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Endless Bananas

I think it’s safe to say that at some point or another, we’ve all been faced with spotty bananas that we knew we just weren’t going to get to before they turned that final corner into banana heaven (the compost pile). Not due to lack of ideas, but due to lack of time. Luckily, there’s a quick and easy way to extend the life of your ripe bananas.

First, peel the bananas and lay them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Put the sheet in the freezer for two or three hours, until the bananas are solid. This is called flash freezing. It will enable you to pull one banana at a time out of the freezer. If you just  put them all together in a bag they would freeze in one giant banana lump.

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Endless Ice Cream: Asparagus

While at the farmers market recently, I came across a big booth of super fresh local asparagus. I knew it was destined for ice cream.

Most of the ice creams I make are a custard (egg) base, but I thought it would be too heavy for such a light, crisp flavor. I figured this would be the right time to try out Jeni Britton Bauer’s method of ice cream making. You may already be familiar with Jeni: on top of running 8 ice cream shops in Ohio, she also published an amazing compendium of her ice creams, and, oh, also was a James Beard Award recipient this year. Her method involves 3 bowls: a slurry in one, the salt and cream cheese in another, an ice bath in the third. You then boil the milk, cream, sugar and syrup for 4 minutes. The slurry is whisked in and returned to a boil. The hot milk gets whisked into the cream cheese, then everything goes into a big Ziplock bag and gets plunged into an ice bath. Then comes churning, freezing, and eating. Sound like a science experiment to you? That’s kinda how it felt.

By time I had finished with this my kitchen looked like a tornado had ripped through it. The clean-up was pretty intense. And as for the taste? Well, it depends on whether or not you like asparagus. I had 16 people taste this ice cream and asked their opinions. Without fail, every person who liked asparagus loved this ice cream. The two people that did not like the ice cream didn’t like asparagus anyway. So if you are not a lover of asparagus, this is not the recipe to change your mind. If you do love asparagus, get ready for one of the creamiest, freshest, sweet and pleasantly crisp ice creams you will ever taste.

Asparagus Ice Cream

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in Desserts / Endless Ice Cream / Featured / Recipe / Veggie 0 comments
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Endless Ice Cream: Fig and Candied Walnut

I never ate a fig that wasn’t in Newton form until I was 28. Then, I picked up a pint for a dollar while grocery shopping one warm October evening. I gingerly bit into 0ne (it was oozing and I was scared), and proceeded to inhale the whole pint in about 30 seconds.  I love figs. I dream about them when autumn rolls around and I can anticipate their arrival at the supermarket. But in the meantime, I’ll settle for this ice cream. Dried Black Mission figs are simmered and pureed with a bit of hard liquor (which keeps it from freezing solid). Walnuts are candied with butter and brown sugar, then chopped and added to a creamy custard-based ice cream. The fig puree in swirled in at the end. A quart of this in the freezer should help tide me over till fig season.

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in Desserts / Endless Ice Cream / Featured / Recipe 4 comments
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Dorie Greenspan’s Olive Oil Ice Cream

Every two months I host a cookbook club meeting. A cookbook is chosen (usually at the prior meeting) and friends and family all choose a dish to make from it. Then we all get together to talk about the dish we chose, eat the hell out of all the food, and drink an ungodly amount of beer. While flipping through our next cookbook, Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table, trying to pick my dish from the hundreds of incredible recipes, this recipe for olive oil ice cream caught my eye. A basic custard base, but some of the heavy cream is swapped out for olive oil. One of Dorie’s suggestions is topping it off with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of Maldon salt flakes. The end result is a sweet and incredibly nuanced ice cream. My five year-old son declared it the best ice cream yet (he has rich five year-old tastes).

Olive Oil Ice Cream

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in Desserts / Endless Ice Cream / Recipe 5 comments
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Artsy Photo of the Day

Duck po-boy, topped with Louisiana hot sauce and horseradish sauce. Now that’s a sandwich. One of the many awesomely delicious foods I had in New Orleans, at Jazz Fest 2012.

in Photos / Sandwich 0 comments
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Endless Ice Cream: Toasted Brown Rice

I have had the joy of working in a coffee shop for almost 11 out of the last 12 years. One of the many, many highlights of this job is the sheer number of teas and coffees I have been privileged enough to taste along the way. A steadfast favorite tea is The Republic of Tea’s Tea of Inquiry. It’s a classic genmaicha, green tea with toasted rice. The depth and warmth the toasted rice lends to the tea is what made me fall so quickly in love with it. After going through several tins I decided to try my hand at toasted rice and mixing it with different types of tea. Oolong, black, white, pu-erh — all have been made better with a small handful of toasty brown rice.

The last time a brewed a cup, I wondered how toasted brown rice would fare in ice cream form. My first instinct was to steep the rice with tea leaves for an ice cream take on genmaicha, but I have a handful of other tea-themed ice creams already up my sleeve. So I decided to pair it with the sweet molasses flavor of brown sugar. The results were beyond my expectations. Dark, toasty, creamy and sweet, this ice cream has a subtle depth that keeps your spoon going back for more.

Toasted Brown Rice Ice Cream

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Artsy Photo of the Day

Freshly picked radish bouquet.

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