Recipes – Page 4 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Cool Stuff on Hot Days: Gelato

If there is something dear to the heart of most of us, it is ice cream, or some form of ice cream, especially on a hot summer’s day. Making ice cream from scratch is a bit intense at times – like when the hand-crank freezer leaks salt into the batch you have been waiting for. Another disappointment is when it gets chunks of ice when you freeze it in the freezer without having churned it because you don’t have a churn. You can also put a bowl in a bucket of ice and chill the mixture by hand, stirring, stirring, stirring, but that is a bit primitive.

Enter the electrified, freeze-the-bowl-overnight variety of churn. We got one for our wedding over 20 years ago, and we still use it. It looks something like this one, except we have to make the ice cream! And it works wonderfully well for gelato.

I’ve outgrown my taste for heavy, thick ice cream. Frozen yogurt is okay, but never a favorite. Sorbet is better than ice cream or frozen yogurt, but not quite what hits home. The other night, we went out shopping and ended up buying gelatos just because. And then the thought hit: why not make it at home? We just love gelato!

Research began, and at first I was sure I was not finding anything that was gelato as it sounded way too much like ice cream. The difference, it seems, is that gelato is not all cream, but a bit of cream or half-and-half combined with milk. Some gelato recipes have egg yolks, and others do not. Those egg yolks are necessary to absorb water and prevent those nasty chunks of ice from forming, so some recipes that are eggless use a starch of some sort to absorb the water molecules. Interesting, eh? You can use cornstarch or potato starch or arrowroot. Not liking that idea, I used egg yolks in mine, but it is good information to have on hand. Ya gotta love the internet!

Basic Gelato Recipe
3 c. whole milk / half-and-half / cream combination (largest portion should be milk)
3/4 – 1 c. sugar
4 egg yolks

Heat milk combination over low heat with half the sugar, stirring to dissolve sugar. Watch the heat does not get too high. Beat egg yolks with remaining sugar until thick, heavy, and filled with air. Add a bit of vanilla if you want. Once the milk is warmish, and the yolks are beaten and thick, take about a cup of warm (not scalding hot) milk and beat it into the yolks. This is to equalize the temperatures of both mixtures. If the milk is too hot, you will cook the yolks, which is not what you want to do. Then, beat in the rest of the milk. Once this is done, take a fine strainer or sieve and pour the mixture through it to remove any chunks of cooked egg or whatever. Store in the fridge until cold. Then freeze, using whatever ice cream maker you have on hand, being sure to read the directions!!!

Customizing your gelato is easy. Some hints I read about making good gelato, one with a deep rich flavor, is to use over-ripe (but not spoiled) fruits, freeze it until custardy in texture, not hard, and so on. Too little flavor is not good! I read about the following types of gelatos:

mascarpone lemon gelato
chocolate-cardamom-stewed fig gelato
toasted coconut gelato
raspberry gelato
blueberry lemon gelato

You get the idea – you can do anything you want! What did I choose?

Mint & Chocolate Chunk Gelato
2 c. whole milk
1 c. combination of cream & half-and-half
1 c. sugar
4 egg yolks
fresh mint leaves
vanilla extract
chopped Valhrona 70% or more dark chocolate (1 bar)

Follow the directions above. In the milk mixture, add the mint leaves and leave to soak a bit. Beat the egg yolks and vanilla. When ready to combine the two, I strained out the mint leaves and set them aside. Once the yolks and milk were combined, I took the mint leaves, now soft from being in the warm milk, and chopped them up as fine as I could. Then I put them into the yolk-milk mixture, and put the whole mess in the fridge to cool. Once ready to churn, I set up the ice cream maker and churned – about 20-25 minutes by my watch – and then, before removing the gelato from the churn, added the chopped chocolate.

Freeze, eat, devour.

Altogether, I was very happy with the recipe. I think the chocolate could also be melted and then slowly poured into the gelato as the ice cream machine runs. That could be pretty darn delicious. I know we will be revisiting gelato a lotto this summer.

Going Crackers

The world is driving me crackers, so I thought I should make some. I have never made any, but figured they should be easy to do, and produce something of some value. If you can roll out a pie crust, you can make crackers. As with pasta, I think the key is to let the dough rest wrapped in plastic for about 30 minutes or more. It is very easy to roll out if you keep your pastry surface lightly floured and flip the dough periodically.

Lately, I have been in a cornmeal mood, meaning cornbread, polenta and so on. I have lot on hand, so I looked up recipes for crackers with cornmeal. The one I settled on is the following:

Parmesan Corn Crackers

1 c. flour
1 c. cornmeal
1/2 c. grated Parmesan
3 T. soft butter
3/4 t. salt (I thought it was too much after tasting the crackers)
3/4 c. cool water
herbs for topping

Preheat oven to 400 F. Use two large cookie sheets.

Mix together the flours and cheese and (optional) salt. Cut the soft butter into the flour mixture, mushing between fingers or using a pastry blender until consistent in texture throughout. Using a fork, slowly mix in the water from the center. When it is ready, you should have a rather soft ball of dough. Knead for about 5 minutes on a lightly floured board.

Cut dough into 2 or 4 pieces (depending on the surface you plan to roll the crackers out upon), and wrap in plastic. Let rest for at least 30 minutes.

On your floured surface, roll out dough until 1/8 inch thick with your rolling pin. Add some powdered herbs to surface and press in with one or two more rolls. Flip the cracker dough routinely to prevent it from sticking to the board, adding extra flour to the board if necessary. Dust your rolling pin, too.

Before cutting, prick with fork. If you forget, and cut the crackers first, go back and prick the crackers. You need this to help them bake properly. You can cut them into about 2×2 inch squares, or rectangles, or whatever your like. Maybe hearts for Valentine’s Day? I used my pizza cutter and all was well.

Using a spatula, remove crackers to cookie sheets. Bake about 10-15 minutes, or more if necessary, depending on thickness of cracker. Check your oven about half way through and change the pans on the racks. (My first batch burned as the heating element is on the bottom, and the crackers are quite thin.) I backed two pans at a time, twice.

Cool on wire racks. Store in container and eat with . . . whatever!

Altogether, it took about two hours to make these.

Kitchen Sink Soup

eat-72478_1280

Toward the end of the month, and with $0.02 left in the food budget, we have to get creative. Hence, Kitchen Sink Soup!

In the freezer, I found a cut-up chicken. I put it in a stew pot, added water, celery, onion, tomato slices, bay leaves, peppercorns, a carrot, and some herbs. I brought it to a boil, turned it down to a low simmer, covered, and cooked the chicken. I pulled out the chicken, and set it aside for a pot pie or something else for tomorrow (after all the soup is gone). I ran the broth through a sieve, set it aside, discarded the cooked veggies (put them into your compost if you have it), and washed out the kettle. From there, I did this:

Kitchen Sink Soup

2-3 T. olive oil
1 andouille or other sausage or leftover meat (or none), chopped
4-6 cloves grated garlic
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 ribs celery, diced,
1 zucchini, diced
1 28-oz can plum tomatoes (I used Cento’s San Marzano Plum Tomatoes)
1 15-oz can Great Northern Beans
1/2 c. pasta (I used orecchiette)
broth from the chicken I just stewed (you can use regular broth, about 6-8 cups)
salt, pepper, etc.
Romano or Parmesan cheese, grated

Heat stew pot, add olive oil. Place chopped onion in pan, saute over low heat until clear and golden. Add meat (if using) and saute a bit. Stir in grated garlic. Add remaining diced vegetables, saute until cooked. Once the vegetables are at the desired degree of being done, pour in the can of tomatoes. Mash up the tomatoes (I used my potato masher), and cook a bit more. Put in the chicken broth or whatever stock you are using. Bring to a boil, add pasta and beans. Drop to a simmer and cover pot. Watch to make sure the pot does not boil over from the cooking pasta. Check pasta for al dente. Ready to serve!

Ladle into bowls, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and eat with good bread. (We used our homemade sourdough.)

Enjoy!

The Childhood Spaghetti Trauma Drama

I grew up on the world’s most disgusting ideas of what spaghetti with meatballs was. What is was consisted of some ground hamburger fried up in a pan, and then a box of some kind of “spaghetti dinner” added. Fast and cheap, and I would burp it up for days. The other idea of spaghetti and meatballs came out of a can and was warmed up in a saucepan. That’s it.

To this day, I have refused to eat anything with the word spaghetti in it (and it was years before I would try any pasta, but still will not eat spaghetti noodles), nor meatballs. That is, until a friend of mine from work told me how she makes spaghetti and meatballs . . . since she is the child of Italian immigrants, she should know, right?

So, here is the recipe I used . . . and like any recipe, it can be modified to use what is on hand, as long as it doesn’t deviate too much (I guess for me, that means nothing out of a can or box?).

Meatballs

1 lb ground meat (a combo of beef, Italian sausage, and if you use pork, very little)
1/2 c. romano cheese
chopped Italian parsley
milk
bread crumbs (I used panko)
seasoning such as garlic, onion, thyme, pepper
1 egg

Squish this all together, make into balls about the size of a golf ball. The balls should be light in feel, not heavy. Roll a bit in flour, and then fry until brown. Set aside and serve with spaghetti sauce of choice (preferably homemade, without oregano, as she says, “Oregano is used in pizza sauce.”), in which you warm up the meatballs, and serve with spaghetti noodles. (We will have bowties, thank you.)

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies