Archives for May 2010

Coffee Oreo Ice Cream

May 21, 2010 · by ·
coffee-oreo-ice-cream

The title says it all. How could you go wrong with coffee oreo ice cream? It was a dairy holiday, with the weather warming up. Ice cream had to make it on the menu. I first sampled this flavor either at Sebastian Joe’s in Minneapolis, or Max & Mina’s in Queens. Either way, it’s the perfect flavor combo and I was determined to make it my own.

Around 5 years ago, I received this handy dandy Cuisinart ice cream maker as a token of appreciation for doing some product research stuff. I used to do various focus groups and product testing in my “free time.” My love of kitchen appliances brought me this baby. I think I can count on my hands the number of times I have actually used this appliance. It averages out to two times a summer. Making ice cream is so easy. Not necessarily cheaper than buying it though. Still, it’s wonderful when it’s homemade and Shavuot calls for yummy, delicious, homemade ice cream.

Coffee-Oreo Ice Cream
 
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Recipe type: Dessert, Ice Cream, Frozen
Ingredients
  • 1 cup milk
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 3 teaspoons instant espresso powder
  • ¼ cup very strong coffee/espresso (ice cold)
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extra
  • broken up sandwich cookies (I used Trader Joe's chocolate Joe Joe's) - About 20 or so, maybe more.
Instructions
  1. In a bowl, whisk the milk, sugar, coffee, and espresso powder to combine.
  2. Whisk in the heavy cream and the vanilla.
  3. Pour into the ice cream maker. Turn the machine on.
  4. Let it run a good 20 minutes.
  5. Watch it thicken up and turn into ice cream.
  6. Toss in the cookie pieces. Let it run another 5-10 minutes.
  7. When done, it will be like soft ice cream. Think Carvel. You can enjoy it now, or you can let it freeze and harden a bit more. Enjoy!

coffee-oreo-ice-cream

Filed Under: Dessert, ice cream · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Oreo Cheesecake

May 21, 2010 · by ·

What do you do when you can’t find a recipe or have trouble with a recipe? Do you look to the cookbooks? Do you look to Chef Google? No! We turn to social networking! Really! We tweet our kitchen nightmares, or blog about it. Or we updated our facebook status with the latest. It’s instant. My cookbooks get old and dusty and sit on my bookshelves until I am bored and just need a hint of an idea to run off of. Google is nice and all, but not necessarily trustworthy like tried and true resources. It’s so much more gratifying to get that instant response in the form of a comment to my kvetchy status update.

So it was the case a few nights ago, when my facebook status made mention of my troubles in the cheesecake department.
Shavuot is one of my favorite holidays. I love having some sort of extra salute from above to stick to a vegetarian menu. Of course, part of that whole Shavuot dairy thing, is the essential dessert – the cheesecake. I love most things dairy and vegetarian – except for cheesecake. I have never felt the cheesecake love. Maybe it’s that whole sensitive stomach thing. Who knows. Cheesecake doesn’t love me back. It’s mutual. I’ve made peace with it. I’m still supposed to make it. Gotta keep up with the customs, right? So I have attempted cheesecake a couple times in the past 10 years of Shavuot cooking. The first time I tried, it’s just fell apart. No love lost. A few years ago, I was determined. I googled “easy cheesecake recipe.” That was probably my first mistake. The second mistake was the recipe I chose. It was some “no bake easy cheesecake.” So many things wrong with that stament. Anyhow, facebook pulled through for me this year. My status eluded to my past cheesecake failures. An old camp friend (and culinary genius) came through and quickly sent me a tried and true cheesecake recipe that I quickly adapted to work with what I had (lots and lots of JoeJoe’s cookies). As promised, the cheesecake came out great and everyone was happy. Thanks, Matt! The recipe is below.
Oreo Cheesecake –
only slightly tweaked from my friend, Matt, who adapted it from someone else

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup oreo crumbs – about 24 cookies crushed
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter, plus an extra 2 tablespoons – also melted
16 oz. sour cream
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 lb cream cheese – 2 of those rectangular boxes
another dozen or so crush oreo cookies, plus more for garnish – and a few more for eating

Preheat oven to 350

Shove a bunch of cookies into a ziploc bag. With a rolling pin, crush the cookies.
Mix the cookie crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, and melted butter in a bowl.

Press the mixture into the bottom of an ungreased springform pan

In a blender, blend the sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, and vanilla for a minute. Add in the cream cheese. Blend until smooth. This goes fast. Add the crumbled cookies at this point. Add in the melted butter. Blend a bit more.

Pour into the springform.
Garnish with the oreos if you’d like.

Baked in the lower third of the oven for 45 minutes.

When baking is finished, turn the oven to broil. Broil the cheesecake until the top begins to show some nice brown spots. Matt said that they should be “attractive spots of brown.” Hmmm. Have I ever met an ugly cake? I’ll give on this one. I hope my cheesecake was pretty enough.

Chill in the fridge for at least day before serving. Enjoy!
Filed Under: baked, Dessert · Tagged: , , , ,

Shavuot Run-Down

May 21, 2010 · by ·

Am I turning in to my parents? I never thought I would say that, but I think I am becoming them – in the way I relate to food…and guests. The whole concept of how much to serve when having guests – I totally get that from my parents. The whole fear that you just may embarassingly run out of food when you have company over. Yikes! It’s totally never happened – at their house or mine. The fear is still there, so we compensate, and we make entirely way too much food. Heaven forbid there should not be enough food options for anyone at the table…and you must please everyone. The vegan should have multiple food choices, the chick allergic to ten different foods – she, too, must also have multiple food options. It’s all there…it’s all cooked, by me. And don’t get me wrong. I am totally not complaining. I enjoy cooking. I enjoy entertaining. There is just way too much food in this house. And there is going to be more. We just finished Shavuot, and tomorrow I start cooking for Shabbat. More food? Yikes.

We had lots of food success over Shavuot. No misses. Suprising. During a long holiday, there is usually at least one food that doesn’t go over too well with more than one person. This time, except for my picky 8-year-old, just about everything went over well. In the next few blog posts, I will share with you some of the hit recipes.

Below, I present to you my Shavuot menu.

Tuesday Night

Hungarian Mushroom Soup – recipe to come
Salad
Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Baked Salmon
Asparagus Rice Pilaf – recipe to come
Oreo/JoeJoe’s Cheesecake

Wednesday Lunch (ate out – brought slaw)

Oriental Cole Slaw – recipe to come

Wednesday Night – Just us

Salad
Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

Thursday Lunch

Salad
Salmon Salad – using leftover salmon from Tues. night
Roasted Broccoli
Potato/Cheese Blintzes – recipe to come
Spinach Pie – recipe to come
Baked pasta dish with mushrooms – recipe to come
Oreo Cheesecake
Coffee Oreo/JoeJoe’s ice cream – recipe to come

Filed Under: recipes · Tagged: , , ,

Pad See Ew for You!

May 11, 2010 · by ·
I love Vietnamese food first and foremost, but good Vietnamese is not as prevalent on the East Coast (surprise, surprise) as it is back home in Minnesota. So I have moved over to Thai food. Thai food is abundant in my corner of the world, and a good meal along with a good deal can be found fairly easily around these parts. One of my favorite noodle dishes at Thai restaurants is Pad See Ew. It is one of those dishes, that in my opinion, is the test factor as to whether or not the restaurant is worthy of my business. That dish more so than the Pad Thai. It is really basic comfort food, tastes great, and is very easy to make.
Pad See Ew
Ingredients

vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 eggs
1 container extra firm tofu, or seitan
2 tablespoons dark/black soy sauce
1 bunch Chinese broccoli, chopped
1 pound wide rice noodles
fish sauce

scallions for garnish

Make sure you have all your ingredients ready to go, as this dish cooks fast.

In a bowl, pour boiling water over the rice noodles. Set aside.
Heat a wok or large skiller. Add a drop of the oil. Beat some eggs into the hot oil. Scramble and set aside.

In the same pan, toss in your garlic. Add a drop more oil. Toss in your protein – tofu/seitan/dead animal option.


Toss in the Chinese Broccoli. Cook, stirring to get all the veggies cooked and in there. Strain your noodles and add to the pan. Stir and stir some more. Stir in the dark soy sauce. Stir in a tablespoon or so of the fish sauce. Stir in the scrambled eggs. Stir some more. See a theme?

Portion some onto a plate. Dress with a few chopped scallions. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Main Course, seitan, thai, Vegetarian · Tagged: , , , ,

Crunchy Granola and Proud

May 4, 2010 · by ·
My mornings are pretty routine each week. After waking up at 5:00, I only have eyes for my coffee. Breakfast is pretty distant in my mind. If I remember, I might just grab a granola bar, a Luna bar or something of that power/energy bar ilk. Once in a blue moon, I go high style and pick up an egg sandwich somewhere in Manhattan on my way to work. Between the coffee and the energy bars, my mornings can get expensive. I also feel guilty eating the overly processed granola bar products? I mean, really. I do love that whole coated in chocolate aspect of the Luna bars. At $1-2 a pop though, is it really worth it?
I started researching homemade granola, and homemade granola bars. To be honest, diving into this realm is not the best idea for me. My gut truly can’t handle most homemade granola bars. My gut should can only handle that processed stuff. Still, I wanted to try to make my own power/energy granola bar and feel some crunchy granola bar power.

I knew what I wanted in there: some combo of oats, flax, wheat germ, almonds, dried fruit, and chocolate chips. But what else goes into that perfect bar, and how much? There are many recipes out there. Using my math skills, I came up with what I think works for us. Even my picky 8-year-old, who prefers bars of the “Kudos” variety approved of this nutty good-for-you power bar.
There are some modifications I may make next time, aside from processing my ingredients, so it isn’t too nutty for me. I may go all honey and no sunflower butter. Also switch up the fruit. I would like to play with some nut combinations. Maybe throwing in a pecan or two.

Granola Bars
Ingredients

4 cups oats
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup chopped, dried fruit
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sunflower nut butter
2 tbsp vanilla
4 tbsp butter
pinch or two of salt
Combine all the nutty stuff on to a baking sheet and toast at 350 for 15 minutes.

Stir the mixture around every five minutes. When done, dump in a large mixing bowl and cool down. Stir in the coconut, dried fruits, and choco chips in to the mixture. Turn the oven down to 300.

Get a 9×13 pan ready. Line it with parchment paper.
In a small saucepan, add the sugar, the nut butter, the honey, the vanilla, and the salt. Stir up until the brown sugar has dissolved. Just a few minutes. Let cool a couple minutes.

Pour the sticky mixture over the granola mixture and stir. Press the mixture into the pan. Press down so it’s all even.

Bake at 300 for around 25 minutes.

When done, remove from oven and let cool on counter for a good 30 minutes or so.

Slice into granola bar shapes – anything goes really. Enjoy!

Wrap in plastic wrap. I prefer the “Stretch-Tite” brand. Saran is for wimps. Enjoy your bars.

Filed Under: Breakfast, Snacks · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
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