9. Stir remaining 1 cup of cream into custard to cool.

10. Chill thoroughly in fridge. (At least 3-5 hours, overnight is even better)

11. Churn ice-cream in your ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Mine took about 30 minutes.

12. Cut brownies into small pieces, mine were less than 1/2 an inch.

13. After ice-cream has been churned, carefully stir in brownie pieces until well distributed.

14. Scoop ice-cream into freezer-safe container and freeze until ready to serve.

Chicken Carbonara

Chicken Carbonara (1/17/11)

This recipe is most definitely a keeper!!!  Everyday Tastes is hosting a new feature:  It's a Keeper Thursday.  Head on over and prepare to be inspired!

My mom sent me a recipe for Chicken Carbonara Deluxe on the Betty Crocker website and I knew I would be making it for dinner! However, it used heavy cream, and I just couldn't stomach pouring a carton of heavy cream into a dinner food. I'm sure it would taste great, but I was in the mood for a lighter meal. I modified the recipe to make it much lighter than the original. I gave it 2 thumbs up, Mike only gave it 1 (because of the broccoli!), but I'm sure I'll be making this often!

You will need:

1/2 box linguini noodles (I used wheat)
4 slices turkey bacon
1 medium onion, diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 chicken breasts
1 cup broccoli florets
1 Tablespoon margarine
1 Tablespoon flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1. Cook and drain linguini noodles as directed on package.
2. While noodles are cooking, cook bacon in a frying pan until crisp.
3. Remove bacon and place onion, garlic, and chicken in the frying pan.
4. Cook chicken until done. Remove from frying pan and dice chicken.
5. Melt margarine in frying pan and stir in flour to create a roux.
6. Add in milk and Parmesan cheese and stir until thickened.
7. Add broccoli to sauce and cook until broccoli is warmed.
8. Return noodles to saucepan and add in bacon and chicken.
9. Top with sauce and stir until noodles are coated.
10. Sprinkle with Parmesan before serving.

Nutella Cookies--Mouthwatering Monday

Nutella Cookies--Mouthwatering Monday


Rachel over at A Southern Fairytale hosts Mouthwatering Mondays each week. It's a great way to find new recipes and new recipe blogs. Check it out, I think you'd like it!
If I had to choose 1 thing to eat for breakfast for a whole month, I would choose toast with Nutella. If you ask me, nothing can beat the warm melty chocolate on a piece of crisp toast. I think I'll go make some right now...

When I saw this recipe for Nutella cookies, I knew I had to make them! Sea salt is one of the popular crazes now in the cooking world, and I thought these cookies would be good with some sea salt sprinkled on top. I was right--the salt really brought out the flavor of the cookies. I made some without the salt too, and they were delicious as well. If you're one of the people who just isn't sure about salt and chocolate, give it a try...please? :)


You will need:

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup Nutella
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
sea salt, for sprinkling

1. Cream margarine, sugar, and brown sugar in a mixing bowl.

2. Beat for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

3. Add the egg and vanilla.

4. Add the Nutella and mix well.

5. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until dough is smooth.

6. Fold in chocolate chips.

7. Use a small ice cream scoop (or a teaspoon) to form the dough into balls and place on greased cookie sheet.

8. Bake at 350 for 6-7 minutes.

9. Sprinkle tops of cookies with sea salt after cookies have cooled for about 3 minutes.


Recipe Source: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Anybody out there? Hellooooo? *Tap Tap* Is this thing on?

Are you like me? Do you ever wonder who is reading your blog? I know from my stats that I have a decent amount of readers, but I don't know who you are!

Did you know there's a national "de-lurking day"? Seriously, there is! In fact, it was a week ago (I totally and completely missed it!) But we'll just pretend it's today!

So, if you're out there reading my blog, stop by and leave me a comment! I'd love to get to know you more! In fact, to get you started, why don't you tell me a little known fact about yourself?

Stroopwafels

Stroopwafels (1/11/11)
If you looked up "dutch" in the dictionary, you'd see a picture of my mom :) She is the epitome of a dutch person, born in the Netherlands, raised in a Frees speaking home in Canada, and lover of all things dutch. She still can speak dutch, collects Delft blue items, and loves salted black licorice (dutch licorice). I grew up saying dutch prayers, singing dutch songs, and eating dutch foods.

Whenever we'd visit my grandparents, we could be guaranteed lots of food. Breakfast by 8, morning coffee at 10, lunch at noon, afternoon coffee at 3, dinner at 5:30, and evening tea at 8. Almost non-stop eating, and absolutely no chance of going hungry. A lot of the foods we ate and loved were traditional dutch foods. One of my Grandpa's favorites, and mine too is stroopwafels. It's like a pizelle or thin waffle with a caramel syrup filling. Absolutely delicious!

You will need:

For wafels:

1/2 cup warm water (105-110 degrees)

1 package yeast (2-1/4 tsp)

1 cup butter

4 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

For syrup filling:

1-1/2 cups brown sugar

1 cup butter

6 Tablespoons corn syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.

2. Cut butter into flour.

3. Mix sugar, eggs, and yeast mixture into flour.

4. Set aside to rise 30-60 minutes (it won't rise like bread dough, but it will gain some bulk).

5. Roll dough into golf-ball sized balls and bake in pizelle iron, about 3 minutes.

6. In a small sauce pan, boil syrup ingredients until at soft-ball stage (235-240 degrees).

7. Cut wafels in half and scoop 1 Tablespoon of syrup onto one side of wafel. Put halves back together.

8. Allow stroopwafels to cool before storing in an air-tight container.

Enchiladas

Enchiladas (1/10/11)

What do you do when your husband wants a certain meal, but you don't have all the ingredients?
Improvise and create, of course!!!

Mike said he wanted either enchiladas or tacos for dinner, but we didn't have the toppings for tacos, so enchiladas it was! Then of course I realized we didn't have enchilada sauce, but that wasn't going to stop me! I decided I would just make my own.

Then I realized I didn't have tomato sauce, or tomato paste for that matter. (My pantry is quite lacking in the area of canned goods!) But I did have tomato soup and I decided that was just going to have to do! I was very impressed with the results, the soup gives the sauce a sweeter tang, but you can spice it up by adding more chili powder if you want. I got Mike's stamp of approval, so I'm sure we'll be making this again!


You will need:

1 pound ground beef
4 flour tortillas
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons flour
1/8 cup chili powder
1 (10-3/4 ounce) can condensed tomato soup
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1 cup cheddar cheese (I used taco seasoned cheese)

1. Brown ground beef and drain.

2. Mix together olive oil and flour in a medium saucepan to create a roux.

3. Add chili powder, soup, water, garlic powder, and salt to the roux and bring to a simmer.

4. Pour 1/2 the sauce into the ground beef and bring to a simmer.

5. Scoop 1/4 of the ground beef into each of the tortillas, fold and place in a greased baking dish.

6. Pour remaining sauce over tortillas.

7. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup cheese.

8. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, until enchiladas are heated through.

9. Remove from oven and sprinkle remaining cheese on top of enchiladas. We like to serve these with chips and cheese.

Keepin' It Real

I love to bake...I don't love the mess it makes!

Bacon Cheeseburgers

Bacon Cheeseburgers (12/31/10)

Mike and I were talking about dinner foods a while back and he mentioned that I'm trying all these new recipes and he misses my old ones, like these bacon cheeseburgers. True, I hadn't made burgers since we've been married, and it was time to rectify that. Besides, we received our tradition jar of enormous pickles for Christmas and we love pickles with our burgers!

You will need:

1 pound ground beef

6 pieces bacon

1 cup cheddar cheese

2 Tablespoons garlic powder

4 hamburger buns

your choice of burger toppings

1. Fry bacon until crispy.

2. Mix together beef, cheese, and garlic powder in a bowl.

3. Crumble bacon into beef mixture and mix.

4. Divide beef into 4 equal patties. (I usually do this by pressing the beef into the bowl, so the top is flat. Then I "score" the meat by pressing the side of my hand into it. I divide the meat into quarters. Then it's easy to scoop up and form equal patties instead of taking meat from smaller balls to make larger and so on!)

Another trick when making burger patties is to make an indentation in the center of the patty with your thumb. This will keep the burgers from shrinking up when you cook them.

5. Cook patties in a frying pan until they reach your desired "doneness".

6. Place on bun and top with desired toppings!

Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream

Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream (12/30/10)
Mike and I had some friends over for dessert one night and I wanted something different for dessert. I still had 2 vanilla beans left (time to buy more!) and I was wanting to use them! Mike loves ice-cream and I have an ice-cream maker but we haven't been impressed with the results from previous recipes. I'd never made a custard based ice-cream and I decided it was time to try it. We were all pleased with the results and we'll definitely be making this ice-cream again!

You will need:
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
4 large egg yolks

1. In a medium saucepan, warm milk, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup of cream.

2. Using a sharp knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean and add them to the hot milk mixture, along with the vanilla pod.

3. Remove milk mixture from heat, cover, and let it steep for 30 minutes.

4. Re-warm the vanilla milk mixture.

5. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks. Add 1/8 cup of the milk mixture to the eggs and whisk until combined.

6. Pour yolk mixture into milk mixture.

7. Stir constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens.

8. Remove vanilla pod (rinse and wipe clean, you can re-use it!).

9. Stir remaining 1 cup of cream into custard to cool.

10. Chill thoroughly in fridge. (At least 3-5 hours, overnight is even better)

11. Churn ice-cream in your ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Mine took about 30 minutes.

12. Scoop ice-cream into freezer-safe container and freeze until ready to serve.

Donuts

Donuts (1/1/11)
My sister-in-law and her husband were over the other day and she mentioned that she wanted to make donuts. 30 seconds after she mentioned it, we were in the kitchen searching for a recipe. I wanted to make a good yeasted donuts, nice and airy, think something like Krispy Kreme. The recipe I found was called "Good Raised Doughnuts" and I thought it sounded like what I was looking for. Unfortunately, they didn't quite meet my mark for the yeasty donuts. The dough didn't rise like I thought it would and the doughnuts ended up being quite dense. They still were good, just more of a cake donut than a yeasted donut like I was looking for. Here is the recipe we used.

You will need:

2-1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 cup of milk, scalded and cooled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup sugar
3-1/2 cups flour
3 Tablespoons shortening
Powdered sugar (for covering donuts)
Cinnamon and sugar mix (for covering donuts)

1. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm milk. Set aside about 10 minutes until yeast bubbles up.

2. Add 1-1/2 cups flour and beat until smooth. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

3. Combine sugar and shortening.

4. Add salt, egg, and nutmeg.

5. Stir into yeast sponge.

6. Add remaining flour and beat wel.

7. Place in greased bowl and let dough rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled.

8. Roll dough out on floured surface to 1/2" thick.

9. Cut with donut cutter if you have one. If you don't, I used a drinking glass to cut the shape of the donut. Then I used the lid to the oil bottle to cut out the hole in the donut.

10. Let donuts rise for 45 minutes.

11. Fry in 375 degree oil. Each side of the donut only needs 2 minutes. I fry both the donuts and the cut-out centers to make donut holes.

12. After donuts have cooled, coat them with powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar. I find the easiest way to do this is to put the coating in a large ziploc bag, add in a few donuts, and shake until coated. I usually do 2 coats.

These donuts taste best the day they are made.

Source: Bill and Juke's "Talk of the Town" Cookbook

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip (12/31/10)
I L-O-V-E cookie dough, forget about raw eggs, just give me my cookie dough! I actually used to keep a small amount in the fridge after I made cookies, and I would eat it with a spoon. It was so good! I stumbled across this recipe the other day and knew it would be perfect to bring to our New Year's Eve get-together. It was a hit! (And no worries, there are no eggs in this recipe!)

You will need:

1/2 cup butter
1/3 brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. Melt butter with brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until brown sugar dissolves.

2. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Cool to room temperature.

3. In a medium bowl, beat together cream cheese and powdered sugar.

4. Slowly beat in cooled butter mixture and beat again until well combined.

5. Stir in chocolate chips.

6. Pour into serving bowl and refrigerate. Garnish with additional chips before serving if desired.

I served these with chocolate animal crackers, regular animal crackers, and vanilla wafers. The chocolate animal crackers were my favorite!

Source: Brown Eyed Baker

I have to show you my adorable dip server! I got him at my new favorite store, The Seasoned Home, the other day and I knew it would be perfect to serve this dip in!

Honey Chicken Wings

Honey Chicken Wings (1/1/11)
This was the perfect way to start our new year! Mike and I had some friends over and we decided to throw together some chicken wings. Nothing beats a meal that it's okay to eat with your hands and make a mess with!

You will need:
2 pounds (about 18) chicken wings
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons ketchup
1/2 teaspoon diced garlic

1. Put wings on a large cookie sheet and sprinkle with pepper.

2. In a small bowl, mix together honey, soy sauce, vegetable oil, ketchup, and garlic.

3. Pour half the sauce over chicken wings. Turn wings and pour remaining sauce over them.

4. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes, but remove wings after 25 minutes and spoon the sauce that ran into the pan over the rings. Return to oven until chicken is well done.

Breadsticks

Breadsticks (12/29/10)

These breadsticks are perfect with yesterday's pizza! They're simple to make and I usually serve them when I make homemade pizza. Rather than making 2 larger pizzas, I divide the dough into 3 pieces and make one into breadsticks. But you could easily make the whole dough recipe into breadsticks too, yum!

You will need:

1 batch of pizza dough
1/2 cup margarine, melted
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1. Spread dough over greased pizza pans (1 sheet if you are using the batch of dough for pizza and breadsticks, or 3 if you are doing just breadsticks).

2. Pour melted margarine over each round of dough.

3. Sprinkle with garlic powder and cheese.

4. Bake at 400 for 17-19 minutes, until golden brown.

5. Cut into sticks before serving.

Jerk Chicken Pizza

Jerk Chicken Pizza (12/29/10)
Mike and I had jerk chicken pizza on our honeymoon. We liked it so much that we ordered it about 10:30 at night a few times that week! We bought some jerk seasoning at a shop in Negril and I decided I was ready to "re-live" our honeymoon. Don't worry, you can buy jerk seasoning in the states too! But, it would be a lot more fun if you wanted to venture to Jamaica to get it!!!

You will need:

For the dough:

2-1/4 teaspoons yeast

1-3/8 cups water, 110 degrees

3 Tablespoons olive oil (or vegetable oil)

3/4 teaspoon salt

4 cups flour

Toppings:

1/4 cup barbecue sauce

2 Tablespoons jerk seasoning

2 chicken breasts, seasoned with jerk seasoning, cooked, and diced

Mozzarella cheese

Bacon bits

1/2 cup mango, diced

(You can put the dough ingredients in your bread machine, or you can make the dough by hand)

1. Mix water and yeast together until yeast dissolves. Let it stand about 5 minutes until yeast bubbles up.

2. Stir in salt, flour, and vegetable oil until dough forms.

3. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes by hand. You can also use a stand mixer to mix and knead the dough.

4. Form the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled, about 1.5 to 2 hours.

5. Deflate dough by punching down and knead for about 5 minutes. Allow dough to rest for 10 minutes before dividing into 2 equal pieces.

6. Place dough on greased pizza sheet and form crust.

7. Mix barbecue sauce and jerk seasoning to make sauce. Spread over crust.

8. Sprinkle cheese over sauce. Top with chicken, bacon bits, and mango.

9. Bake at 400 for 17-19 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Pink Drink

We first had this drink at a "cousin's barbeque" this summer. It was so refreshing and delicious that I had to get the recipe, and bonus, it's super easy!

You will need:

1 packet Crystal Light Pink Lemonade Mix (use the larger packets to make a quart)
1 quart water
1 cup watermelon pucker
1/2 bottle pink lemonade vodka (I used Burnett's because it's cheap!)

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Pour into glass and enjoy! :)