Our friend Saket hosted an “Iron Chef” competition at his place earlier in the summer. He’d earlier held a brainstorming session to come up with theme ideas. When he’d been to a similar competition before, an ingredient had been picked and everyone had been expected to bring a dish including that ingredient. We decided to change things up and chose a much vaguer theme for this event — every dish must include either a cliche or a pun.

Matt’s and my entries included “American as Apple Pie” (apple pie shaped like a flag), “headcheese/cheesehead” (a cheeseball shaped like a head), and “toe jam” (boot-shaped cheese crackers with bacon-bourbon jam to spread on the toe). We didn’t ever pick a winner, but the highlight of the night for me was “cool as a cucumber” from Joey — ice cream flavored with cucumber and mint. It was so delicious that we decided to try to replicate it a few weeks later. Not sure if this is the same way Joey made it or not, but we thought our version turned out pretty well. A deliciously refreshing way to end a summer evening!

Cucumber mint ice cream

Loosely based on this recipe from Food52 and the vanilla ice cream recipe from Bittman’s How To Cook Everything

1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1/2 c granulated sugar
2 cups half and half or milk
6 egg yolks (can reduce down to 2 for a less rich ice cream)
2/3 c mint leaves, packed
1 Tablespoon vanilla
pinch of salt
1 cup cream or more half and half or milk
1/3 cup of chocolate chips or other mix-in (we used some chocolate “crunchies” we had on hand that are crisped rice coated in chocolate)

Puree the cucumber finely. Set aside.

In a double boiler over simmering water, heat 2 c half and half or milk and 1/4 c sugar. Meanwhile, separate the eggs and whisk the yolks with the remaining sugar until light in color. While whisking, gradually add about 1/2 cup of the simmering milk to the eggs to temper them. Add the egg mixture to the remaining milk and cook over a double boiler, stirring nearly constantly, until thickened. This will take about 5-10 minutes. The custard is thick enough when it coats the back of a spoon and you can run a finger through the custard on the spoon and see the “track” from your finger.

Remove from heat and add the pureed cucumber, mint leaves, vanilla extract, and salt. Let steep about an hour.

Add the remaining cup of cream (or more milk or half and half) and chill thoroughly. (Either chill in an ice bath or leave in the fridge for several hours or overnight.) Strain out the cucumber puree and mint.

Freeze in an ice cream maker. When it’s nearly frozen, stir in any desired mix-ins.

I think this was probably Matt’s favorite of all the recipes we tested for Jess’s cookbook. And if you know how much Matt likes brownies, maybe that shouldn’t be surprising. On the other hand, what you may not know is that Matt loves brownies made from a box mix, but generally doesn’t really like brownies made from scratch. Invariably, they are too cakey, too chocolatey, too gooey, too something, and if he wants a treat, he’d rather you pull out the Betty Crocker box (or he’ll do it himself and hopefully learn from his mistakes and not forget to add one of the eggs and the water again … yes that’s right, Matt added only one egg and the oil to a box of brownie mix one time … not pretty). But these brownies from Julie Badger even Matt enjoyed, so I think they’re a keeper. I think the key may have been the secret ingredient spoonful of peanut butter. They really don’t come out tasting very peanut buttery, but I think it does just add that extra something.

Julie Badger’s Brownies

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 c. sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoons salt
6 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
Large spoonful of creamy peanut butter (1/3 to 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 9” square cake pan with Pam.

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Stir in sugar, eggs, flour, salt, and vanilla. Add peanut butter if desired.

Spread in pan and bake 30 – 40 min. until dry on top and almost firm to touch. Do not overbake.

Believe it or not, I actually have a better reason than the usual, “Sorry, we’re busy” for not posting much lately. If you keep an eye on the flickr site, you might’ve noticed that food pictures have been appearing there but never migrating over to the site. Well, the reason is that I’ve had a side project going on — I’ve been making a cookbook! My good friend Jessica is getting married today, and as a wedding present for her, I gathered recipes from her friends and family and put them together in a cookbook that I had printed over at blurb.com. I didn’t have time to make everything myself, but we did test out and photograph some of the recipes, so those are what you may have seen show up on flickr. I wanted to share some of these delicious recipes with you, too, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise for Jessica, who I think might read this here blog occasionally. But the beautiful wedding was yesterday today, so the cat’s finally out of the bag. The next several posts will be recipes shared by Jessica’s friends and family.

First up is this Irish cream poundcake from Katrin Baker, an advisor to both Jessica and me when we were in the Honors program at NCSU. I couldn’t resist adding some chopped chocolate to Katrin’s recipe, though I’m sure it would be delicious either way. As Katrin says, this cake actually gets better after it sits for a day or two. I especially liked it toasted. Thanks, Katrin!

Chocolate Chip Irish Cream Poundcake

adapted from Katrin Baker, originally from Cooking Light, she thinks

2 3/4 cups cake flour (about 11 ounces)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup low-fat or fat-free cream cheese, softened
10 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
3/4 cup dark chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chip (optional)
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat together cream cheese and butter with a mixer at high speed. Beat in granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time; beat well after each addition. Beat on high speed 1 minute.

With mixer on low, add flour mixture and liqueur alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mixing well after each addition. Stir in chopped chocolate, if using.

Pour batter into a 12-cup Bundt pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 325 F for 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. If desired, sift powdered sugar over cake.

Let’s just ignore the fact that I haven’t put anything up here in over a month and just move on with our lives, shall we? I know it’s getting late to share this with you, but maybe you can still find a few end of the season stone fruits left at your market? If not, I could imagine trying a similar concept with some upcoming fall fruit, like maybe pears, or persimmons.

I got the idea of adding creme fraiche to a pie from Smitten Kitchen, who in turn got it from Martha Stewart. I really liked the way it thickened things up and made them a bit richer and tangier, and a little less sweet. I used nectarines and blueberries, since that’s what we had on hand, and it was a lovely combination, but there are many other combinations you could try that might be more seasonally appropriate. I’m just now thinking maybe pears and cranberries might be good, when the cranberries start popping up before too much longer. Is it really fall already?!

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One of Matt’s favorite desserts is lemon squares, but when I made them this time, I decided to change it up and use lime juice instead.  I also added some ginger, again going for that ginger-lime combination I use for sherbet a few weeks ago.  This time, I again didn’t add enough ginger though, so if you want that to come through, add more!  Fresh ginger in the filling might help, too.

Everyone enjoyed the flavor of these with lime instead of lemon.  In fact I think I might like them even better than the original!  The extra tang from the lime just seems particularly summery. (more…)