Homemade Marshmallows in Salted Toasted Rocky Road Ice Cream
My journey to rocky road ice cream began on a (yes another) rainy and dreary spring weekend when I was trying to come up with a new cookie to send to my marshmallow-loving sister for her birthday. I’d recently fell in love with making meringue (and wielding my kitchen torch), plus s’mores cookies seem to be having a moment. In the past I’ve made a copycat version of a local bakery’s s’mores cookie that has a whole graham cracker baked along the bottom of a chocolate chip cookie and topped with a marshmallow, but I wanted something different. I turned to my copy of 100 Cookies (#90 to be exact), to see what Sarah Kieffer would do. Turns out that she rolls balls of chocolate chip cookie dough in crushed graham crackers mixed with sugar and melted butter. Then she suggests turning to page 284 and making homemade marshmallows for the tops – and toasting them. Decision made. I was making these cookies. And left with too many marshmallows, I naturally had to make rocky road ice cream. It’s a bit of a “when you give a mouse a cookie” conundrum. Anyhow, all good paths lead to ice cream. While the jury may be out on the s’mores cookies, the marshmallows were definitely superior to mass-manufactured, and the case is closed when it comes to Salted Toasted Rocky Road Ice Cream.
Peppermint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream
I’ve never been a big fan of eating candy canes. And those Starlight mints that you spot in a basket for the taking at the door of family restaurants always disappoint. To me, candy canes fill the role of a Christmas decoration. However, the peppermint stripes themselves bring me a wave of nostalgia. When my kids were very young, I decorated our tree with a Candyland theme. I still remember how cute it was that my left-handed daughter hung the candy canes “backwards” (according to my perspective). Today my signature decorating color is aqua. The color red is only welcome once a year — at Christmas — in my home. I love mixing red and white stripes or red and white polka dots with aqua for that vintage feel. This year I searched out red and white candy-cane striped wrapping paper from the Sugar Paper collection at Target to go under my white tree adorned with mostly aqua ornaments. Just a few days before Christmas I asked my kids to pick up a package of those small individually wrapped candy canes with the main intent of them gracing my Papa Noel aqua and white mug on the coffee table. Those candy canes prompted my daughter to keep asking when we were making peppermint ice cream. It started snowing on Christmas Day and the temperature was in the teens. Seemed like a good time to use up the candy canes and make a frosty dessert.
Win-the-Day Ice Cream Sandwiches
One evening not too long ago my adult daughter was home for a weekend visit. We were watching TV when she suddenly exclaimed (with great enthusiasm I might add): “I forgot! At this house you get dessert every night!” While that may not be exactly true (what? Dessert at my house? Nah) … I’ll admit that it’s a rare day when there’s no ice cream in my freezer. I inherited my love of ice cream from my dad. Growing up, the regular for our family of seven was rectangular cartons of store-brand ice cream. In later years, my dad stocked his freezer with a minimum of four half-gallon cartons of Dreyer’s or Umpqua, or whatever was on sale, ice cream in the latest crazy mixtures. I’m more of a purist when it comes to my ice cream. I don’t want more than two things going on inside that tub. My top three: Haagen Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond, Haagen Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip and Tillamook Coffee Almond Fudge. I’m also always up for visiting (even standing in the rain) the local ice cream shop. In college it was Prince Puckler's. When in Portland it’s Salt and Straw and here in Seattle it’s Molly Moon’s. After 30-plus years of living with me, my husband has perfected being my ice cream partner-in-crime. This year his birthday fell on college football Saturday. (Did I mention that the Oregon Ducks won the day beating Ohio State for the first time in history?) Extra points for my homemade ice cream sandwiches. Think super rich and scoopable dark chocolate ice cream (inspired by Molly Moon Melted Chocolate) layered with old fashioned vanilla ice cream sandwiched inside made-from-scratch chocolate cookies with just the right texture.
Winning blueberry recipes
For those of you who have been with me for the last year, you know that I love blueberry-picking season. We have the best blueberry farm within 10 minutes of our home. Besides being the easiest berry to pick – no bending over or prickly vines (for the most part) – blueberries also last the longest and are the simplest berry to freeze. Every year I search out and make new blueberry delights. Besides the recipes I have on repeat, this year I made a blueberry-ginger salsa served on halibut, blueberry-mint Arnold Palmers, blueberry cheesecake ice cream, blueberry Dutch babies, a blueberry cocoa crumble and a new take on blueberry scones.
Yummy Strawberry Recipes
I was so excited for strawberry season this year, anxiously watching the Remlinger Farms Facebook page for opening day. When the day came, we drove out to the (very crowded) farm and told ourselves to not go overboard; we’d come back later in the month. And then it rained and rained, life happened, and we never made it back. So unfortunately, although I had intended on writing about strawberries and showing my pics weeks ago, that didn’t materialize. I did manage to make strawberry scones, and one batch of strawberry jam. Oh and maybe some ice cream bars and milkshakes and mocktails. Hopefully some of you still have access to strawberries either from a local farmer’s market or your own yard. The grocery store works too. Confession. I went to my freezer and dug out a bag of vacuum-sealed strawberries from last year and made what I call Strawberry Cookies & Cream Ice Cream. You know. Because we are having an unprecedented heatwave in the Pacific Northwest. And yes, I know that other parts of the US regularly have triple digit heat (I lived in Arizona for 17 years). But my and my husband’s stubborn streak said we don’t need no stinkin’ air conditioning when we moved to Washington. Ha! And if you must know, I had ice cream at 8am this morning. And again at 2pm. Read on for strawberry recipes and ideas.
Neapolitan cookies (times two)
There’s something nostalgic about Neapolitan ice cream. I remember my dad opening up and unfolding the rectangular cartons of the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and cutting big slices that consisted of equal portions of each flavor. Neapolitan actually refers to belonging to, or characteristic of Naples, Italy. The associated tri-color may have originally included pistachio (instead of chocolate) to represent the colors of the Italian flag. To this day, there seems to be a debate on the correct order of flavors and the correct order to eat the flavors! When we lived in Arizona, my nanny would buy Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches for the kids. They would methodically eat one flavor at a time. White or vanilla was winter; chocolate or brown was fall; and strawberry or pink was summer. Kids’ imaginations are great. I guess we didn’t have spring in Arizona—winter went straight to summer apparently in their minds! Regardless of which order you prefer the three flavors to appear in your Neapolitan treats, to me, it’s more about the nostalgia than the actual taste. When I saw Neapolitan Cookies #70 in Sarah Kieffer’s 100 Cookies book, I knew I had to make them.
Chicken Salad and Coffee Mud Pie à la Cork ‘N Cleaver
Someday I’ll tell my grandkids that back in the day I drove a car (with an internal combustion engine no doubt) 40 minutes to an office building every Monday through Friday and worked in a cubicle all day. Maybe that already dates me, but it pretty much describes my early corporate career. I worked in public relations for a big tech company back when out-of-town editors would visit and it was our job to treat them to fancy lunches (and wine in the middle of the day). Discovering all the nice restaurants on an expense account in Phoenix and Scottsdale was definitely a perk of the PR job. Working for a large company also meant lots of coworkers’ birthdays to celebrate with team lunches. Cork 'N Cleaver was the default birthday restaurant in the 90s for my department. A group of us ladies always ordered the same thing: chicken salad that came with banana bread and a big piece of shareable mud pie with an uninhibited round of happy birthday.
Mini Shepherd’s Pies and Shamrock Ice Cream Tartlets
When March 17 comes around each year, we think of leprechauns, four-leaf clovers and green beer. As kids, it was all about spotting people who weren’t wearing green and giving them a pinch. I remember my own kids watching “The Luck of the Irish” movie a hundred times. In reality, Americans created most of what we associate with St. Patrick’s Day – Green beer, Shamrock Shakes and even corned beef and cabbage. As the saying goes, everybody's Irish on St. Paddy’s Day! I have a special affinity for green, having lived in the Seattle area, which has used "The Emerald City" as its official nickname since 1982; and born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, which is also referred to as the Emerald City. As such (and not a fan of corned beef) I couldn’t let the day pass without sharing recipes for Shepherd’s Pie and a mint chip ice cream dessert.
Pumpkin ice cream 4 ways
Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (the cult-like PSL) is the most popular seasonal beverage in the company’s history, with more than 424 million cups sold and its own Twitter account. This iconic taste of fall in a cup is festive, provides a sense of belongingness and connectedness, and like it or not, subconsciously urges you to imbibe before it’s no longer available. Following the craze started by the coffee chain, brands continue to stock grocery shelves each year with novel pumpkin spice products (pumpkin-spice cheesy powder on your Kraft Mac and Cheese, anyone?) promising us comfort and all the cozy fall feels. “Should-never-have-been-invented” variations aside, I’m all for extending the pumpkin season beyond the obligatory Thanksgiving pie. Give me pumpkin in breads, pancakes, cookies or basically any baked good, as well as in my coffee—and especially in my ice cream.