Peanut Butter Fudge Ripple Ice Cream

Another winning David Lebovitz ice cream recipe!  Rich, creamy peanut butter ice cream with fudge ripple swirled through... plus I tossed in some roughly chopped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to put it over the top. 

Both the ice cream and fudge ripple recipes are from The Perfect Scoop, my go-to ice cream bible, but you can find the peanut butter ice cream recipe online here and the fudge ripple recipe here.  I love that the ice cream doesn't require eggs, making it much faster and less labor intensive than other custard-based ice creams. 

Kahlua Chocolate Banana Milkshake

I've been in a bit of a food rut recently... cooking the same old things repeatedly.  I think it's the lack of really distinct seasons here in Jakarta (particularly this year, now that rainy season is encroaching on what should be dry season!) and the new and exciting produce associated with that season change.  I am jealous of the seasonal farm stand strawberries and asparagus that I see on all of my cooking blogs...

However, Tim and I did discover a new treat this week:  another, more "adult" iteration of my beloved banana shake: the Kahlua chocolate version!  Dudes, this is my new favorite dessert/after dinner drink.

Please excuse this blurry photo; I couldn't be bothered.  I was, however, bothered by the fact that Blogger refused to upload it upright. Apa boleh buat?  (Indonesian phrase for "What can I/we do?," usually accompanied by a shrug and a sigh)

It barely qualifies as a recipe; it's really just a question of adding ingredients to taste, but the rough ratios are:  

1 cup of milk + 1 frozen overripe banana + a tablespoon/good squirt of chocolate syrup + a shot of Kahlua = heaven  

(and if you wanted to go more hardcore with the booze, I think a bit of rum or vodka wouldn't hurt!)

Pumpkin Bacon Mac & Cheese

More bacon, I know.  But I made half recipes of this awesome pumpkin bacon mac and cheese as well as the tasty pea and bacon risotto... two half recipes = one package of bacon.

Anywho, this dish turned out pretty great (despite the terrible photos, sorry).  I combined two recipes I found online to make my final product.  I basically followed the sauce instructions from this recipe (minus the honey and all-spice), combined with the onion, bacon and buttered breadcrumb topping from this recipe.  Plus my own addition: some minced garlic with the onion.  

Healthier than your average mac and cheese, but still cheesy enough to satisfy your craving.  

Bulgur Maple Breakfast Cereal

I recently came into what I think is bulgur wheat from some friends who moved on from Jakarta to greener pastures (Hi Brooke and Rob! Miss you!)... it came in an unmarked (but for a stylized drawing of what looks like a wheat stalk) bag, but looked fairly bulgur-y, if that's a thing.  

I've used bulgur a little bit in the past... tabbouleh, Moroccan spiced stuffed squash, bulgur and ricotta pancakes... but was intrigued by this idea I saw in last week's NY Times for a maple bulgur breakfast porridge.  

I always think the concept of oatmeal is nice: a hearty, warm bowl of breakfast goodness.  But in reality I find oatmeal to be kinda gluey and gross.  The texture of this bulgur wheat porridge is better somehow... it's got a creaminess, but the little bits of wheat retain some appealing bite and pop.  Add a hint of smokey sweet maple flavor?  Pretty awesome.

I followed the super simple NY Times directions to a T (soaking the bulgur overnight in hot water then cooking it briefly in milk in the morning), but switched up the accoutrements, using quartered strawberries and roughly chopped almonds in place of the blueberries and pecans.  Yum.  As an experiment, I also tried Martha Stewart's cook it all at once methodology, but I found the overnight method creamier and more appealing.

Jeni's Salted Caramel Ice Cream: Meh

Hmm... while this ice cream looks kinda awesome, it was unfortunately, meh.  The recipe receives the thumbs up from neither Tim nor I.

I have successfully made salted butter caramel ice cream before and loved the recipe (from my fav, David Lebovitz), and yet I found myself tempted to try this recipe for salted caramel ice cream that I stumbled upon on The Bitten Word.  The methodology differs from the Lebovitz way in that it does not acquire its thickness from an eggy custard, but from an intriguing combination of cream cheese, corn starch and corn syrup.  Plus the internet is full of raves about Jeni's ice cream, a popular ice cream shop in Ohio and Tennessee.

It wasn't very hard to pull together, but we just plain did not like the results.  Too bitter (maybe I prefer the larger amount of sugar called for in the Lebovitz recipe?), too weirdly cheesecakey from the cream cheese (it's hard to believe that "cheesecakey" could be a bad thing, but here it is), strangely sour (maybe from boiling the milk?).  Sad...

We tried to jazz it up with some caramel sauce (Simply Recipes' version), but to no avail.  Oh well... live, learn, stick to the tried-and-true basics when it comes to ice cream.

New York Bagel Casserole

 Tim and I got up early to watch the Super Bowl again this year.  And while I love traditional Super Bowl snacks, cheesy dips, spicy chilis and other decadent treats, those are not as appealing at 6:30 Monday morning, which is when the Super Bowl airs live in Jakarta. 

 We opted for a hearty breakfast casserole instead, care of my new Smitten Kitchen cookbook: big, seed-coated bagel chunks dotted with cream cheese, eggs, onion and tomatoes, baked to perfection... mmm.

My only complaint is that my casserole seemed a little bit under-seasoned, although I think that is a result of the Jakarta bagels (which are fine and I am thankful we have bagels at all, but they pale in comparison to the NY bagels we ate when back in the States both in texture and in toppings)...  I should have added more salt and possibly some garlic to compensate. 

Deb from Smitten Kitchen suggests pairing the casserole with capers, salmon and/or bacon.  I am thinking that next time maybe I might mix some combination of those things into the casserole itself, which might help my seasoning problem.  

By the way, I made a half recipe of the casserole in an 8" x 8" pan and it worked out just fine!

Lemon Basil Ice Cream

While looking for mint, basil and cilantro at our local grocery store (to use in my grilled veggie salad), Tim and I unknowingly stumbled upon a new (to us) herb: lemon basil. 

 

I saw a bundle of it it tucked in the greens section, which is a tangle of some familiar and some unknown greens marked haphazardly in English, Bahasa Indonesia and Japanese.  It looked basil-esque, so I picked it up and gave it a sniff, only to inhale an awesomely fragrant lemony scent.  Once the produce guy (who is my new BFF, as I ask him the name of a new veggie or herb every time I shop there and he obligingly informs me of the name in at least 4 different languages) rang it up, I saw that it was called "daun kemangi."  Apparently it's used pretty regularly in Indonesian cooking and, since it's local, it's dirt cheap: a massive bundle for 2590 rupiah, which is the equivalent of 27 U.S. cents.

Anywho, I dropped some of it in the salad,  and then had a ton left over.  David Lebovitz and "The Perfect Scoop" to the rescue, yet again.  He had a recipe for basil ice cream spiked with lemon zest, so I followed his recipe, substituting lemon basil for the traditional Genovese basil.  Awesome stuff- creamy, lemony (somewhat lemongrassy), herby, sweet.  A good accompaniment to spicy Asian dishes, I'd say.  Get thee to thy green grocer or farmer's market and find some lemon basil!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Shake

Here's a new riff on the delicious banana shake recipe I posted a few months ago: add a spoonful of peanut butter and a squirt of chocolate syrup to make it a whole different drink.  I think the peanut butter helps emulsify the shake- it makes it extra creamy.  Plus, peanut butter and chocolate are a proven winning combo.

Here's what I did:

In a blender or with a stick blender, mix 1 frozen banana with approximately 1 cup of milk, 1 tablespoon of creamy peanut butter and 1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup.  

Enjoy.

Banana Shake

While in Ubud, Bali, Meghan, Liz and I got a little overheated as we walked around and decided to make a stop at the first restaurant we saw, Clear Cafe.  It looked promising based the large number of shoes left outside the front door... it was a good choice.  

A breezy, hippy haven of tasty organic and raw foods and beverages, we were quite happy to stumble upon it...  Meghan was particularly excited about the banana shake she ordered, which was so good that I ordered a second one and promised to try to recreate it at home.  

Below is my version of the creamy, slightly icy banana-licious drink.  I think I nailed it.

Here's how I did it:  

1. Freeze an oldish banana overnight (peel it first and stick it in a baggie!  I made the mistake of not peeling it and almost froze and/or cut my fingers off trying to cut the frozen peel off)

2. Throw it in your blender (or use your stick blender, as I did)

3. Add  3/4 to 1 cup of cold milk, a splash of vanilla extract (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 tsp?) and some honey (1 tsp? I used palm sugar syrup because I didn't have honey)

4. Blend until smooth

5. Drink

Caramel Pudding

I was craving homemade dessert pretty hard core this week.  I think I've read/looked at one too many Christmas cookie articles/slideshows. Seeing as Tim and I have not yet procured an oven for our Jakarta apartment, homemade baked goods were out of the question... I needed a stove-top treat.  After thinking about what ingredients I had around the house and doing some googling, I settled on pudding.  Low and behold, I was already in possession of all the necessary components for the drool-inducing caramel pudding I saw on Smitten Kitchen and then again on Joy the Baker.  

Lame photo, I know.  But this pudding is delicious.

Why I decided to tackle a caramel recipe when I only have bare bones kitchen equipment is beyond me.  But it ended up working out nonetheless, whisk or no whisk.  Fork to the rescue!  I was slightly concerned (read: panicked) when the caramel seized up after adding the milk, turning into a rock hard ball of sugar candy, but after some heating and coaxing it relaxed back into the milk mixture.

My only regret is that I wish I had let the sugar caramelize a little bit more before adding in the milk.  Deb called for cooking the sugar until a "deep amber" color was achieved.  I'd say mine was more like a "pale gold" when I totally chickened out and took it off the heat, making my final pudding product much lighter in color and flavor than Deb or Joy's.  But still totally delicious! 

Belated St. Patrick's Day Treat: Irish Soda Bread

Inspired by this Endless Simmer post on "authentic" Irish soda bread and with memories of my grandmother's version in my head, I baked up a loaf for St. Patrick's Day. I took a middle route, a hybrid approach somewhere between the authentic version and the version I ate as a kid.

I basically followed the directions from Endless Simmer, with a few modifications:

1) I used about 1.5 cups of cake flour, with the addition of approximately 1 cup of all-purpose unbleached flour because I a) ran out of cake flour and b) found the dough to be super sticky, wet and unmanageable without additional flour

2) I threw the loaf directly onto a pre-heated baking stone rather than use the cast iron pot

3) Finally, in deference to my grandmother's recipe (which I'm sure was only remotely related to the recipe above- yogurt not being a resident in her fridge), I threw in about third of a cup of raisins.

It came out pretty delicious! More moist than I remember, but still with that crusty, craggy top. Mmmm. And, yes, I drank some stout whilst mixing up the ingredients for this tasty treat.

Baked Tortellini with Bacon

So last year Meg got Tony a subscription to Everyday Food (a Martha Stewart magazine.) We've been using a bunch of the recipes since moving in together, but this baked tortellini with bacon seemed exceptionally good and easy!

Ina's Cauliflower Gratin

Ina, Ina, Ina. Your name may rhyme with a certain body part that shall not be named on this blog, but it doesn't make your recipes any less tasty.

Your cauliflower gratin was a delicious treat. Creamy, cheesy, crispy on top.

Maybe next time I would reduce the amount of milk you recommend in the recipe, to limit the soupiness. Perhaps 1 1/2 cups rather than 2. Also, I used panko bread crumbs, not fresh ones. Because they're crunchy. Don't hate me, Ina.