A Diva Moment

Dark chocolate sweet corn ice cream July 10, 2011

“Uh, what?”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“EWWWWW!”

Did any of these thoughts cross your mind when you read the title? Stay with me, here. I haven’t lost my mind, really, I haven’t. I tried regular sweet corn ice cream last week. It was okay, pretty corny, though. It just tasted like frozen corn. I said to myself, “Self, this would be improved with chocolate.” And yes, yes it was MUCH improved.

So, go buy a few ears of corn, some dark chocolate and get ready to enjoy smooth and creamy ice cream.

What you need:
2 corn cobs, shucked – cobs broken into pot
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 – 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, vanilla scraped out
2 bars dark chocolate, cut up
4 egg yolks (save the egg whites to make scrambled eggs!)

Using a grater, grate the corn off of the cobs. Pour the corn and the cobs into a medium sauce pan.  Add the milk, cream and sugar and bring to a boil.  Simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove the cobs using tongs and discard.

Get your vanilla bean.  Using a sharp nice, slice the bean down the middle and open it up.  

Use the end of the knife to scrape the vanilla beans out and dump them into the cream mixture.

Add the chocolate and swirl until the chocolate is melted. Remove the mixture from heat and allow to infuse for 1 hour.

Place the  mixture in a blender and whiz it up.  Make sure you do this AFTER the mixture is cooled.  Don’t do it before, trust me!

Pour the custard through a sieve to remove any silks and corn pieces from the mixture.  You’ll need to use a spoon to press it through the sieve.  Discard the corn skins and silks.

Return the mixture to the heat and bring to simmer.

In the meantime, in a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolk and remaining sugar (1/8-1/4 cup) until they are a pale yellow. Add 1/2 cup of cream mixture in a steady stream to the yolks, whisking constantly to keep eggs from cooking.

Add the egg mixture to the saucepan.  Cook over med-low heat until a custard has formed, about 5 minutes.

Return to the saucepan or place in a bowl.  Allow custard to cool.  Cover with plastic wrap so that the plastic touches the cream mixture.  This will keep a skin from forming.

Place in the fridge for four hours or overnight.

Remove and follow your ice cream maker directions for freezing.

I don’t have a pic of the final product. Well, I DO, it just looks terrible, thanks to the 500 billion watts of fluorescent light in my kitchen. That, and my camera!

Burrito bowls July 6, 2011

A few weeks ago, we got dinner from a place called Panchero’s Mexican Grill. Their menu consists of burritos, burrito bowls and a few other things. We ended up getting burrito bowls, which were decent, but I decided that I definitely could do better. (Humble, I know!) So yesterday, I decided to give it a try. I thought about it too late to actually make my own rice, so I bought the Lipton packaged rice, Mexican flavor. (Next time, I’ll just make my own, but this was good enough.) These were SUPER easy to make and they were a hit . . definitely going to be making these again!

What you need:
Rice – if you make your own rice, you’ll want to flavor it with some lime and fresh cilantro
Black beans
Refried beans
Corn, fresh or frozen
Salsa
Tomatoes
Cheese
Santa Fe salad toppers

b

Putting it together:
Grab a bowl.
Put a cup or so of rice in the bottom.
Then, just pile everything else on top. The order doesn’t really matter, but I like to have the beans towards the bottom.

Easy peasy, right?

Vegetarian taco skillet meets cornbread pie June 28, 2011

Cornbread pie makes a regular appearance at our house: it’s easy, good, and I almost always have the ingredients laying around, making it good for those “ack, what to do for dinner!” moments. Recently, I decided to shake things up a bit. I had tried a taco skillet recipe that was only mediocre. I thought I’d meld the two recipes (taco skillet and cornbread pie) together to see what would happen. I think we have a winner!

As with many of my inventions, I just sort of use what I have. If you are missing something, don’t sweat it, just find something else to throw in in it’s place. Well, the cornbread is necessary, but the rest can be fiddled with=)

What you need:
1T olive oil
1 package Grillers, cut into small pieces
some frozen corn
some spinach, cut up (fresh or frozen)
mushrooms, chopped
about 1/2 bell pepper, diced (red or orange are nice, but pricey, so use what you have.)
1 onion, diced
1 Goya packet (the magic ingredient, don’t skip this one)
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 package of cornbread mix
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (or whatever your cornbread mix calls for)
1/3 – 1 cup of cheese (I like cheddar)

How to put it all together:
1. Heat oil a large skillet over medium heat. Add the Grillers and all of the veggies (corn through onion) and cook until the corn is no longer frozen and the onions are nicely sauteed, about 6-10 minutes.

2. While that is cooking, prepare the cornbread mix. Combine the cornbread, egg and milk and stir until well-combined. Set aside.

3. Turn your oven on to about 375 or 400 (temps vary by oven).
4. Drain and rinse the beans, then add them to the veggies along with the Goya packet.

5. Remove the skillet from heat and pour the cornbread mixture over the top, spreading it around so that it covers the entire skillet. Sprinkle the cheese on top.

6. If there are any plastic pieces on the skillet, cover them up with foil, otherwise you’ll have not-so-nice plastic fumes floating around in your oven!

7. Cook for 15 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven when the cornbread is golden.

It probably won’t LOOK delicious, but trust me, it is!

One thing I learned while putting this tute together . .. .. my photography skills need work! Or maybe I just need a better camera!

Bean and veggie empandas May 10, 2011

Sometimes, I’m at a total loss for what to make for lunch.  I seriously need a personal chef, or at least a personal meal planner=)  Anyway, the babes weren’t being at all helpful with their suggestions, so I opened the fridge for inspiration and voila!, these empanadas came to be.   These are pretty easy and quick to make, if you don’t have three little ones under foot=)

Ingredients:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 T olive oil

1 small onion, diced

a few other veggies, whatever you have on hand – I used two carrots, a small chunk of cabbage, & 3 olives

a fresh herb, whatever you like – I used cilantro

1 package dough – Pillsbury biscuit dough was what I had, so that’s what I used, any dough will work

Cheese – any kind

1 Goya seasoning packet

1. Heat the oil in a medium skillet. Add onions and other veggies and saute for about 5 minutes or so.

2. Add the black beans and Goya seasoning packet and simmer for a few minutes. Add the fresh herb once the beans are heated through. Remove from heat and set mixture aside.

3. Flatten out your dough. (You can use a rolling pin, but I just used my fingers.) Since I was using biscuit dough, I needed to flatten it and reshape it into a circle. Do whatever you need to do to get your dough flattish and circleish.

4. Spoon a goodly amount of mixture into the center of the circle. Fold the dough so that you end up with a semicircle. Use a fork to smoosh and seal the dough.

5. Bake. The temperature and time will depend on what dough you are using. Check the package and follow those directions. I believe I baked at about 400 for about 10-12 minutes.

6. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving with salsa and sour cream.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin pie yogurt December 18, 2010

Several months ago I realized I was in a snack rut. . . the kiddies were getting the same thing, over and over.  So I polled my FB friends, and one person suggested fixmeasnack.com. She has a section called “Yogurt 101” where she has 101 different ways that you can dress up plain, jane yogurt.  Some were just plain, well, interesting.  But there were plenty that were big hits with the kiddies.  The best thing I learned from her posts was that plain yogurt is a great place to start for kiddie snacks.  I still use lots of her recipes, but I’ve branched out and tried my own.  One that was a huge hit was my pumpkin pie yogurt.  Here’s the recipe if you wanna try it.

Makes one little person serving

1/4 cup of yogurt

2-3 T of canned pureed pumpkin

a dash or two of each (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger)

some vanilla (I never measure, I probably used about 1/4 t.)

1-2 T of sugar

Mix everything together in a bowl and serve.  Garnish with a dollop of Cool Whip, or not.

This picture totally doesn’t do it justice.  Once it’s mixed, it has a not-so-pleasant color, and pre-mixed, well, it just looks bizarre.  But it really is quite delish, trust me!

Crockpot Black Bean Soup December 17, 2010

I’ve been on a crockpot kick this week . . . and I’m pretty much hooked.  So I’ll be on a mission to try lots of my fav recipes in the crockpot!  I thought I had bookmarked a black bean soup recipe, but couldn’t find it this morning.  I found one that inspired me to do my own thing.  Here’s my verison!

Adapted from Stephanie O’Dea at crockpot365

3 cans of black beans, undrained and unrinsed

1 can of diced tomatoes

1/4 head of cabbage, chopped

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 medium onion, diced

2 stalks of celery, diced

2 cups vegetable broth (I used 2 c water + 2T McKay’s seasoning)

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 t oregano, rubbed

1/4 t. garlic powder

1T salt

Place all of the ingredients in the crockpot, mix.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream.  Enjoy!

Somehow, I ended up NOT getting a pic of the soup, but it was yummylicious!

Leftover rice pudding December 16, 2010

This morning, DS1 decided he wanted rice for a snack.  I thought plain rice would be weird, so I tried to find a rice pudding recipe.  Alas, they all took more than 15 minutes to make, and the kiddies wanted a snack, NOW.  So, I threw caution to the wind and decided to wing it.  Here’s the recipe:

2 cups of leftover rice

1 cup of  milk

1/2 of a banana, mushed

a handful of raisins

2 T sugar

1/4 cup makeshift apple caramel sauce (the recipe is about 1/3 of the way down the page)

Place everything minus the caramel sauce into a saucepan on high heat.  Bring to a boil and stir frequently until the rice is a nice, thick consistency.  Add the carmel sauce and then whatever spices you want.  We used 3 shakes of cinnamon and nutmeg and one shake of ginger.  Really, you can do whatever.

The verdict:  turned out pretty darn good.  I don’t even like rice pudding and I thought it was yummy=)