The first try on the ice cream maker

The first attempt at the ice cream maker went off well, no major issues and lots of lessons learned.
As I mentioned in the last posting New York and much of New England has been in the midst of a heat wave. Not only has the temperature been hovering above 90 degrees the past few days the humid has been off the charts. Sadly air quality warnings in my area have been advising people to stay in doors from 10am-10pm. I don't know about anyone else but warnings like that just make me feel dirty, but I digress.

Ice cream seems like the perfect remedy for beating the heat. I would tend to agree with this statement and decided it was a perfect weekend to test out my new ice cream maker. A friend of mine, who also loves to play in the kitchen, was going to visit on Saturday. This was going to be a perfect occasion to try it out and I wanted everything to go smoothly. In my pre-purchase research on ice cream makers I read it was key to make sure everything (equipment, ingredients) were super cold before you start. Thus, Thursday I diligently remembered to put the freeze bowl container in the coldest part of my freezer. The directions require at least 15 hours in the freeze. I figured 72 hours would be super good.

After looking as several varying recipes online ( I have yet to get a real ice cream cookbook). I settled on a Giada recipe. I was a bit nervous in the whole process because for one all of the recipes were fairly different. Normally you can find a trend to mix and match recipes and create something of your own. I didn’t see the ice cream trend yet. Two, the Giada recipe had ricotta cheese, kind of gross for ice cream, but if you think about it cheese is comes from milk so its cannot be that different, right?

Ricotta and chocolate chip ice cream

From Everyday Italian, Giada de Laurentis

Ingredients
1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
1 cup whole milk
1 cup simple syrup, recipe below
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips ( I used the mini chips)
Directions
For the Ricotta and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream: In a medium bowl, whisk together ricotta cheese and milk until smooth. Add the simple syrup and vanilla extract. Stir to combine. Pour the ricotta mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions. Add the chocolate chips 10 minutes before the end of freezing.

Simple syrup:
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
In a saucepan, combine water and sugar over medium heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved. Take the pan off the heat and allow the syrup to cool.
Yield: 1 cup
Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes

The first step needed in this recipe is the simple syrup mixture. This is very easy to make and I use it for all sorts of other recipes for smoothies and iced coffee. However, this "simple" syrup caused me a bit of a hassle due to my lack of foresight. To make simple syrup you need to boil the water/sugar mixture. I made the syrup ready to dump immediately into the ricotta mixture. Unfortunately this goes again the whole make sure everything is super cold philosophy of ice cream making, thus I had to dump the mixture into a bowl and put in the fridge. Not being a very patient person, after about 20 minutes the mixture (still being very hot) was dumped into a new glass and put in the freezer. Another 20 minutes later, the liquid was somewhat warm and I decided against my better judgment that it was usable. This simple syrup does keep so I recommend making a batch a day or two before you want to make the ice cream.

The rest of the recipe is very straightforward. Blend the milk and ricotta cheese together. Add vanilla and simple syrup. At this point I then put the mixture into the fridge for about 10 minutes to make sure it was all chilled up again. Once cold you take the freeze bowl from freezer and attach to the Kitchen aid, dump the cheese mixture in, and turn on the machine to low for 15-20 minutes. Once again you have to wait patiently. This was not an easy recipe for me to handle being how excited I was to try it out. At about 17 minutes the thickness was close to the consistency of soft service ice cream - at this point I threw in the mini chocolate chips and let it run for about 1 more minutes.

I took a regular Tupperware and dumped this mixture into and the problems began. My friend and I scraped the freeze bowl religiously to not waste any of the yummy ice cream. Paying more attention to the scraping we didn't realize the mixture in the Tupperware was quickly turning to liquid. The ice cream was now sweet liquid soup. I topped the container with the lid and threw it into the freezer. The waiting game began again.

The taste was quite good, more like a cannoli filling than a normal ice cream flavor. I love cannolis so this was not an issue at all. After about 30 minutes in the freezer the sides of the Tupperware had solidified enough for a tasting. The picture above is after 48 hours in the freezer - just like hard serve ice cream.

If I had to do it again, I would probably not pick a day that was 90 some degrees outside, I would not have the oven on during the freeze process, and I would freeze the airtight container for a bit before transferring the ice cream mixture over.

I hope the above antics did not make it simple complicated. Each step was very easy and simple, with a bit of practice and better planning I guarantee the next attempt will be better.

I finally bit the big one!

I finally did it. For about the last two months I have been trying to decide whether or not I should buy an ice cream maker.

But a few weekends ago I watched an episode of Sex in the City where the girls discuss how long it takes for you to get over an ex - boyfriend. Charlotte allotted 1/2 the length of the relationship for mourning before officially moving on. This reminded me of a article I read once long ago in a health magazine that you should not have dessert more than once a month. Really, who can abide by this rule? Not me. No one can tell you how long it takes to get over a relationship and I think the same goes for dessert. I am a big fan of ice cream, especially in the summer. I figured why not do it at home? For years I have seen marvelous recipes about making ice cream but all required an ice cream maker. Why should I be left out of this genre of cooking just because I didn't posses this specific piece of equipment?

So, I finally got the Kitchen Aid attachment above for making ice cream. It may be bad for my health but it will be fun experimenting. I will report soon on the first attempts.

Recipe for hot weather: Pulled pork

Its August in New York and after a cold and wet June summer has finally arrived. I hate to complain since it is summertime but it is hot, hot and humid to be exact. I have had no ambition to cook. The days I have ended in regret. My little apartment kitchen 30 degrees hotter than the rest of the space from the oven or me sweating above the stove top. The ceiling fan only seems to blow the hot air around, not really cooling things off. I turn miserable. Thus the solution of the crock pot.


I kind of think of this as fake cooking. I gave my mom one a few years ago as a Christmas present. After hearing of some of the delicious meals you could make with little more effort than throwing in a bunch of ingredients and turning a nob, I wanted in too. This past year I asked for and received a crock pot.

This is one of my most used recipes and a perfect meal to have on a hot summer night. It require little effort but must be planned in advance. The recipe as two parts and takes at least two days to prepare completely.

Pulled Pork
4-5 lbs pork roast (salt and peppered)
1 onion halved and sliced
1Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 bottle of BBQ sauce 14.5 oz(KC masterpiece)
Juice of one lemon



Approximately 48 hours before you want to have some pulled pork…put roast in crock pot then cover with water. Turn on low and let cook for 10-12 hours. I do this overnight. Its no fuss and the next morning its all done.

Take roast out of crock pot. It should be fairly tender and fall apart easily. Shred the meat and store in Tupperware container in fridge till ready to use.

When ready to make add the shredded meat, BBQ sauce, onions, sugar and lemon juice to crock pot. Cook on low for 3-4 hours or on high for 1 1/2 -2 hours depending on how fast you want to eat it. At some point I do stir the mixture up a bit but this is absolutely not necessary. Trust me the smell of BBQ fills the house so you will be hungry once it gets going. That's all there is to it. I like to have hamburger buns on hand for sandwiches but I also it is plain with a salad if I feel like going the low-carb route. I find this freezes well in an airtight container for about 2 weeks. Simply put it in the fridge the night before you want to use it again.



For those of you who do not want 4-5 lbs of pork at once just pick a small roast and vary the amount of BBQ sauce accordingly. This is not rocket science. I actually don't know if I have ever used a roast this big. The pictures are from a one about 1.5lbs. I will still have plenty of meals from this. I also vary on the variety of cut. Obviously the fatter the roast the more fat you will have on the meat. This can be taken care of after the first step of boiling the roast, remove the large pieces as you shred. I find this quite disgusting though and just opt for a lean cut.

I also never add the extra sugar. For those of you who ever look at ingredients lists, BBQ sauce is not the healthiest condiment. For a 1.5 lbs roast I use about 1/2 to 3/4 of a regular 15oz bottle.



And finally for the original recipe you should sauté the onions to soften a bit before adding them to the crock pot. My thoughts are why dirty another dish? Yes, the onions don't melt in your mouth in my method but they are softened. The longer you have the mixture heating for on the second step the softer they will be, an extra 30 minutes in the pot can make a huge difference.

You can make multiple variations of this by varying the variety or flavor of the sauce. I have been known to throw in chopped garlic as well as celery.

So there you go, the next time you see the forecast for hot and humid weather think of the crock pot. The heat stays right in the pot. Its simple, easy, and one stop clean up.