Banana Pudding & Coconut Cream Ice Cream

It has been extremely hot here in Los Angeles lately. 100+ degrees hot. We are one of the few fortunate to have an air conditioning; however, this kind of heat requires more than just cool artificial air. It requires ice cream. It is National Ice Cream Month, after all.

One of my most favorite flavors to make (and to eat) is Coconut Cream. It's a nostalgic flavor for me, but it also tastes so, so, so good. When I make ice cream, it's usually my go-to flavor. This time, I also wanted to make something a little different. Something I have never made before, yet something that would go well with coconut. In comes Banana Pudding.

Nilla wafers, layered with banana slices and vanilla pudding... it's so tasty on it's own, but as an ice cream flavor? Why not? I started off the ice cream process the same way I always do. Vanilla beans, milk, and cream.

I slice the vanilla pods open, scoop out the vanilla beans, and the let the beans and the pods soak in the milk, as they begin to simmer.

It gets a little tricky after this. Sugar and eggs are mixed, then blended with the hot cream, in a very careful way. If this is done too quickly, you will end up with sweet, vanilla scrambled eggs - so be careful. I was so careful that I neglected to photograph this process. Either way, I placed my egg/cream custard mixture through a sieve, just to remove any scrambled egg bits that may have formed. I then let my mixture chill overnight, before placing it in the ice cream maker.
Since I had 2 different flavors, this was a 2-day process. Banana pudding was easy... just churn and add little scoops of the pudding right at the last few minutes of churning. For the coconut cream, I had prepared and chilled a mixture of coconut extract, heavy cream, and sweetened condensed milk ahead of time, mixed that with my vanilla bean base, and added coconut flakes at the last few minutes of churning.

It's hard to tell the 2 flavors apart, but we have banana pudding on top and coconut on the bottom. Both extremely rich and creamy. While coconut is usually my favorite, I must admit the banana pudding flavor blew me away. I bet some hot fudge topping would make it perfect! It might become my new go-to flavor.
Anyone else making ice cream this summer?

Four Cheese & Mushroom Pizza

It's real easy to get fat where we live. Pizza is my most favorite food (well, tied with ice cream) and our town has some of the best pizza around. Pizza so good, there really is no reason for me to attempt making it myself, but you know me... I just have to try.

So, I used Alton Brown's recipe for pizza dough. I couldn't find instant yeast, so I went with rapid release yeast. It turned out okay, but I think next time I'll just search a little harder for the instant stuff. While flattening, I realized I probably could have kneaded my dough a little longer. It was stretchy in most parts, but it had a few tears I had to repair. Nothing too tragic.

I made my own pizza sauce by blending roasted tomatoes, one clove of garlic, fresh oregano, and dried thyme, all in the food processor. I added a little sauce to the pizza, then stored the rest for other plans. I then added some fresh basil, right on top of the sauce. I learned that hiding the basil under the cheese keeps the basil from burning. It's also a nice aromatic surprise when you take a bite.

On top of the basil, I added sliced mushrooms and cheese. The cheese was the real star of this pizza. I added fresh mozzerella, parmesan, fontinella, and spoonfuls of ricotta.

I would normally use a pizza stone; however, I just got this new pizza pan and I was curious. I baked it at 500 for only a few minutes. I was surprised at how quickly it baked!

I also made a nice garden salad on the side.

It had butter lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, and poppy seed dressing.

It was good, but it wasn't quite as good as my local favorites. However, there's something a little more special about home cooking, right?

***It's been a few months now, since I've last seen the memory card that contains all of the wedding crafts Brian and I did. I haven't lost hope yet, but please know that I'm still looking for it, because I have so much to share! In the meantime, I've been working on another little wedding craft, for our friends Chris and Susana, who will be getting married in Seattle at the end of this month! Look out for that craft in August...

Zucchini Four Ways

I love working in libraries. Besides my duties of helping people, solving book-related mysteries, organizing, and my shameless love of librarian fashion - library people love food. I've been very fortunate to work in libraries where people love bringing in snacks, freshly baked goodies, and fresh produce grown in their own back yards! Did I just convert some of you to librarians? Last week, I was lucky enough to be here when my coworker, Steve, brought in some Zucchinis from his garden. Gorgeous zucchinis that I cut into so quickly, that this is the only picture I have of them in their natural state:

I took that zucchini home with a mission, but I had no idea on the culinary adventure I was about to embark. My first dish was the obvious choice, zucchini bread (see recipe here). I love me some zucchini bread. The other half of the zucchini pictured above is here, pictured below.

There's more to zucchini bread than just zucchini! There's a fluffy, yummy batter that must be made.

And when you add the shredded Zucchini to the creamy, sweet, batter, you get a really crowded bowl.

After it's in the oven for a while, you get something so delicious, it's hard to share.

But, being the public servant of a librarian that I am, I convinced Mr. B to let me take half of the loaf to work.

My favorite thing to make with zucchini bread are sandwiches. The bread itself is so moist and flavorful, that all I had to provide was a slice of cheese and some turkey - and it was perfect. Especially toasted! Now, what to do with all of that leftover zucchini? Well, I still had lots of fancy cheeses from last week's fancy pasta, so why not make another fancy baked pasta, with zucchini, right? And that's what I did.

Is anyone else as obsessed with micro graters as I am?

I have been using my daily! I sauteed my zucchinis with some basil, garlic, pepper, and butter.

I then added some cream, ricotta, my grated parmesan and fontinella.

It was fabulous.

I made this same dish 2 days later, that's how fabulous - and easy! Can you believe I still had zucchini left over after this, still? What's even more amazing is that after a few days, I still had leftover zucchini bread! It was at that moment, I remembered a recipe that Mr. B's cousin, Josh, had been raving about for shirred eggs. I wondered. Then I went to it.

I buttered my ramekin, nice and plenty. Remember this guy?

Yep. That's the zucchini bread! Josh's original recipe did not call for any bread (rather, meats like prosciutto, bacon, etc..), but I thought why not? Though, I still didn't skimp on his orders, I added some cut up sausage.

Then the real star of the recipe, eggs.

Brian's egg yolks broke, but he didn't seem to mind. Me? I like my egg yolks nice and runny. I then transferred the ramekins to a baking dish and baked them for approximately 10 minutes at 350.

I added a splash or two of cream, some salt and pepper, and a basil leaf. This is where Josh usually adds tomatoes or peppers - which we had none of. But we did have cheese. Glorious cheese. Grated using my favorite micro grater, of course! Then, back in the oven until golden.

Don't these look fancy?

I felt really fancy, just eating one!

I especially love the way the basil leaf is peeking at you, from under all of the cheeses.

I guess I could have thrown in a few zucchini slivers too! Then again, what would I have left to grill then?

Grilled zucchini with a little olive oil, garlic salt, and paprika. A delicious compliment to our meal of yellow rice and crispy BBQ chicken...

See! A culinary adventure! One that all started withe a zucchini! Needless to say, no leftovers this time. Instead, four very fun dishes and two very full bellies.

Conchiglie al Forno with Mushrooms and Radicchio (or Fancy Baked Pasta)

The other night, Brian was ohhhhing and ahhhhing at something Ina Garten was cooking up, on tv. I was intrigued. So, I made the dish. Not really a diet friendly dish, but it was tasty alright. The dish is called Conchiglie al Forno with Mushrooms and Radicchio and the recipe can be found here. It starts off with lots of cheeses. I'm not a gorgonzola fan, so I only added a few crumbles, and I just eyeballed the Parmesan and Fontina.

I cut the radicchio, then added my ricotta. The ricotta was great, because it really glued everything together.

On the side, I had some delicious Shitake Mushroom caps, sliced.

Did I mention the butter? Butter and light heat make the mushrooms real good.

I added the rest of my ingredients to the radicchio bowl, including sage, salt, and heavy cream (though, I didn't use as much cream as the recipe called for), then added my Shitake Mushrooms, and the lovely butter sauce that they produced (not sure if that was part of the recipe or not, but that butter was amazing).

Once my final ingredient of partially cooked pasta shells was ready, I added those to the mix too.

Then stirred and stirred.

The pasta should be baked at 500 degrees, in a shallow baking dish. I accidentally made enough for two dishes!

I thought it was a lot, but Brian didn't seem to mind.

After about 15 minutes in the oven, until the top noodles are nice and golden, take the dish out and let it rest for a few minutes. I added a few dabs of butter on top of my noodles, to give them that extra golden brown color.

It was delicious. The sage and radicchio gave it a unique bitterness that was a nice contrast to the pasta we usually eat.

The recipe calls this an appetizer dish, although I served it as our main course. I now see why it's an appetizer - it's ridiculously rich and creamy. Too heavy for a main course, but that didn't stop us from eating it. Or, from me eating it again for lunch today.

Pies, Pies, Pies, Yeah.

Still no luck finding my memory card! It's been 3 weeks since I've been desperately searching for it and nothing.... I'm sure I'll find it soon, but on to pies in the meantime. On Saturday morning, I got the call asking for an apple pie or two Father's Day on Sunday. I was given the option to buy pies... but for me, that is never an option. So, Saturday morning, I began my day's work.

I began work on the crusts, while I sent Brian to the store on an apple mission. I found myself with some extra time and decided to make an extra little open faced pie for my niece's little recital after party. I got a little creative with this crust and decided to throw in some culinary lavender, in addition to the vanilla that I always add to my pie crust dough.

It gave the crust a nice spotty lavender look.

A few days earlier, my mom gave me a carton of blackberries, which Brian and I still hadn't got our hands into. So, I threw those in, along with some of the apples Brian had brought back from the store.

Since I went with a lavender crust, I decided to be very minimal with my fruit filling. I kept it simple by only adding sugar and fresh lemon juice (using lemons fresh off of my dad's lemon tree). And, of course, more butter.

The result was a cute little pie.

And since there wasn't much left of it, post party, I like to think it was pretty tasty too. After the party, I came home to prep the other two pies for Sunday's Father's day celebration at Brian's family's house. Since I had prepared my crusts early on, all I had to do was prepare my apple filling, assemble the pies, then freeze them until the morning.

The apple mix included a mix of Jazz, Fuji, and Granny Smith apples. I normally use a lot more apples, but Brian reported back that there were slim pickings in the apple isle. I also added cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, lemon juice, sugar, and flour. And, of course, butter.

I topped it off and made a few slits for the heat to escape, then pressed the edges down with a fork. I added an egg wash made of one egg yolk and some heavy whipping cream, then sprinkled the top with sanding sugar. When it was all done, I let it chill in the freezer overnight (which was only for a few hours, since I was done around midnight and woke up at 6am to start baking). It still looked nice and pretty in the morning.

I couldn't find my other pie dish, so I made pie #2 in a tart dish. Instead of making a decorative edge using the fork, I used my rolling pin to round the edges off, to go with the dish's natural shape. I think that worked out pretty nice and clean.

I baked them both for 20 minutes on 400, then reduced the heat to 350 and baked for another 40-50 minutes, turning the pie once during that time. Baking them at 400 gives them that nice golden brown color.

I love that color.

But, my favorite is the flakiness of the top crust. I love the little dough bubbles formed with the sugar.

All that, and I still had extra dough left! And apples too! So, what else to do, but make another mini pie?

It was mini and cute.

And we ate it quickly.

We also ate it with vanilla ice cream (not pictured).