So I am sorry I have been absent for a while, but the only thing that has really challenged my creativity in cooking in the last few months is ice cream.  I’ve come up with the best until I think of something new recipes for chocolate, vanilla, cookies and cream, peanut butter, flavors derived from syrups, and any add ins you want to make a flavor.  In the process I’ve come up with recipes for hot fudge and chocolate sauce that came out of the ice cream starters I prepare for each batch.  If you use the chocolate sauce you can add it to milk and make one of the best hot chocolates you’ll ever taste.  On to the recipe.

Ingredients:

Chocolate sauce:

• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Hot chocolate:

• 2 cups skim milk
• 3 Tbsp chocolate sauce

Instructions:

1. Mix 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 2 1/2 cups skim milk, and 3/4 cup granulated sugar in medium non reactive sauce pan.
2. Slowly steam and mix mixture over low heat.  I  use a 4.25 setting on an electric stove.
3. You do not actually want the mixture to visibly boil until it has thickened and lost volume.
4. This will take you about two hours.  You can stir occasionally.  The main thing is you don’t want a skin to form on the milk and you want to keep it from burning to the sides of the pan.
5. When you can see streaks on the bottom of the pan while stirring with your spatula or spoon (I recommend a high heat spatula), add the remaining 1/4 cup of cocoa powder.  Cook until smooth.
6. Add 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream and homogenize.
7. Remove from heat and save for later.  You can refrigerate if later isn’t soon.
8. To make hot chocolate mix chocolate sauce and skim milk in pan.  Homogenize and warm slowly to desired temperature.
9. Serve and enjoy.

One thing I have been doing recently is processing and cooking an entire turkey mostly for it’s potential as a preprepared ingredient in recipes. You could also use chicken thighs or breasts to come up with the meat for this recipe. I’m still on my fascination with colloids. For this recipe you start out basically with a white sauce. You let it thicken while you cook your potatoes. Then you add your precooked meat and remove it from the heat. There’s really not too many ingredients in this soup. Not nearly as complicated as the end result in the book, “Stone Soup.” The end result is a creamy creation that’s very satisfying. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 12 Tbsp butter
• 3/4 cup cake or all purpose flour
• 3/4 gallon skim milk
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 lbs gold potatoes
• 1 qt precooked and chopped turkey or chicken
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• Water for cooking

Instructions:

1. Melt butter in 5 to 6 qt heavy bottomed pot.
2. Add flour and make a roux.
3. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat 5 to 10 minutes or until slightly browned.
4. Add milk slowly reducing heat to medium low.
5. Homogenize broth with whisk.
6. Add salt and pepper.
7. Chop up potatoes into bite size pieces.
8. Add to broth and allow to come to a boil.
9. Add water and cream to make volume approximately 5 quarts.
10. Bring to a boil.
11. When potatoes are soft, remove from heat and add meat.
12. After cooling slightly serve and enjoy.

So I was reading through my Google news feed, and I come across an article about uses for your cast iron skillet. Some of them are quite involved like shepherds pie or chicken pot pie. One I have never heard of before, which seems surprising to me now is German pancakes or a Dutch baby. From subsequent articles I’ve read about them they were first made in a Seattle restaurant over one hundred years ago. I also found additional recipes where the authors tried to create savory versions or kind of a breakfast pizza. Their versions all had really expensive cheeses I didn’t feel like paying for so I made my own. A Dutch baby is an eggy pastry that is unique in its own right. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz chorizo
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• Hot sauce, salt, and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup cake or all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In 10 1/2 inch cast iron skillet remove chorizo from casing, crumble, and fry.
3. Remove from pan and set aside. Retain oily pan.
4. In small mixing bowl beat eggs.
5. Add flour, baking powder, buttermilk, and spices.
6. Mix well.
7. Melt butter in cast iron skillet.
8. Pour batter in pan.
9. Sprinkle cheese and chorizo crumbles over top and place in prepared oven.
10. Cook for 20 minutes.
11. Turn oven off.
12. Allow to remain in oven for an additional 5 minutes.
13. Remove from oven and serve.
14. Enjoy!

Here’s a recipe that’s not too terribly complicated. It uses all ingredients you can get at the grocery store. I find most often lately in order to satisfy my creativity I have to make my own ingredients. Sometimes I can spend the good part of a day coming up with something that I thought the world was missing. It makes some of the recipes on my blog really involved to create. Anyways this is pretty straightforward. On to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 2/3 cup skim milk
• 1/4 cup dried milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 10 small candy canes

Instructions:

1. Mix milk, cream, dry milk, sugar, and extract in medium saucepan over low heat.
2. Pasteurize ingredients by bringing them to 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Allow to cool on stove.
4. Further cool in Refrigerator for at least two hours.
5. Smash candy cane and pre-chill in freezer. I used a rolling pin.
6. Prepare ice cream in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s directions.
7. Either serve immediately as soft serve or place in freezer and serve later as hard serve.

I probably have a biased opinion on these but I think these pastries could rival donuts for popularity. Of course I also think donuts taste too much like oil. I made them up to right a recipe gone wrong. I also can’t think of a name for them. I think drop pastry is descent, not offensive anyways. When I was visiting a local cave the tour guide was telling a story where she asked a student group what was their favorite part. One student said they liked the cow pie. It took the guide a little while to figure it out but she showed us a stalagmite which was what the student was talking about. At the time I was thinking that’s kinda what the drop pastry looks like. I’m not sure if a name of cow pie would turn people off or if they would take it in good humor. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cranberry sauce
• 2 cup cake or all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup buttermilk and more for coating
• 1 large egg

Instructions:

1. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
2. Mix thoroughly with whisk.
3. With chilled butter cut butter into flour mixture using a pastry knife or two knives. Batter should be crumbly.
4. Beat egg with a fork in small bowl.
5. Add buttermilk and mix well.
6. Adding buttermilk egg mixture in thirds, with spatula or spoon mix into flour butter batter. Mixture should be dry at this stage, but should be fully incorporated.
7. Add cranberry sauce and pecans.
8. Mix roughly. There should be some areas heavy with cranberry sauce and some areas heavy with batter.
9. Drop onto cookies sheet. Mixture should make 9 to 10 drop pastries. I used silicon mats. These kept the browning of the bottoms down. The brown doesn’t taste burnt. It just doesn’t look nice.
10. Liberally coat the tops of the pastries with buttermilk.
11. Place in 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.
12. Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes then cool on cooling rack.
13. Enjoy!

So I would consider it one of my hobbies to take seasonal cheap fruit and make preserves. It’s December here in Texas. The citrus fruits come into season soon. January and February are big for oranges and grapefruit. Basically the only thing that is on sale is northern fruit, that stores for a while like pears and apples, and grapes which I really don’t know where they’re coming from. Anyways seedless grapes are pretty easy for preperation. You basically just pick off the stems and throw them away. For this you will need a stick blender and a large pan. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs seedless grapes
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 small limes
• Water to cover grapes in pan

Instructions:

1. Destem grapes and place in large pan.
2. Add water so all grapes are completely submerged.
3. Juice limes into mixture.
4. Cook over medium high heat until grapes are softened.
5. With stick blender liquify mixture.
6. Add sugar and stir.
7. Remove liquid from mixture until you can see empty pan behind your stirring utensil.
8. Allow to cool, package, and enjoy.

Having only been a consumer of cranberry sauce over the course of my years, I had never really made it until about a year ago when I thought it would make a good ice cream ingredient. This is a fairly simple recipe when it comes to ingredients. It does take some time to boil it down until it starts to almost gel. In fact it will gel when you refrigerate what you don’t initially use. You need a stick blender and a large pan. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs fresh cranberries
• 2 1/2 qt orange juice
• 1 small lime
• 2 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Instructions:

1. Place cranberries and orange juice in large pan.
2. Chop up lime peel, pith, and all and add it to mixture.
3. Cook at medium high heat until all the cranberries have popped and the lime pieces have softened.
4. With stick blender liquify contents of the pan until there are no large particles left.
5. Add sugar and stir in.
6. Now it’s basically just a process of removing the excess liquid.
7. As I’ve said in previous posts this is basically just a matter of conduction and convection.
8. Using the temperature of the burner on the stove, the amount of liquid left in the pan, and the time between stirrings as variables allow a small amount of conduction to occur which will remove the most liquid. Before you burn the carbohydrate sugar stir and reevaluate your variables.
9. When you have reached a point where you have very little liquid left remove from stove burner. One sign you will see that you are thickening is that your stirring utensil will leave trails behind it in the form of an empty portion at the bottom of the pan. Try to go slightly beyond this sign in your thickening.
10. Allow to cool. Serve or store in refrigerator until later. Enjoy!

People have been experimenting with the consistency of ice cream since there was ice cream. My recipes for ice cream started out with the most basics: cream, skim milk, sugar, and flavor. My recipes originally were stir the ingredients well and dump into the ice cream machine. I now pasteurize the mixture and then cool it in the refrigerator for a few hours. One thing I noticed when I made butter pecan based on the recipe on this site was that you blended a small amount of pecans into the ice cream basically adding protein to the casein and other proteins in the skim milk and cream. I liked the texture of the final product in this case and I’ve also made a peanut butter based ice cream which had added protein and a good consistency. You want something that will not impart an off flavor into your vanilla. For this I choose more casein in the form of dried skim milk. Due to the pasteurizing I’m doing you have opportunity to disolve this in your mixture. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 2/3 cup skim milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup dried skim milk

Instructions:

1. In medium saucepan combine all ingredients.
2. Heat slowly over low heat dissolving all ingredients until temperature reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Remove from heat and place in refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours.
4. Prepare ice cream in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions.
5. Serve immediately as soft serve or place in ice box for hard serve.
6. Enjoy!

In my cooking the one thing I am consumed by at the moment is emulsions and the science of them. Cream in ice cream is an example of a natural emulsion. Gravies and white sauce are also items I am interested in for my more savory cooking. These are basically rouxs. Ph and salt affects emulsions as well as heat. Both too cold and too hot can cause a deemulsification. You can lose your colloid type material, colloid coming from a Greek word meaning glue like. Indeed if you were to dry any emulsion you would end up with a glue of some sort. In order to have full freedom on the range you must remove the gluey hazards. I feel this works for what once was the open American west as well as a synonym of oven. Anyways an emulsion is basically a mixture where oil and water do mix. You typically need to add an emulsifier and control your other variables which factor prominently into cooking, like Ph, temperature, and salt content. Anyways I think there’s something here. I’m just a beginner, but on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup all purpose or cake flour
• 8 cups milk
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb green beans
• 1 lb grape tomatoes
• 1 lb sausage
• 1 1/2 cups rice
• 1 cup water

Instructions:

1. In large frying pan brown sausage.
2. Remove from pan and save for later.
3. Over medium heat melt butter in sausage drippings.
4. Add flour, mix thoroughly, and cook over medium heat for about five minutes making sure not to burn.
5. Add milk slowly. The roux will clump. You might have to use a whisk to remove the lumps.
6. After all the milk has been added and the lumps are gone, break the beans into bite sized pieces, add them to the frying pan, and bring mixture to a boil.
7. Add water and rice. Allow rice to absorb. This will take 20 to 30 minutes based on the type of rice.
8. You should have very little liquid left in the frying pan and a colloid material which you have built.
9. Allow to cool, cut grape tomatoes in half, and fold in grape tomatoes and sausage.
10. Salt and pepper to taste.
11. Serve and enjoy.

Root beer floats are a tasty summer treat. This recipe doesn’t disappoint. I apologize for the large period of time between posts. My cooking is now in a completely different place. I can still remember this recipe and deliver. You may even have been able to put it together given the ingredients I have given you. This ice cream has very good texture. It made me question what I could do differently with my ice cream recipes. Anyways on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Root beer caramel
• 1 2/3 cup skim milk
• 1 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Instructions:

1. Mix all three ingredients in medium saucepan.
2. Over low heat bring mixture to 165 degrees Fahrenheit or pasteurize the mixture.
3. Place pan in the refrigerator for about an hour.
4. Prepare ice cream according to manufacturer’s directions.
5. Serve soft immediately or place in ice box and serve hard later.
6. Enjoy.