Parka, Minneapolis

Posted on February 16, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

I’m more than willing to admit that Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. As an adult, it’s gotten to be less about exchanging cards and conversation hearts and more about where we’re going for dinner. This year we tried a new place in Minneapolis, Parka. I’d heard a bit about it as a coffee shop/home store but not much on what their sit down dinner was like. Still I was very curious. I tried calling to make reservations thinking, it’s Valentine’s Day, it’ll be dicey, only to find out they don’t take them. So the Hubs and I decided to chance it and booked it over there as quick as we could after work hoping to beat a rush. Not a problem, there was no wait and we were seated right away. I think it was due to the fact that they’re better known for their coffee right now. However, once word starts to spread about their food, I think things will start changing.

First things first, we ordered a couple of beers, both from Indeed Brewing Company here in Minneapolis. I had their Stir Crazy (a dark, winter seasonal, right) and the Hubs ordered the Day Tripper (Pale Ale, nice and hoppy, left), both were really good. I’m going to keep an eye out for them at the liquor store. Bonus points for the cute glasses, yup, I’m a sucker.

We ordered a couple of apps before the meal; roasted brussels sprouts and the ham and pickle tots. The brussels were alright; roasted with bacon, candied walnuts and smoked quail eggs. I’m not a huge fan of hardboiled eggs so I picked around those and The Hubs thought they were a little, over done. Not sure if I’d order them again. I would however, order the Ham and Pickle Tots again, over and over, and not share. They were served with an onion foam, dill pickle gel and a smear of truffle on the plate. The inside of these jumbo tots was full of cheesy, ham and pickle goodness. Perfect comfort food, highly recommend!

For entrees, The Hubs got the meatloaf sandwich and I ordered the pot roast. The meatloaf sandwich came with a side of fries sprinkled with duck fat (yum) and the sandwich looked like a cheeseburger made with a slab of meatloaf with a fluffy bun. I had a split second of order envy but The Hubs shared a couple fries with me so it worked out. When asked for his opinion on the sandwich, The Hubs said “Good”. He cleaned his plate with no problem though, if that’s any indication.

My pot roast came with carrots, both roasted whole and sliced, and potato puree. It also had candied horseradish listed out on the menu, which I was a little nervous about. I’m not a big fan of lots of horseradish and I was expecting it to be in larger pieces mixed in with the veggies. Instead it came in a gel form that was dotted around the plate. I was pleasantly surprised. It had just enough of the horseradish kick for me and was easy for me to control how much I wanted per bite. The pot roast itself was tender and juicy. This dish as a whole reminded me of something you would find in your Mom or Grandma’s kitchen, but better. Sorry Mom.

At this point, we had both cleaned our plates and were talking about how full we were, but I had seen the dessert menu online earlier that day and didn’t want to leave without trying the apple cobbler. It came with cheddar ice cream….what? It was amazing! Not only didn’t come with a scoop of white cheddar ice cream. It also came with a piece of apple fruit leather, mini apple dumplings, apple butter and a crispy cheddar wafer. It was apple, cinnamon overload served in a warm crock and I loved it! It pained me that I wasn’t able to eat more than half of it before I felt like I was going to explode. I brought what I couldn’t eat home and plan on finishing that up once I’m done with this post.

The Hubs ordered the Cookies and Bars for his dessert. It came with a flight of local milks but I couldn’t tell you what they are because both of our jaws dropped when we saw the plate. The menu says ‘share if you want’ and they’re being nice, its a dessert for two, no question about it. The Hubs had about a bite of each cookie and bar before we asked them to pack that up too. He liked the brownie and chocolate chip cookies the best of the group but there wasn’t anything in the mix that he didn’t like. We’re almost done with those leftovers too…

If you’re in the area you should definitely make the trip over to Parka to try the dinner menu. I’m going back for the tots for sure and maybe another stab at finishing a dessert. Or maybe I’ll try the Beer Can Chicken or Spare Ribs….hmmm

mmmMinneapolis Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Hi All! I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving weekend!

I hosted my first Thanksgiving meal this year and took care of the majority of the meal. Our Moms helped us out with a couple of salads and appetizers but I was pretty insistent about trying to do it all myself (I’ve got a bit of a stubborn streak I suppose). I did the usual turkey and mashed potatoes but updated some of the other side dishes, courtesy of Bon Appetite’s Thanksgiving inspiration slide show. Seriously, look through the pictures on the site and try to not get hungry.

Check out that Turkey! The bird was ordered through Clancey’s where we usually get our meat for the week. It was about 14 pounds, free range from a local farm. It was a great bird but I was thrown off a bit by the giblets and such that were left in the bird. I remember growing up with the organs and all that wrapped neatly in a plastic bag inside the turkey so you didn’t have to look at it if you didn’t want to. Long story short, we used a flashlight and shook the bird a few times over the sink to make sure we got everything out. I’m sure it was pretty funny to see us shaking this huge turkey over a sink:)

We brined the bird for about 6 hours before cooking. We used one of Hub’s brewing pots to fit the bird, you use about a cup of salt per gallon of water. You need enough water to cover the bird. To cook the bird, I followed the advice of a friend at work that used to work in a professional kitchen. Low heat, overnight, wake up to a finished turkey. You add in some veggies and butter to the cavity of the turkey to help with the flavor and the juices. I’ll have to OK it with her before I hand over the full details, but I can tell you it made for a juicy turkey that was perfectly done!

And now for the sides!
First up, Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes, we’ve made similar versions of this in the past.

Maple-Braised Butternut Squash with Fresh Thyme

Spiced Glazed Carrots with Sherry and Citrus

Slow Roasted Green Beans with Sage

We also had Creamy Corn following a family recipe but somehow I missed getting a close up of it

Now, if that wasn’t enough for you, dessert! We made a chocolate and apple pie from scratch. I didn’t get a photo taken of the chocolate before it was dug into, but I’ve got one of the apple for you. I got the recipe here. It was the first time I had a successful pie crust on the first go. I was pretty pumped. I made the pie the weekend before and froze it for the week raw. Then that day I took it out and let it bake while we were eating the rest of the meal.

It was a great day and it was a fun experience to do the hosting this year. By the end of the day we were all stuffed, as we should be. I’m pretty sure my face looked like this kid’s.

Hope you have a good week and good leftovers!

Grandpa and Sweet Corn Ice Cream

Posted on August 6, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Hi All. So as you may have noticed I’ve been MIA for awhile again. Unfortunately my quick trip home for a weekend high school reunion turned into an extended stay. My Grandpa passed away last week and I was home to be with family until about halfway through the week last week. I spent many weekends and afternoons after school at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm house. Without a doubt that’s where I (along with other family members) got a taste of real gardening. They had not only one but two large vegetable gardens, the smaller of the two wouldn’t even fit in my backyard. On top of that, they had a few berry bushes scattered throughout the back yard and always had a sweet corn patch in the field to make sure we had more than enough corn to freeze and last us through the winter. I’m talking a 10 seater dining room table stacked with pots and pans of corn cut from the ears and ready to store. Because of that, I’m sure Grandpa would have gobbled up what I made this weekend.

For my birthday, long time friend bought me the cookbook,The Sunset Edible Garden Cookbook: Fresh, Healthy Cooking from the Garden. I don’t think I even had it all the way out of the bag and tissue paper before she said, “They have a recipe in there for Sweet Corn Ice Cream! you have to make that!” So, seeing as I had a grocery sack full of fresh from the field corn on the cob from Iowa, I went for it.

We tripled the recipe to make use of more of the corn we had. The original recipe called for just 2 ears and with the various sizes I had, I ended up using 7. After the corn had been cut from the ears, I popped it in the food processor until it was really smooth.

I combined the milk, cream, and corn per their instructions and let it get to a simmer on the stove.

While that was warming up I separated 12 egg yolks and whipped that up with sugar. When the cream mixture was simmering, I added in the egg mixture after tempering it first so we didn’t end up with scrambled eggs.

After that had time to thicken on the stove , I poured it into a large bowl and covered with cling wrap. For anyone new to making ice cream don’t wait for it to reach a real thick consistency, it really just needs to be thick enough you could run your finger down the middle of a spoon and the cream doesn’t run back together.

I let the mix chill in the fridge overnight to make sure it was chilled all the way through. The next morning I took the cling wrap off the top and stirred in some vanilla extract.

From there it got ladled into our ice cream maker.

I packed the surround of the bucket with layers of ice and rock salt and turned it on. I checked the ice every 15 minutes or so to make sure the ice cream tin was covered. We used to have a smaller machine that didn’t have as much space for ice around the outside. I think that makes a big difference in how long it takes for the ice cream finish up.

After about an hour this is what my ice cream looked like. Sort of like soft serve. From there it went into the freezer to ripen for the rest of the day.

We didn’t try it until really late Saturday night but, OH MAN! So good! It was like taking the best creamy corn you’ve ever had in your life and then freezing it and adding a pinch of sweet. I had more on Sunday night and tried it with just a bit of sea salt. I thought since I like my corn on the cob with butter and salt, it would make it even better. It was still good but I don’t think it really added anything to it. We still have the better part of a gallon to eat, and I’m more than ok with that.

Dessert of the Month- Lavender, Lemon, Almond Cake

Posted on April 7, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

In the spirit of the change of seasons into spring, I went with a light dessert this month. It’s also my first shot at a recipe, not a recipe from scratch mind you, but adapting one that I’ve had success with before.The base of the recipe is from Giada De Laurentiis of Everyday Italian on the Food Network, you can find the original recipe here. The additions I made were adding in the lemon juice and lavender flowers. I also adjusted my cooking time based on the size of cake pans I had available. Her original recipe calls for an 8 inch cake pan at 35 min. The local ingredients I used were butter, eggs, sour cream and lavender.

Start by pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 9 inch cake pan. Then mix together your cake flour, cornmeal, and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside.

Then, cream together your butter and almond paste until it’s nice and smooth. I scraped down my bowl a few times and spread a bit of it against the side to make sure it was well mixed and I didn’t have any large pieces of almond paste left behind.

Next up, I added in my vanilla as well as fresh squeezed lemon juice.

When its it well blended, slowly add in your powdered sugar, keeping the mixer going until it’s light and fluffy.

Next start adding your eggs one at a time, waiting until each one is incorporated before adding the next.

When your eggs are incorporated do a quick scrape of the bowl before you add in the sour cream.

Finally, slowly add in the mix of dry ingredients until incorporated.

Once the batter was fully mixed, I measured a tablespoon of lavender. It’s important to note that I bought the lavender at the co-op in the spice section. Make sure you use lavender that’s meant for cooking and not anything that’s been treated for home decor use. Probably not the best idea for your stomach. I ran my knife through the dried flowers to chop them up a bit, then slowly folded them into the batter little by little to make sure they were evenly distributed.

Then I poured the batter into the prepared cake pan and smoothed the top with a spatula before letting it bake for 30 minutes.

When the top of the cake is golden brown and the edges are pulling away from the pan its done.

I let it cool in the pan for a bit before turning it out onto a cooling rack to bring it to room temperature. To dress it up, sift some more powdered sugar over the top before you cut and serve. You could also sprinkle with a bit of lemon zest or more of the lavender to really make it shine.

You’ll end up with a fairly dense cake that’s subtly sweet and gives you a nice blend of flavors. Enjoy!

Dessert of the Month- Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Posted on February 15, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a good Valentine’s Day yesterday and got some fun treats to celebrate!

For the February Dessert of the Month I thought it was only appropriate it went along with the holiday and after some online searching I settled on Red Velvet Whoopie Pies…with cream cheese frosting filling:) Courtesy of the blog, Annie Eats.

To start up, I whisked together my dry ingredients; flour, salt, cocoa powder and baking powder and set aside.

adding vanilla

I creamed together the butter sugar until fluffy. Then added in the egg and vanilla one at a time making sure each was incorporated before moving on.

Next up, added about a third of the dry ingredients followed by half of the buttermilk. I repeated until both the dry and buttermilk were gone.

Then I added in my 1 oz. of red food coloring. Handy little tip: you can buy food coloring in that size at the grocery store. It’s easier to do that than useing the little guys you can buy in packs of 4.

Once the batter was mixed together the real fun began. Obviously I had to go for the heart shapes so I loaded up my pastry bag with red velvet dough, laid out my parchment paper and went to work.

I started with a round tip. It was way to small of a tip. The dough didn’t come out easily and took too long to pipe out and make a heart shape.

Next I tried a star tip. The dough came out a little better but I didn’t like the texture I was getting. So I took out the metal tips and just used the cut end of the bag. Much, much easier.

I didn’t use a template that was recommended by Annie. However, if I were to make it again, I would. The hearts were pretty easy to do, but without the template they were a little lop sided.

The cookies baked pretty quickly, only about 7-9 minutes and the pans had to be turned halfway through. Then I let them cool for a bit before moving them to cooling racks.

While they were cooling I started on the cream cheese frosting. It goes really quickly. First, you cream together the cream cheese and butter until it’s nice and smooth. Make sure you don’t have any lumps.

Next up, add in your vanilla. Then you start gradually adding powdered sugar. I sifted in half a cup at a time letting it get fully incorporated before adding in the next batch. You’ll end up with A LOT of frosting. Not that it’s a bad thing:)

With the frosting done and the cookies cooled, I started pairing up my ‘hearts’ to make sandwiches. Here I had another realization on why the template was so important. Besides the fact that a lot of my hearts ended up looking more like kidney beans, it was hard to get good matches for even sandwiches with the cookies back to back. I fudged it a little and had some cookies face up just to make them even and keep frosting on the fingers to a minimum.

I used a second pastry bag to pipe frosting on for each tiny sandwich. I didn’t go all the way out to the sides when I piped it on. This kept the frosting from spilling all over the place when you press on the top.

And there you go! I put them in the fridge over night to let the cream cheese frosting firm up a bit. I brought some to work the next day. They got good reviews and it was fun to make something so mini and bite sized and I like giving out something homemade for holidays. I think I’ll also use the cream cheese frosting again for cakes or some other treats. I’m sure you could just do little rounds or go really crazy and try some other shapes for cookies too.

Give it a try and have some fun!

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies
Recipe from AnnieEats.com
(Source: cookies adapted from Dinner and Dessert, originally from Better Homes & Gardens, December 2008; frosting frosting adapted from Confections of a Foodie Bride)

Yield: approximately 18 sandwich cookies, but depends entirely on the size of hearts you make

For the cookies:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 oz. red food coloring

Ingredients:

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375˚ F.

Using a heart template cut out from card stock, trace evenly spaced hearts onto pieces of parchment paper sized to fit two cookie sheets. Place the parchment on the cookie sheets so that the side you have drawn on is facing down; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg until incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, beat in about a third of the dry ingredients, followed by half of the buttermilk, beating each addition just until incorporated. Repeat so that all the buttermilk has been added and then mix in the final third of dry ingredients. Do not overbeat. Blend in the food coloring.

Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large plain round tip. Pipe the batter onto the parchment paper using the heart tracings as a guide. Bake 7-9 minutes or until the tops are set, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets at least 10 minutes, until they can be easily transferred to a cooling rack. Repeat with any remaining batter. Allow cookies to cool completely before proceeding.

To make the cream cheese frosting, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth.

Transfer the frosting to a clean pastry bag fitted with a plain, round tip. Pair the cookies up by shape and size.

Flip one cookie of each pair over so that the flat side is facing up.

Pipe frosting onto the flat-sided cookie of each pair, leaving the edges clear. Sandwich the cookies together so the flat sides are facing each other and press gently to help the filling reach the edges. To store, refrigerate in an airtight container.

Dessert of the Month- Tart Tatin

Posted on January 7, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

To start off my Dessert of the Month posts I wanted to try something new. I’ve done cakes, cookies and pies in the past but I haven’t had much experience with pastry dough. After flipping through my cookbooks I decided on Tart Tatin, in other words an upside down apple tart. Looking at the recipe it seemed pretty simple, a short list of ingredients and only 6 steps. Well, let me tell ya, I need to keep working on my pastry dough.

I split the recipe over two nights. The first night I worked up the dough to let it chill in the fridge over night. First things first, I slightly softened the butter by pounding it with a rolling pin per the recipe.

Second, I sifted the flour into a pile and made a little well in the middle to hold the rest of the dough ingredients.

I separated the yolks from the whites of two eggs.

Then added in sugar and a table spoon of water.

And then put in my butter after splitting it up into chunks. Then the fun started when I got to mix it all up with my fingers:) I love working with dough like this.

Once it reached a crumbly consistency, I started to knead it until it all held together and came off my board in one piece.

Then I formed a ball, wrapped in in two sheets of plastic to be safe, and put it in the fridge overnight. I think this might be where my problems started…according to the recipe it only needed half an hour so it may have been in there just too long.

Night two, I got started peeling 5 pounds of Minnesota Honey Crisp Apples. Because of their size I didn’t have the 14-16 called for in the recipe, but I wanted to try and keep them local. I used a vegetable peeler to keep from taking off much of the fruit flesh, chopped them in half, cored them, and rubbed them with half a lemon to keep them from browning.

I also checked to see how it would all fit in my skillet. My apples looked much bigger than the apples they used in the cookbook. Sure enough, I ended up not needing an apple and a half.

With the apples done and set aside, I started on the carmel sauce. I melted a stick of butter and added a cup of sugar and let it cook on medium until it reached a dark golden brown color. I had a little trouble getting to this point. For some reason I kept adding a stick and a half rather than a stick of butter…I ended up making it three times before I had the right ratio, ugh.

Once the carmel was done and slightly cooled I arranged the apples back in the skillet and brought it up to a medium high heat and let them caramelize. I did about 10 minutes on each side to keep an even color.

With the apples done I turned my attention to the crust. I had pulled the dough out of the fridge when I started peeling the apples to let it warm up a bit before I started to roll it out.

I learned two things really quickly. 1- I need to work on keeping the dough round when I roll it out and 2- The consistency was off. It was crumbly and splitting on me. I tried adding just a bit of water, didn’t help, added some flour, got worse, so I took a deep breath and just went for it.

I kept working with it to try and get the size I needed. To fix the shape, I used the lid of my skillet as a guide to cut and patch the dough so it would cover the bottom and we would have a full crust. It was working OK until I tried to move it from the counter to the pan. It split up into several pieces the second I moved it.

At this point the dough was really warm from me handling it. I formed it back into a ball (which it didn’t want to do) and popped it into the freezer to firm it up for 10 minutes. When I took it back out, it was cool but still a bit crumbly. I repeated the same technique as above using the lid as a guide. This time I rolled it on the saran wrap so I had a little bit of help moving it to the skillet. It worked but looked nothing like the photo in the book…..sigh…

I put the tart in the oven for about 25 minutes and once the crust reached a golden color, took out the tart to cool. Once the pan was cool enough to handle I went for the flip. The skillet was pretty heavy with roughly 5 pounds of carmel soaked apples. I wasn’t quite quick enough and lost a lot of carmel sauce to the stove top when I flipped it. On the plus side it looked great!

The hubs and I had a piece for dessert on Friday and as much as I was disappointed with the consistency and visual appeal of the crust, it tasted pretty good. The crust helped balance out the sweetness of the carmel sauce and was sturdy enough to hold up to the big pieces of apple. It was a great fall/winter dessert, especially served warm. I would have loved a small scoop of vanilla ice cream along with it.

Tart Tatin
from The Illustrated Step-by-Step Cook
DK’s classic Look and Cook series

Dough: Filling:
5 Tbsp unsalted butter 14-16 apples, total weight about 5 pounds
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 lemon
2 egg yolks 1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar 1 Cup sugar
pinch of salt creme fraiche, to serve (I skipped this)

1. Using a rolling pin, pound the butter to soften it slightly. Sift the flour on to a work surface, and make a well in the center. Put the egg yolks, sugar and pinch of salt in the center of the well, then adde the softened butter and 1 Tbsp of water. using your fingertips, work the ingredients in the well until throughly mixed.

2. Work the flour into the other ingredients until coarse crumbs form. If they seem dry, add a little more water. Press the dough into a ball. Lightly flour the work surface, then knead the dough for 1-2 minutes until it is very smooth and peels away from the work surface in 1 piece. Shape into a ball, wrap it tightly, and chill for about 30 minutes until, firm.

3. With a vegetable peeler, carefully peel the apples, then halve and core them. Cut the lemon in half and rub the apples all over with the cut lemon to prevent discoloration.

4. Melt the butter in a heavy-based oven-safe frying pan. Add the sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 3-5 minutes, until caramelized to a deep golden brown. Remove from the head and let cool to lukewarm. Arrange the apple halves over in concentric circles to fill the pan. They will shrink during cooking so pack them firmly.

5. Cook the apples over high heat for 15-25 minutes, until caramelized. Turn once to caramelize on both sides. Take the pan from the heat, and let cool for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius)

6. Roll out the pastry to a round, about 1 inch (2.5 cm) larger than the pan. Roll up the dough around the rolling pin, then drape it over the pan. Tuck the edges down around the apples. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool to lukewarm, then set a plate on top, hold firmly together, and invert both. If any apples stick to the pan, replace on the tart. Spoon some caramel over the apples. Serve with creme fraiche.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Posted on July 6, 2011 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a fun holiday weekend! With all the treats we were having this weekend I thought I’d share our homemade ice cream experiment with you. The Hubs has been making homemade ice cream the last couple of years and since we’ve nailed vanilla we like to try and mix in some new flavors every once in awhile. We recently had some salted caramel ice cream from Izzy’s in St. Paul and thought we’d try and replicate it at home.

making ice cream like a champ

We started out with a basic vanilla recipe like this one here. We used local Cedar Summit Farm milk and cream to make the base. We have an electric ice cream maker, if you do a search for ice cream recipes online, check to see if it’s for electronic or manual. While Hubs took care of that I started up on the caramel sauce. We picked a recipe that made a sauce instead of a candy. It made it much easier to mix in while the ice cream was still soft and mixing.

Making the caramel was more work than I expected. I made a couple batches of caramel candies with my sister in law over Christmas last year and since that went off without a hitch I thought the sauce would be just as easy. I thought wrong. After a recipe change and a couple of burnt batches we finally got something we could use. Kudos to anyone out there who can rock out batches of candy at a moments notice. Here’s the recipe I ended up using.

burned batch on the back burner getting ready to try again

When that batch was ready we added in a few pinches of chunkier sea salt. You should taste it as you go to make sure you’re getting the right balance of sweet and salty. Then we mixed it right in to the ice cream before popping it in the freezer to set. We added it in slowly bit by bit so it would make caramel swirls in the vanilla.

It turned out pretty well. There was a little bit of settling of the caramel to the bottom, but we still had a good vanilla ice cream to caramel ratio. You could still taste the salt in the caramel and it was perfect for eating on the back patio after dinner.

Do you have any special treats you like to make or eat for the 4th? Any other special ice cream flavors you’d like to recreate?

Grandma and Graham Crackers

Posted on June 1, 2011 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Hi All,
Sorry for the delay on finishing out the s’mores posts. We had a rough week last week. My Grandma passed away on Monday of last week so we spent most of the week back at home with family. She’ll be missed but I’ll always remember her when I’m in the kitchen. I don’t know how many times we spent the afternoon after school making cookies or mashed potatoes:) Love you Grandma.

Now, on to the graham crackers…..
I got the recipe from ‘Jam it, Pickle it, Jar it’ again. It was conveniently located just a few pages past the marshmallow recipe. It called for minimal ingredients and I was a little surprised that it didn’t call for eggs, but I guess it’s my first time making crackers too. What are you gonna do…

The cracker dough was gooey and smelled like graham crackers right from the start. The most difficult part was rolling the dough out in a rectangular shape to cut into crackers. I had to do a couple of patch jobs to make sure I had enough to cut. I also learned that when the recipe says to roll it out to a quarter of an inch thick, you should really double check and make sure it’s a quarter of an inch thick. The graham crackers tasted fine, but they were more chewy than crunchy. I’ll know better next time.

I hope you all had a good Memorial Day Weekend! Summer is officially here!!

Marshmallows!!!!!

Posted on May 22, 2011 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

I’m just gonna start off by saying marshmallows are the greatest thing on earth. There’s just nothing compared to a toasted, gooey, sticky marshmallow. I’ve been known to nuke them in the microwave when a campfire isn’t available. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll show you how I made them…

Making marshmallows from scratch is a little more difficult than I expected, but it was fun to learn. I used the recipe available in ‘Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it’. It was super easy to follow and the pictures are great!

First up, I put some gelatin on the side with some water to set…. I had to do this 3 times. First time I didn’t add enough, second time too much and I had to talk the Hubs into making a trip to the grocery store for me, thank you!

While that was happening I mixed water, sugar and corn syrup in a pot on the stove and started cooking to get to the right temp according to the candy thermometer. Found out the hard way you need to have enough liquid to come about 2 inches up on the thermometer to get a read on the temperature. This meant a second trip to the grocery store for the Hubs because at that point I was out of corn syrup, again, thanks!

The second try, I used a smaller pot to get a deeper read on the temperature and I was able to get the marshmallows going. Once the mixture was warm enough, I added it to the gelatin and started mixing. It took about 15 minutes but it went from cloudy liquid to white gooey awesomeness. At this point, it looked like the marshmallow topping you can buy for ice cream. We talked about adding this to homemade ice cream later this summer.

After it’s mixed I spread the mixture in a powdered sugared pan and let it cool. After it reached room temperature, I cut the marshmallows into roughly 2 inch squares and dredged them in more powdered sugar to keep them from getting to sticky. They’ve stored really well and are just as tasty on a bowl of ice cream as they are melted in a s’more:)

Peanut Butter Bacon Chocolate

Posted on May 21, 2011 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

I was flying blind in making my flavored chocolate. I’m not a trained chocolatier by any means but I was hoping my experience in making goodies for birthdays and the holidays would help me out.

To get the flavor I wanted in the chocolate, I started with my bacon. I bought the bacon from Clancy’s. It’s the first time I’ve gotten bacon from them and I was pretty impressed! It didn’t have a overly sweet maple flavor and didn’t shrivel up like a lot of store bought bacon I’ve had in the past.

To get it ready for the chocolate, I fried it on the stove until it was nice and crispy. It’s really important that you get the bacon good and crispy. You don’t want to have a chewy piece in the middle of your chocolate, it’s a little off-putting…. Then, I dabbed them off with a paper towel to get rid of extra grease and then chopped it up in to mini pieces. The pups were very interested in helping at this point.

Once I set the bacon aside I got a double boiler set up to melt the chocolate. I used 2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips and one cup of peanut butter. I kept the chocolate moving until the peanut butter was all mixed in and the chocolate was smooth with no lumps. Then I added my bacon (ended up being about 3/4 cups) and a dash of salt.

Once it was well mixed into the chocolate, I spread the chocolate out on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. I let it cool on the counter for a little while and then put it in the fridge to harden to cut into bars later.

The final product was tasty! I made a second batch of just chocolate peanut butter as well. It stores well in the fridge, however I wouldn’t keep the bacon for more than a week. The peanut butter you could keep longer but you shouldn’t have to worry about it sticking around for too long anyway:)

mmmMinneapolis

Tag Archives: Dessert