The whole point of a blog is to tell your present. This means you might find a better way of doing something like making peanut butter based ice cream for example. I learned two things in trying to recreate my peanut butter ice cream recipe from earlier in my blog. One, peanut butter is not the best ingredient for imparting peanut taste into ice cream, and two, it’s better to pasteurize the ingredients of your ice cream together and chill them before mixing. So I guess if you are reading this you can now make many of my previous recipes better with these ideas. If I was making a book I’d edit everything, but it’s a blog. I guess you get what you get. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup dehydrated peanut butter powder
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 2/3 cup skim milk
• 4 Shortbread chocolate peanut butter chip cookies

Instructions:

1. Mix all ingredients but cookies in medium saucepan.
2. Pasteurize the ingredients. I.e. bring ingredients to 170 degrees Fahrenheit slowly so they don’t burn.
3. Place in refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours until chilled.
4. Make ice cream according to your manufacturer’s instructions. Will make approximately one quart.
5. When ice cream is finished churning mash cookies in plastic bag with rolling pin.
6. Pour smashed cookies into ice cream and stir with rubber spatula.
7. Serve immediately as soft serve or place in ice box for hard serve later. Enjoy.

This is a significant change so that I feel I can call it my own, but this is a variation of Allison Roman’s chocolate chunk shortbread cookie recipe that’s really popular on Instagram. Basically these are what fit my needs. I was looking to make a peanut butter based ice cream with a cookies and cream flair. I feel shortbread cookies are ideal for cookies and cream and I might even argue that Oreo cookies are also basically shortbread. The recipe is still noteworthy without the need for them in ice cream. On to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 10 oz (2 1/2 sticks) salted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose or cake flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 10 oz bag Reeces peanut butter chips
• Turbinado sugar
• 1 egg

Instructions:

1. Cut chilled butter into to small pieces and place in bowl of stand mixer.
2. Add sugar and beat on low until creamed.
3. In small mixing bowl combine flour and cocoa.
4. Whisk for a minute or until well combined.
5. Turn mixer to low and add flour cocoa mixture slowly until all has been incorporated, making sure to scrape sides of mixing bowl when necessary.
6. Leaving mixer on low, add bag of chips and mix through.
7. On wax or parchment paper divide mixture in half and form into a log about 2 inches in diameter.
8. Wrap up and chill in refrigerator for at least two hours. Can be chilled overnight.
9. Beat egg and brush over log you have removed from the refrigerator.
10. Roll log in turbinado sugar.
11. Cut log into 12 cookies approximately 1/2 inch thick. For this I used a Santuko knife which I originally bought to cut through the nuts in biscotti.
12. Place on parchment paper lined cookie sheet about an inch apart and bake at 350 degrees for 14 to 15 minutes.
13. Cool, serve, and enjoy.

The original quest I was trying to pursue was to see if I could make a white sauce and cook rice in it. The larger issue here is emulsification. I made this recipe about a week ago and because I used so much water based liquid to cook the rice and temperatures near boiling, I lost the emulsifyication for a little while during the cooking process. However; once the absorption of water based liquid took over from the rice cooking the emulsifyication returned even at boiling water temperatures. So basically lesson learned… Don’t freak out. The dish was good but I thought it lacked a certain amount of flavor. I was going to repeat the recipe again adding more flavor, but I started wondering if it was possible to make a nut butter based gravy or sauce. This seemed expiramental, but also sounded like fun. On to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 cup peanut oil
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 bunch of asparagus
• 2 cups grape tomatoes
• 1 lb ham steak
• 1 3/4 cups rice
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp hot sauce
• 1/2 gallon skim milk

Instructions:

1. In a deep 12 inch frying pan heat peanut oil and peanut butter over medium heat.
2. After completely melting the peanut butter add flour and make like a roux.
3. After cooking 4 to 5 minutes add milk and flavored sauces slowly trying to avoid lumps.
4. Using a whisk make sure to remove the remaining lumps.
5. Reduce heat to medium low and add asparagus which has been broken into bite size chunks.
6. Add water to increase total volume to almost the limit of the frying pan.
7. Stir and wait for mixture to come to a simmer.
8. Add rice and allow rice to absorb the majority of the water. Note: Pans will vary in size. I added about 3 cups of water to reach the limit of my frying pan. You might need to adjust rice amount accordingly.
9. Allow mixture to cool off of heat. Mixture will thicken.
10. Cut ham and tomatoes into bite size pieces.
11. Fold into mixture in frying pan.
12. Serve and enjoy.