Passion Fruit Ice Cream

Since Bill Rose gave me an ice cream maker nearly 3 years ago (wow, we're getting old) I have been rather obsessed with homemade ice cream (to the benefit or detriment, depending on your POV, of my DC housemates, blockmates, and friends). For a while I used various recipes I found online, but my culinary life changed again when Adam's family gave me Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home for my birthday this past year. Jeni runs an ice cream shop near Columbus, Ohio, and has developed a foolproof technique for amazing ice cream that works just as well at home as at her very popular store (and for the $12/pint ice creams she ships all over the country). So far I have made 5 different ice creams and sorbets out of the book (several of them multiple times) and not been the slightest bit disappointed with any of them.

Now I don't know what normal people do in their free time when they're not at campaign events with their mother, but when I wasn't cleaning my apartment after weeks of pre-LSAT neglect, I spent my weekend making ice cream. The first one I made is called Buckeye State, which is peanut butter with dark chocolate freckles and tastes just like those chocolate covered peanut butter balls in ice cream form. It was phenomenal. Except for the part where I wanted to eat the whole 2.5 pints in one sitting. I won't repost the recipe because it's Jeni's copyright, but I encourage you to check out her book (pg 104-105) and give it a try.

The second recipe, which I invented, and therefore can share with you, came about as a result of my obsession with passion fruit. In anticipation of making passion fruit ice cream, I had been looking for months for passion fruit puree or curd at the store, and finally found frozen puree. Jeni has a recipe for tangy passion fruit frozen yogurt, but I wanted ice cream (and had the cream and milk on hand, but no plain yogurt), so I decided to make my own passion fruit ice cream.  Fortunately, another benefit of her technique is that it creates a base that is easily adaptable to new flavors, and my version worked out great. Now I don't like to brag, but this stuff is really good. Like go-out-now-and-buy-an-ice-cream-maker-so-you-can-make-it-yourself good. It's creamy, tangy, the right amount of sweet, and has a strong passion fruit flavor. It's definitely one I will be making again.

Passion Fruit Ice Cream

Ingredients

2/3 cup passion fruit puree (frozen is fine, or probably about 8-10 medium fruits, pressed through a sieve to remove the seeds)

2 cups whole milk

1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp corn starch

1.5 oz (3 Tbsp) cream cheese, softened

1/8 tsp fine sea salt

1.25 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar (divided)

2 Tbsp light corn syrup

Equipment

small saucepan

tall-sided saucepan

silicone spatula

measuring cups and spoons

stove

small bowl

fork

large bowl

whisk

ice cream maker

Instructions

1. Make a passion fruit syrup by heating the passion fruit puree (still frozen is fine) with 2 Tbsp of the sugar in a small saucepan. Simmer, stirring until sugar is dissolved and for about a minute after the mixture begins to bubble. Remove from heat and refrigerate.

2. Mix 1/4 cup of the milk with the cornstarch in the small bowl until smooth, using the fork to break up any lumps.

3. Whisk the cream cheese and salt together in the large bowl to break up the big lumps of cheese.

4. Combine the remaining milk and sugar, cream, and corn syrup in the tall-sided saucepan. Bring to a roiling boil over medium-high heat and boil for 4 minutes [watch carefully during this time period because at least half of the times I've made ice cream this way, the mixture has or has nearly boiled over - be ready to pull the pot off the burner and hold to the side until the bubbling goes down, then return to the heat and lower slightly so it doesn't boil over again].

5. Remove from the heat and gradually mix in the cornstarch slurry.

6. Return to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

7. Remove from the heat and gradually pour into the large bowl of cream cheese, whisking with each addition. Continue whisking until smooth and completely incorporated.

8. Chill completely in the refrigerator (at least 6 hours, overnight is better). If you are very impatient, you can pour the hot mixture into a gallon ziplock bag and submerge it in an ice bath, adding more ice every 5-10 minutes for half an hour or until the mixture is cold.

9. Turn on your ice cream maker and pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister. Pour the passion fruit syrup through the opening at the top of the machine and let the machine run until thick and creamy. It's better if you pack it into containers and freeze for at least another 2 hours in your freezer before eating, but if you like it pretty soft you can go ahead and eat it right from the machine.

If you're making it for a group, you can make ice cream ahead of time and it will last perfectly for weeks in the freezer, though not once people know it's in there.

Pan Fried Eggplant

I like eggplant may ways - grilled, roasted, curried, in bhaba ghanoush, in eggplant parmesan, and even

fried. Fried eggplant is so tasty, and a lot faster than roasting in the oven for an hour. It is not, however, very healthy. And, if you salt the eggplant first, which you usually have to, it's not even that fast. Enter my new technique, which will give you delicious and healthy pan-fried eggplant in about 20 minutes.

Ingredients

One eggplant

Cooking spray or a small amount olive/canola oil

Salt (to taste)

Equipment

Knife and cutting board

Stove

Saucepan (the wider it is, the more slices you can do at once)

Fork

Instructions

1. Wash your eggplant and cut off the stem (don't peel it or your slices will fall apart in the pan). Slice into 1/4 inch thick rounds.

2. Turn your saucepan on to medium heat and mist with cooking spray. Place into it as many slices of eggplant as you can without overlapping them, then mist again with cooking spray to cover the tops.

3. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until they begin to steam. Press down pretty hard on the top of each slice with a fork so the moisture begins to seep out, moving around the surface of the slice to get the moisture out of the entire slice. Flip the slices.

4. Cook for another minute, then press down again with the fork along the whole surface of each slice. Flip again.

5. Repeat 1-3 rounds of cooking for a minute, depressing with a fork, and flipping until each slice is cooked through (it should be translucent, with no whitish patches).

6. Give each slice a nice crispy edge by cooking for 30 seconds on each side without pressing down with the fork, then transfer to a plate to cool. Sprinkle with salt.

7. Repeat cooking process for remaining slices.

While you can eat the fried eggplant plain, I would also recommend cutting the slices into pieces and adding to a pasta dish (I'll send out a recipe for what I did with mine), using in a panini, or making eggplant rolatinis by wrapping each slice around ricotta or fresh mozzarella (perhaps with some sundried or fresh tomato, roasted red peppers, or hot peppers in the middle).

Vegetarian Chili

As promised, here is the recipe for the vegetarian chili I made last week (my variations off of Heidi Swanson's recipe). It's a very flexible recipe, so feel free to tweak based on what you have on hand. It reheats and freezes well, and is both very healthy and very tasty. 

Note: this makes a HUGE pot of chili, like 10 large servings, and was half an inch from overflowing my largest pot, so unless you're cooking for a crowd and have an enormous pot, you will probably want to half the recipe.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
10 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 serrano pepper, seeded and finely chopped [serrano peppers are hot, so be careful with your handling of it]
1 chipotle pepper (from can or rehydrated), minced [I used canned in adobo and the flavor was excellent]
1 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes, roughly chopped (save the liquid and add that with the tomatoes too)

1.5 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
8-10 cups vegetable broth (you can sub in water for some or all of this, just adjust your salt accordingly - I used 4 cups broth and 4 cups water)
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (canned is fine)
2 1/4 cups black, brown, or green lentils (or combo), rinsed and picked over [I tried using 1 cup of yellow split peas instead of lentils, and they didn't soften as much as they should have, so I would really use lentils here, or more chickpeas]
1 1/3 cup pearled barley, pearled farro, or bulgur wheat (or some combo) [I used all bulgar wheat and it was great]
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt (or to taste)

cayenne pepper to taste

Equipment

knife and cutting board

sieve/strainer (for rinsing lentils and draining chickpeas)

measuring spoons

measuring cup

can opener

LARGE stockpot or dutch oven

wooden spoon/silicone spatula

Instructions
1. Chop and rinse all ingredients as noted above.

2. In a large stockpot pot over medium heat add the olive oil, onion, and shallots.

3. When the onions soften up and get a bit translucent, add the garlic, ginger, chili powder, and cumin. Stir well and cook for a minute or so, until everything gets quite fragrant.

4. Stir in the serrano pepper and chipotle pepper, canned and fresh tomatoes, and 6 cups of the broth/water. Now add the chickpeas, lentils, and barley/farro/bulgur - stirring between each addition.

5. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 35- 45 minutes (stirring every 5 minutes or so to ensure things don't get stuck to the bottom of the pan and burn, as happened to me) or until the lentils and grains are cooked through. As it cooks down, add more vegetable broth or water as necessary to keep the mixture from getting too thick.

6. Before serving, do your final adjustments - add some cayenne if it's not hot enough yet, or more chipotle, salt, or whatever you think it needs.

Palak Daal

This is a great recipe to make on Sundays for the whole week because it's easy to make in a large quantity and the flavors gets better every day (it also reheats very well). My recipe is an adaptation of the one from 101cookbooks (one of my favorite food blogs - check it out). You have a lot of leeway in the spicing here, so feel free to tweak based on how spicy you like thing. I tend to slightly underspice when I'm making the whole recipe and then individually spice each bowl as I eat it so I can add exactly the right amount (it can be hard to spice a giant pot of food because you won't get all the peppers and spices distributed totally evenly), but you can also just do the whole pot if you don't want to mess with adding spices each meal.

This recipe makes about 8 large servings, so feel free to cut in half. I recommend serving with brown rice, but you could also serve with naan or plain.

Ingredients
1.5 cups / 9.75 oz lentils, picked over and rinsed [the original recipe says to use "white urid/ ivory lentils, I have never found them, so I've used regular lentils and yellow split peas, both of which turned out great, I think french green lentils would also work too]
9 cups water, plus more if necessary
1 lb. spinach, washed and chopped
1.5 Tbsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3/4 tsp turmeric
1.5 jalapeno pepppers, minced (plus more for garnishing)
3 plum tomatoes, chopped
3/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter (you could probably substitute vegan margarine/olive or canola oil to make it vegan)
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
1.5 tsp red chile powder
juice of 1/4 a lemon
3/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Equipment

Cutting board and large knife

Large pot (ideally thick bottomed so things don't burn)

Stirring spoon or silicone spatula

Small saucepan

Instructions

1. In a large pot over medium-high heat combine the lentils and water, and bring to a boil.

2. While the water boils, work on chopping your spinach, ginger, tomatoes, and jalapenos. [Word of warning on chopping jalapenos - use rubber gloves or put your hand inside a plastic bag as you cut them up so your hands don't start burning, and especially if you have contact lenses, because taking lenses out with small amounts of capsaicin left under your fingernails is a highly unpleasant experience and permanently wrecks your lenses. Also, you should discard all the seeds and the white part the seeds are attached too - all you want is the green exterior.] If you're using baby spinach, you don't need to chop as finely because it will already be in smaller tender leaves, but if you're using spinach with thicker stems and leaves, chop it more finely. [Another note: you can and should store your ginger root in a Ziplock in the freezer. It will keep the ginger fresh much longer, and frozen ginger is way easier to peel and cut into nice shavings that mince into tiny bits.]

3. When the water is boiling, add the spinach, ginger, turmeric, jalapenos, and tomatoes.Reduce the heat, put the top on, and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. If things start to dry out, add more water, but as long as the pot is covered, that probably won't happen.

4. Towards the end of the simmering time, heat the butter and cumin in a saucepan over medium heat and fry until the cumin seeds start to pop (this is what the instructions say, sometimes they don't pop, maybe the seeds are old or something, so after 30 seconds or so of the butter being hot and melted, if nothing happens, go on). Add the red chile powder and fry for another 30 seconds.

5. Add this butter mixture to the lentils along with the salt and allow to cook for another five minutes.

6. Taste, and season with more salt or other spices if needed. If you care more about ease than prettiness, you can add the chopped cilantro now and stir into the daal, where it will promptly wilt. If you are going to eat most of the daal now, you can serve it into bowls and top with chopped cilantro (and a little bit of extra jalapeno if you like it very spicy), which is a prettier presentation. Otherwise, let it cool some, then put into containers to refrigerate or freeze.

Bacon Chocolate Truffles (and Bacon Brittle)

As some of you may know, meat takes up the bottom 2/3 of my my lovely boyfriend Adam's personal food pyramid (pie takes up the remaining 1/3). So, for Valentine's Day last year, I made him chocolate covered caramelized bacon, which was very popular (perhaps I'll share that recipe in the future). This year, I decided to keep up the trend with bacon chocolate truffles. 



The bacon chocolate truffles come from a recipe from Carri Thurman, via Michael Ruhlman's blog, with some of my tweaks and my own bacon brittle spinoff. I have to say from the outset that the chocolate dipped truffles are beautiful, but not very bacon-y. The ones rolled in bacon brittle powder are more bacon-y, and the chocolate dipped bacon brittle is very tasty and quite bacon-y if that's what you're going for.

Sorry veggies and vegans, this recipe is not for you (however, assuming the chili that's on the stove right now turns out okay, I promise a great vegan chili recipe later this week). Veggies, it is quite easy to skip the bacon cream infusion and replace the bacon fat with butter if you want a vegetarian truffle, though that kind of defeats the purpose of this recipe.

Ingredients

Truffle Centers
1/2 pound bacon (preferably applewood smoked)
1/4 cup alcohol (brandy, whiskey, etc)

1/4 cup water
1.5 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1.5 pounds semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
Truffle Coating

3 cups semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup reserved bacon fat (or 1/2 cup butter/vegetable shortening)

Bacon Brittle
1/2 pound finely chopped and cooked bacon (you can re-use the bacon left over from making the centers above)
1 cup demarera sugar (brown sugar could be subbed in here)
1/2 cup water

1 tsp baking soda

Equipment
Medium saucepan
Wooden spoon
Whisk
Sieve/strainer
Non-stick sauté pan
Small or medium-sized bowl
2 sheet pans lined with parchment paper/silpats
Pyrex baking pan

Silicone spatula
Fork
Truffle cups (small paper cups like mini cupcake liners)

Larger paper cups or cupcake liners for the bacon brittle

Large microwave safe bowl

Food processor (optional)

Instructions

1. Slice the bacon strips in half lengthwise and then into thin slices (about 1/4 inch wide or smaller). Fry in the saucepan over medium heat until very crispy.

2. Place the sieve over a medium bowl and pour bacon over it to strain off the bacon bits from the fat. Retain the bowl of bacon fat for the coating.

3. Return the bacon bits to the saucepan, turn the heat to medium, and add the alcohol and water. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the liquid is burned off.

4. Add heavy cream and kosher salt to the pan and bring just to a boil. Turn off the heat and let sit 20 minutes for the bacon to infuse into the cream. After 20 minutes, turn the heat back on to a light simmer to thoroughly reheat it.

5. Evenly spread the chocolate chips over the bottom of the Pyrex baking pan. Pour the cream through a sieve to catch the bacon bits (save those for the bacon brittle) and over the chocolate chips. Let sit for about 5 minutes to melt. [If your chocolate doesn't melt, as mine didn't, just use a spatula to scrape the cream and chocolate mixture back into the saucepan and reheat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly so it doesn't burn, until the chocolate is melted, then scrape back into the baking dish.]

6. Whisk the mixture to make sure it's smooth. Refrigerate until solid.

7. While you're waiting for your chocolate filling to chill, make the bacon brittle. Take the bacon bits left over from making the infused cream and put into a saucepan along with the demarera sugar and water. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium high heat until the sugar is melted and the mixture gets very bubbly (about 3 minutes).

8. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. Stir together quickly (you will see the mixture getting thick and opaque).

9. Quickly scrape out the mixture onto one of the parchment paper or silpat-lined baking sheets and spread out to a relatively thin layer using the back of your spatula.

10. Let the mixture cool completely (about 10 minutes). Break about half of it into small bits and pulse in a food processor until you get a fine crumb/powder mixture. Break the other half into larger chunks (about 1.5x1.5 inches) to save to dip in chocolate.

11. When your truffle filling is firm, take it out of the fridge and scoop into balls (using a melon baller, small ice cream scoop, or strong spoon to get a properly sized chunk of filling and then shaping into a ball with your clean hands). If the chocolate is too hard to scoop (which mine was after chilling overnight), let warm up for about half an hour or muscle through it. The directions say to re-freeze the centers before coating, but I skipped this step and mine turned out fine.

12. If you want to coat your truffles in bacon brittle powder, take the centers and roll them in the powder to coat, pressing it into the sides so it sticks. Place the rolled truffles in cups. If you want to coat some or all truffles in chocolate, read on.

12. Melt 3 cups chocolate and 1/2 cup reserved bacon fat in a large Pyrex measuring cup or other large microwave safe bowl [Many recipes will tell you to melt chocolate in a double boiler setup over the stove. This is entirely unnecessary - you can melt chocolate easily in the microwave. To do so, heat in 30 second bursts, then stir to combine melted and unmelted bits, and repeat until the chocolate is just melted (it will look unmelted when you first start stirring, but then as you stir the bits will melt and combine).]

13. Drop the formed truffle centers one at a time into the melted chocolate. Use a fork to stir around so all the sides are coated. Then scoop up the center, tapping off the excess chocolate on the side of the bowl. Slide off the fork onto the other baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat. If there is a gap in the chocolate coating where the fork was, drizzle a little extra chocolate over it and use the fork to even up the covering. While the chocolate coating ss still melty, sprinkle with the bacon dust. Let cool completely before carefully peeling off the parchment paper and placing into truffle cups. 

14. Dip any reserved pieces of bacon brittle in melted chocolate, submerging entirely or only half, depending on your preference. Place on parchment paper and cool completely before removing and placing into larger paper liners.