Tuesday, October 4, 2011
No recipe post today, but I had to share news about an upcoming event. I’m going to be competing in the Music City Chili Cookoff. This will be my second time competing in a cookoff, the last was also a chili competition. I failed miserably lost admirably when I competed back in 2009. This competition will be done a bit differently as all the prep & cooking is done at home. You just show up with your finished product. (I can’t even begin to tell you what a relief that is.)
Entry fee is a mere $30, and the prize money is $200 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third. Not too shabby! But, this isn’t just an event for competitors. It’s a full family event! There will be a bounce house for the kids, live music, and a beer garden. The cookoff will benefit the Community Shares and TN Literacy Coalition. The fee to attend the event is a minimum $5 donation, and that small price means that you are a judge! Yup, that’s right, no panel of judges. Everyone who attends the event gets to sample and vote!
Also, they will have a Beer Garden set up by Yazoo & Ole Smoky Moonshine. For $15 you get six 8oz glasses of beer, and two shots of Old Smoky Moonshine’s Apple Pie Moonshine. Is that a fantastic deal or what!? So when I lose, you might want to look there for me to be drowning my sorrows! 😉
For more info, check out their website. I hope to see you there!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Remember these Nutella Cookies? Well, you could have the opportunity to bid on a batch of these cookies to be made and delivered (via US mail) by me! A super nice blogger, (with a great name), Erin at The Spiffy Cookie is hosting a bake sale, and I contributed these cookies. The bake sale benefits a young man who was in a motorcycle accident, and now needs a prosthetic leg. Erin is friends with his twin sister, and as it turns out, I know one of this other sisters.
Please hop on over to the bake sale, but you must act FAST, because you only have until TUESDAY October 4th, at 8am CST to vote! Even if you’re not interested in these Nutella Cookies, there are MANY other delicious treats up for auction!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Alton Brown told me to stick my hand in this ice cream. Really. He did. Alright, so maybe that’s a stretch, but he did tweet at me to offer me relief on my burning hands after chopping peppers. His advice to soothe capsaicin burn was fattening dairy. It just so happened the fattest dairy I had on hand was this ice cream. So into a bowl of it my hands went.
You may or may not remember last year I made a White Chocolate Ice Cream with Spiced Pumpkin Swirl. I made it because I wanted to use the pumpkin butter I love so much from Trader Joe’s. Recently on a Trader Joe’s grocery trip I was checking to see if their pumpkin butter was out yet this year. It wasn’t, but they had fig butter! I love fresh figs. Unfortunately they only appear at select grocery stores for a really brief time here in Nashville. I was surprised this fig butter was so affordable, and it was delicious! I found myself enjoying it most frequently on toast, with a bit of honey swirled on. Before long I knew I wanted to swirl it into an ice cream. My first thought was honey ice cream, but almost immediately after that, I thought of honey goat cheese ice cream. I already know those flavors work well together from when I made Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs that had honey drizzled on top. Furthermore, I knew that goat cheese was a flavor I liked in ice cream after trying it at Jeni’s on my first visit! The Jeni’s flavor I had was Goat Cheese & Red Cherries.
As with the Blueberry Goat Cheese Muffins I made this year, the goat cheese flavor is very subtle. It just adds a hint of tang, and results in a really distinct flavor profile. I would say the honey flavor is more prominent than the goat cheese. I also love that the goat cheese cuts the sweetness of the ice cream. The fig butter swirled in is like the icing on the cake. It makes for an interesting contrast in texture, as the ice cream is incredibly smooth, and the fig butter a bit gritty. This is a classic flavor combination, but unique in ice cream. To say I enjoyed this ice cream would be an understatement! I definitely preferred eating it, as opposed to sticking my hand in a bowl of it.
PS. Did you know September is National Honey Month? Yeah, that’s right, I hit a food holiday. That rarely happens.
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Honey Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Fig Swirl
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup honey
4 oz goat cheese
approximately 1/3 cup fig butter (I just kept dolloping in tablespoons until I was happy with the amount)
Directions:
Add the cream, milk, and honey to a medium saucepan. Stir to dissolve the honey. Heat over moderate heat, stirring from time to time, just until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan, 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir or whisk in goat cheese until dissolved.
Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. (Overnight is recommended)
Before churning, stir mixture briefly to reincorporate ingredients. Churn according to ice cream maker instructions until fluffy. Transfer about 1/2 of the ice cream to desired container, dollop in some of the fig butter, repeat with remaining ice cream & fig butter. Using a butter knife swirl ice cream & fig butter a few times. Cover and freeze until hardened.
Monday, September 19, 2011
As excited as I am about the return of all things fall, including pumpkin purchasing, pumpkin eating, cooler temperatures, bright tights, warm scarves, changing leaves, windows open, and fall veggies, that doesn’t mean I’m not grasping tightly to the last bits of summer produce.
We were invited over to our friends’ house for a cookout, and of course my first question was “What should I bring?”. The friends are owners of a really awesome meat & 3 lunch spot here in town. (Iron Porkchop, if you haven’t been, GO! Delicious, fast, affordable! Get Banana Pudding for dessert. Trust me.) I knew he was gonna throw down on the meat, and he requested we bring a side. I know they aren’t picky eaters, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to use the okra I recently scored at work.
This was an incredibly simple salad to prepare. It takes a little bit of time (inactive time roasting in the oven), but minimal effort. The fresh rosemary gave it a burst of herbal flavor. The lemon juice added hint of tang. As you know I love to roast any vegetable; that’s one of my favorite ways to eat potatoes, and okra as well. If you avoid okra because of the potential for “slime”, then you should really consider this recipe, or any other one that involves roasting it. Everyone really enjoyed this salad, and commented on how it was really different. I felt like I had one foot in the door of summer, and one foot in the door of fall. Foods like this make me on happy gal.
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Roasted Potato & Okra Salad
Ingredients:
2 lb small potatoes such as fingerling, red, or yellow-fleshed
1 large bunch scallions, halved lengthwise and roughly chopped
2 large fresh rosemary sprigs, plus 1/2 teaspoon chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 lb small (2- to 3-inch) okra, heads removed
1 cup fresh corn (from 1 to 2 ears, I used a combo of frozen kernels plus 1 ear of corn)
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
Directions:
Roast potatoes and okra:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450°F.
Halve potatoes lengthwise and toss with scallion pieces, rosemary sprigs, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Spread potato mixture in a large roasting pan and roast, stirring once, 20 minutes. Stir potatoes and add okra to pan, tossing to coat. Continue to roast until okra and potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes more.
Cook corn while potatoes roast:
Cook corn in 1 quart of salted boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.
Make dressing and assemble salad:
Whisk together lemon juice, shallot, chopped rosemary, and remaining 2 tablespoons oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until combined. Discard rosemary sprigs, then add hot potatoes and okra to dressing along with beans, corn, and salt to taste, tossing to combine. Serve hot or warm.
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