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by Emily

100 Ways to Use an Avocado

It’s no big secret that we like avocados here. Okay, we don’t like them, we’re obsessed with them. So you can imagine my shock and outrage when I realized we had never compiled a 100 Ways for avocado. I had to remedy this immediately. So here it is: 100 ways to cook one of the greatest gifts nature has bestowed upon the human race. There’s so much more to this majestic fruit than just guacamole (although we have some uniquely great guac recipes in this roundup, too). And just in time for Cinco De Mayo! You’re welcome.

Click on the photos for full recipes.

All 100 Ways — 1,500 recipes and counting! — found here.

by unsightly

Endless Ice Cream: Black Licorice

Editor’s Note: New contributor Rebecca McClain (unsightly) is here to prove that the indefatigable bakersroyale isn’t the only ES-er who can whip up a dessert (don’t worry — poptails ain’t goin’ anywhere!) For the rest of the spring and summer, unsightly, a vegetable gardener and baker who has eaten something new everyday for the last 4 years of her life, will be bringing us ES-style ice cream recipes: that means you can forget about chocolate and vanilla—because you’re getting olive oil, figs, and black licorice up in your ice cream.

Ages (or 12 years) ago, I spent a lot of time walking the streets of the UW-Madison campus with my boyfriend. State Street was loaded with every kind of eatery, from North African to Hungarian to Tibetan. One of our favorite stops was an ice cream parlor called The Chocolate Coyote. The lobby was loaded with stacks of free copies of The Onion. We’d grab a copy, head into the parlor, and if we were lucky they would have their incredible black licorice ice cream in the line-up.

We’d sit and read over The Onion and eat triple-scoop waffle cones of the stuff. Black licorice is a pretty polarizing flavor, and we both sit firmly in the ‘love-it’ side. This ice cream was unlike anything I had ever had. It was creamy white with little pieces of hard licorice that left ribbons of flavor. It was my favorite. A couple of years later a Coldstone Creamery opened up just two doors away from the Chocolate Coyote and very quickly and very efficiently put it out of business. After a period of mourning, I started my hunt for that ice cream. I stopped at every small ice cream parlor I came across. I asked the owners if they had ever heard of it. Everyone I talked to either looked disgusted or puzzled. I researched online and the only thing I could find was this weird solid black ice cream that looked nothing like what I wanted.

Last summer we drove to an ice cream shop over an hour away to taste the solid black ice cream and came away disappointed. Finally I broke down and bought an ice cream maker. Sometimes you have to take shit into your own hands. Black licorice was, of course, the first thing I made in it. I found licorice flavor from LorAnn Oils and hard candies at a local candy store. I was set.

The verdict? I am happy at last. I can rest easy knowing that my favorite ice cream is always in my reach. And the best part is I am now ice cream crazy. I think about ice cream at least a few hours each day. I have a feeling this will be a delicious summer.

Black Licorice Ice Cream

in Desserts / Endless Ice Cream / Featured / Recipe 4 comments

by Twin Tastes

An Olive Even Olive-Haters Will Love

Personally, we love all kinds of marinated olives, from Spanish to Greek to Italian. While we always seek out olives on a tapas menu and could eat a whole bowl in one sitting, many people are turned off by the pungent taste and slippery texture. So to transform these briny orbs into something even olive-haters could enjoy, we decided to fry them and serve them with a creamy aioli.

The crispy, salty marbles maintain everything that is right about an olive, and add a little fried bready goodness to boot. These will disappear quickly, so make sure to plan ahead if serving for a crowd…

Fried Green Olives

in Featured / Recipe / Veggie 3 comments

by hungry monster

Smackaroons: Coconut Crème Kiss Filled Macaroons

Hi! It’s Renee again from Attack of the Hungry Monster. Also, it’s macaroon time. But these macaroons have a secret. While not obvious to the untrained eye (my eye is trained in chocolate, in case you are wondering), it is most definitely a coconut crème Hershey’s kiss!

I decided to call these smackaroons because they are kisses (*smack*) stuffed inside coconut macaroon cookies. I really need to trademark that.

Here’s how they came about: I am a bargain shopper through and through. No discounted item goes unnoticed by me. I hit that Target clearance weekly like I’m storing a bunker…full of discount clothing and old Easter candy.

So, after Easter when I came across these bad boys, I knew where they’d end up.

in Desserts / Featured / Recipe 4 comments

by BS

Pimento Cheese, Sriracha, Bacon. Enough Said.

The folks at Noble Pig in Austin, Texas—home to one of Endless Simmer’s Best New Sandwiches of 2012—wrote in to let us know they’ve upped the ante for the 2013 race by creating a cheese sandwich that makes even our wildest grilled cheeses look downright tired.

Yep, it’s a pimento cheese sandwich, with, you guessed it…bacon. And they were kind enough to share the recipe for the sriracha-spiked pimento cheese that makes this thing golden.

Noble Pig’s Pimento Cheese

in Bacon / Cheese / Endless Bacon / Featured / Pig / Recipe / Restaurants / Sandwich 1 comments

by snebbu

100 Ways to Use Beer in Food and Drinks

Editor’s Note: New contributor snebbu joins ES to bring us a very epic, very ES series.

I caught the brew bug. Yes, I’m addicted to brewing beer. With this comes a snooty attitude towards “big beer” and using my “well-earned money” to purchase craft beer. So after a few brews, my fridge is rapidly filling up with bottles of my homebrew, along with craft beer and of course, there’s always a case of Pennsylvania’s pride — Yuengling. The problem is, the other day I opened the fridge door and realized my collection of beer was overfilling its allotted space, and without some good use, would spoil in time. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was drinking it all in one grand night of sitting on my couch and watching sports until reaching a drunken stupor. Then I figured I could use this in food, while drinking beer!

My mind began to wander — what foods could I put beer in? Is it limited to food, or can I mix it with some tasty drinks? In my opinion, beer can make any situation better, provided you choose the right make and variety. I couldn’t get this wonderful idea of complementing dishes and drinks with beer out of my mind. Fortunately, I’m taking a graduate level class on diversity and had the resources (three hours worth of hearing “you’re blind to your blindness”) to put together a list. This list begins my journey to attempt to make each and every one of the following 100 food and drink items better…with beer.

Check out the list, and let us know what other items you’d like to see cooked with beer. Then bookmark this page and return to see the results of our attempts to cook all 100 items on this list…with beer! Of course, feel free to play along yourself, and report back with your results.

The Ground Rules:

*I noted my disgust for big beer — the only rule I am enforcing is to use either homebrew or a favorite craft brew. Drink Craft Beer.

**It is assumed that while cooking/concocting these creations, you will be drinking beer.

The List – 100 Ways to Use Beer in Food and Drinks:

in 100 Ways / Drinks / Featured / Lists 10 comments

by BS

Cocktails Gone Spherical

Now that “handcrafted” cocktails have become about as commonplace as craft beer, bartenders and bloggers are looking for new ways to impress. You might think molecular mixology is gimmicky, but you gotta admit that these 8 cocktail spheres look pretty amazing.

1. Old Fashioned In the Rocks

At Grant Achatz’ Aviary in Chicago the old fashioned comes neat — very neat. Drinkers get to smash the sphere open and watch the drink explode out.

2. Spherical Pickleback

Just about every bar in Brooklyn now serves a pickleback (a shot of whiskey backed by a shot of pickle juice). Only Do or Dine—home of the foie gras donut—serves a molecular pickleback, whereby the back — the spherical ball of pickle juice — explodes inside your mouth.

in Drinks / Endless Cocktails / Featured / Lists / Restaurants / Trends 3 comments