amazing muffins and crazy ice cream part II

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Liz

super muffins, DIY ice cream, and salted caramel sauce–it doesn’t get any better than this

Last week, food for fun featured a muffin recipe that had knocked my socks off. But the post was left only partially complete as there had also been mention of combining the much-loved muffins with vanilla ice cream. What with my fondness for homemade ice cream, this wasn’t a casual statement. I was going to make that ice cream. The tale picks up here…

bake sale goodies

A few weekends back, I worked at a culinary garage sale for Les Dames d’Escoffier. Money was raised for Urban Roots, an amazing local inner city youth gardening program, and it was a fun way to spend a Saturday. There were bake sale treats to be enjoyed as well as fun kitchen and garden items looking for new homes.

Though officially working the sale, I managed to find a good number of items that needed their new home to be mine. One such purchase was Cooking Wizardry for Kids. Published in 1990, this old-school spiral-bound gem offers basic-but-fun recipes and sweet cartoon illustrations. The Make Your Own Favorite Restaurant Food chapter dates the book especially with recipes for exotica such as milkshakes, pizza, chicken nuggets, tacos, burgers, sub sandwiches, and salad bars. (Though the chicken stir-fry was probably quite progressive at the time.)

In that same chapter were two recipes for ice cream. One used only a blender, and I’ll be giving it a whirl eventually. But the other, subtitled “With a Microwave Oven and an Ice Cream Freezer,” intrigued me most. It cooks the custard base (which contains flour of all things) in the microwave, chills it, then churns in an ice cream maker. Turns out the method works well.

This ice cream easily accompanies Super Muffins and would pair well with cake or cookies, too. It would also be lovely topped sundae-style or served solo. However enjoyed, this ice cream wins Best Garage Sale Find Ever.

with chocolate beer sauce!

Make-Your-Own Ice Cream Project (With a Microwave Oven and Ice Cream Freezer)

I’ve topped it here with a recipe from Lilly Sue and her fab Bites and Brews–her chocolate beer sauce is a revelation. Lovely poured over ice cream, it’s also worth drinking by the cupful. This stuff made me swoon.

1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 large egg
1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In 1-quart glass measure, mix sugar, flour, and salt. Stir in 1/4 cup milk until smooth. Stir in remaining 3/4 cup milk. Microwave on HIGH 2 minutes. Stir well. Microwave on HIGH 3 minutes longer; stir. (Mixture should be smooth and slightly thickened.)

In small bowl, beat egg lightly. Pour small amount of hot milk mixture into egg, stirring constantly. Whisk egg mixture into hot milk mixture until smooth. Microwave on HIGH 30 seconds; stir. If mixture is not yet beginning to boil, return to microwave for another 30 seconds. Cover; refrigerate at least one hour, but preferably overnight. (Mixture must be thoroughly chilled before churning.)

Before churning custard, whisk in cream and vanilla. Process according to ice cream freezer manufacture’s instructions. Makes 2 cups.

proving the pudding…is delish

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Liz

It’s been a double-down week for classes as my daughter and I taught a kids’ cooking class last weekend, then Monday eve I helped same daughter’s Girl Scout troop earn their Simple Meals badge. Originally intending to repeat my Saturday menu (DIY instant oats, noodle bowl, chicken tenders) for the troop, I realized that badge requirements called for a dessert. This realization hit the morning of the Scout meeting, leaving me little time to come up with a quick-and-easy sweet that would teach basic cooking skills and appeal to 10- and 11-year-old taste buds.

Little time was needed, though, as the obvious dessert choice was homemade chocolate pudding. A favorite dessert with my family (especially the husband), pudding needs only a few ingredients, cooks up quickly, and is undeniably swoon-worthy. I also imagined that at least a few of the girls may have only experienced the snack-pack variety of pudding. And I was excited to see these girls learn that homemade is so much better.

The recipe I turned to is from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, a highly readabale book by Jennifer Reese of Tipsy Baker fame. Though I cut down on the milk just a smidge, I otherwise honored the recipe and its prose, quoting the recipe’s cleverly-written doneness test to the budding cooks: “It will start out looking like scummy hot chocolate, after which it will look like thin hot chocolate, until suddenly it becomes hot, bubbling glossy pudding. This is how you know it’s done.” While wordy, it’s also wonderfully descriptive and perfect for anyone who hasn’t cooked up pudding before.

As suspected, the pudding was a huge hit–sweet, but not overly so and also at a “chocolatey” level ideal for young kids who may not yet appreciate the darker side of chocolate. (Though using dark cocoa powder instead of the traditional would fix that.)

When I posted a photo collage of the foods the girls made that night (quinoa, roasted carrots and asparagus, breaded chicken tenders, and the pudding) on deLizious’ facebook page, all comments were for the pudding. And that’s when I knew I had a blog post.

From-Scratch Chocolate Pudding

tweaked only slightly from Jennifer Reese’s awesome Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk (2 1/4 cups in the original recipe and Reese recommends whole, though I use what we have which is usually 1%)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In medium saucepan, stir together brown sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt. Whisk in milk. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until hot, bubbly, and glossy. (The better doneness descriptor is given above.) Remove from heat; whisk in vanilla.

Divide pudding among 4 serving dishes. Cover with plastic wrap. (Or not–I do not as I like the thin layer of skin that forms on a pudding’s surface as it chills. Texture!) Refrigerate. (Or not–who can wait for chocolate pudding to chill? It tastes great warm and slightly thinner, too 🙂 ) Makes 4 servings.

creamy chocolate pud from scratch!

teaching kids to cook and instantly oatty

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Liz

When a friend who works as Director of a local cooking school asked me to teach a class on cooking with kids, I thought it sounded like fun. When she asked if I’d bring my 10-year-old daughter on board to “assist,” the deal got even sweeter. I loved the idea of sharing deLizious with my kids.

In planning the class, I thought about foods that were winners with my girls as well as dishes they might have a hand in preparing. In the end, the menu featured one recipe for each mealtime (breakfast, lunch, supper) with the lunch dish able to play snack role as well.

First up: Fast Food-Style Chicken Tenders, seen here before at foodforfun. Next was Asian Noodle Bowl, made from cooked whole wheat spaghetti tossed with an Asian dressing (6 Tbsp orange juice, 3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce, 1 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil, 3/4 tsp grated fresh gingerroot for 8 ounces dried pasta).

Students, ranging in age from 4ish to 10ish along with accompanying adults, took bowls of dressed noodles and tossed in favorite veggies from a colorful produce buffet that had been prepped before class. Whether tossing in snowpeas, broccoli, and bell pepper or just carrots (that would be my girl), kids were adding veggies they’d eat and making a (healthy) dish they were excited about. Besides this being a do-able lunch for school, it could also be packed as snack.

With supper and lunch/snack down, we moved on to breakfast. I’d found a fun recipe in ChopChop magazine (loving CC–a cooking mag for kids that keeps things simple without dumbing down) for DIY Instant Oats that struck me as brilliance. With all the other make-a-mixes out there, why not one for instant oats? True, old-fashioned rolled oats don’t take terribly long to cook: A hot bowl of steaming oats is never more than 20 minutes away and setting them up in a slow cooker the night before makes mornings even easier.

But how about this: Grind a cup of oats along with a handful of dried fruit, tablespoon or so of brown sugar, and small amounts of ground cinnamon and salt to powder in a blender or food processor, then add another 2 cups oats for a quick pulse. The result? A shelf-stable mix you combine 1:1 1/2 with boiling water (1/2 cup oat mixture to 3/4 cup water) for a quick-fix breakfast. It tastes way better than packaged with hearty, fresh, real flavors and has a great chew. The bowl of oats you want to fill your kid’s (or your own) tummy with in the morn? Just seconds away if you have this mix in your cupboard. And as with the noodle bowls, there was a topping buffet for this recipe, too: unsweetened baking cocoa, nuts, dried and fresh fruit, yogurt, nut butters, honey, maple syrup. (“Kid like choices, mom” was one sage bit of advice my daughter had given me as we planned this class.)

Class ended and we were on our way home before I realized I’d taken no photos. My mind had been on wanting the class to go well and not so much on capturing the food on camera. To rectify, I made myself a batch of DIY oats today, snapping photos as I went. I’d like to write that my daughters helped me, but reality had them working on homework and cleaning their room instead. But it’s good to know I have recipes to share for those times when we all have time to play together in the kitchen. And even if they didn’t have a hand in making this batch of DIY oats, they’ll be enjoying them for many breakfasts to come.