Rhubarb berry ice cream, anyone?

It’s summer, it’s hot, and I am going to eat ice cream. The store-bought stuff is fine, but have you tried reading the labels lately? Poly-what? Hydrolyzed who? I flunked organic chemistry in college, so I really can’t decipher what I’m eating. And forget about the reduced fat or reduced sugar varieties — UGH. So if I’m going to eat ice cream, why not make it out of ingredients I can pronounce and seasonal flavors that really tickle my palate?

As a child, we had one of those old-fashioned Ice+salt wooden-crock hand-crank ice cream makers. Us kids would beg and beg and beg for ice cream, my parents would say no we never crank long enough, we would promise to crank and please oh please and finally, yes, my parents would give in. Each of us kids (there were three of us) would crank for about 2 minutes, plead total exhaustion, and then my poor dad would be stuck cranking that thing for 45 minutes by himself. The ice cream was wonderful, but it was understandably about a once-a-year treat.

As a young adult, I bought one of those small units where you freeze a special bowl and then make ice cream in it. I could never get my freezer cold enough, so the ice cream never really froze fast enough or hard enough, so it was a bit of a disappointment. Fast forward to my **ahem** later adult years, and I decide to acquire one of those ice+salt machines, but an ELECTRIC one. They run about $40. My first one died after just a few batches but my current one seems to be going strong.

So my latest ice cream confection truly is blogworthy. I started by making a compote of rhubarb and mixed berries at my brick house mid-week (it was very tasty on its own and would have been awesome over waffles, french toast, or vanilla ice cream). I refrigerated it for a couple of days before transporting it to the beach house on a Friday night. That Saturday, I combined the compote with the ice cream base and froze me up some ice cream.

Rhubarb and Mixed Berry Compote

1 cup chopped rhubarb
2 cups berries (I used a frozen cherry, blackberry, black raspberry, blueberry mix)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 hunk peeled ginger, about 3/4 inch, cut into several thin rounds (COUNT HOW MANY)
1/4 cup water

Combine all in a non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a low boil over medium heat. Turn heat down and simmer gently for 5 – 10 minutes until the rhubarb is tender but not mushy and the liquid has turned syrupy. If you taste the rhubarb it should have absorbed some of the sugar but still retain some tartness. Let cool to room temperature. Fish out the ginger rounds (that’s why you have to count them). Refrigerate several hours before using to make ice cream.

Ice Cream Base
Adapted from Sweet Cream Base #1, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

3 extra-large eggs
Yolk of 1 extra-large egg
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk

Whisk the eggs in a HUGE bowl until light and fluffy. Add the sugar gradually, whisking like crazy. Add the cream gradually, whisking gently to combine. Add the milk gradually, whisking gently to combine. Add the refrigerated compote, stirring gently to combine.

Freeze according to your manufacturers instructions. These quantities are appropriate for a 4 quart ice cream maker.

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I was a little short on ice and too lazy to drive back down to the liquor store to buy more, so my ice cream did NOT thicken/freeze in the ice cream machine as much as I would have liked. No worries — I just scooped it into a couple of large plastic containers, leaving headroom, and froze the covered containers in my VERY cold home freezer. Even if it had thickened to the consistency of soft-serve, which is about what I get out of my machine, I still would have had to harden it off in the freezer. It’s just part of the process.

I served the ice cream with fresh NJ blueberries.

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I made this ice cream a few weeks ago, using fresh strawberries rather than the mixed frozen berries in the compote. I also added some uncooked fresh strawberries to the base. It was delicious, but not nearly as colorful. Also — the uncooked strawberries tend to get a little hard when they freeze, but the cooked ones had soaked up some sugar and remained softer after freezing. I’m now sold on the idea of pre-cooking the fruit with sugar for ice cream.

So the current joke at our house is whether or not something is “Blogworthy” (for those of you of a certain age, you might recall Elaine of the TV show “Seinfeld” using the term “Spongeworthy”). It started out innocently enough, when I announced on a Friday that I intended to cook something “Blogworthy” over the weekend. So when my husband ate his yogurt, he asked if it was “Blogworthy.” When he poured a glass of ginger ale, he asked if it was “Blogworthy.” And so on. That didn’t last long, FORTUNATELY, but now it’s our little joke about whether a dish or a meal is merely ordinary or something extraordinary and worth sharing with others (he is very supportive of my blogging and he’s even getting a little more patient about the picture taking).

So at our little beach cottage, my husband has planted a few old-fashioned fruit-bearing bushes that begin to bear fruit right about NOW. We have Gooseberries, Currants (both red and black), and a Service Berry (my Mom calls it Sarvis Berry — both are correct). These are nice to eat out of hand but what he REALLY loves is a not-too-sweet bread chock-full of the fruits of his labor. So he tasked me to make him some Blogworthy Bread with our current crop of Service Berries.

This recipe is the same basic recipe I’ve posted recently, but I took more of a dump approach with the ingredients — it’s a VERY forgiving recipe. My husband ate at least half of this bread over the course of two days. Me and a couple of friends had some with some leftover home-made strawberry rhubarb ice cream. We all pronounced this bread BLOGWORTHY.

Service Berry Breakfast Bread

2 cups Service Berries (aka Sarvis Berries)
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare an 11 x 7 x 2 inches baking pan by spraying liberally with baking spray.

Rinse your berries and pick over for stems, leaves, and small bugs. Drain well. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of the flour over the berries and gently shake them around to coat lightly.

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and buttermilk until well combined. Dump in the dry ingredients and mix by hand until incorporated. I started with the whisk and ended with a rubber spatula.

Gently fold in the berries. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the loaf at 375F for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan and cook another 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (or with only a few crumbs).

Allow to cool to warm before cutting — this is a VERY moist bread and if you cut into it too soon, it will be gummy. Store tightly covered at room temperature, not that it’s going to last very long!

*****

You could substitute fresh blueberries for the service berries.

I love me some crab. Especially our beloved local Maryland Blue Crab. Hardshell, softshell, crab cakes, crab balls, lump, backfin, soup, bisque, chowder … you name it, I’ll eat it. Picking crabs is a lovely way to spend a hot summer afternoon, sitting at a picnic table covered in paper bags, cold beverages at hand, but it is HARD work and that crab fights back! Sometimes you just want to take it easy and get your crab fix without the nicks and cuts, right?

This weekend, my local market had some imported crab on sale. I grabbed a tub with the idea that I was going to make a hot crab dip, an idea that got discarded as soon as I got my sailing invitation! [It was a perfect day for sailing and I am grateful for my friends with sailboats!] Instead, I grabbed a few items from the fridge and pantry and threw together a crab dip that came together quickly and went down just as fast.

Spicy Cold Crab Dip
Serves 4 as an appetizer

1 small container (5 – 6 oz) plain greek yogurt (I used nonfat)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise (I used “light”)
1 tablespoon bottled key lime juice (I use “Nellie and Joe’s”)
1 – 2 teaspoons of diced hot cherry peppers, to taste
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (medium), to taste
Salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
8 oz crab, carefully picked over
3/4 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese (I used a bagged “Mexican” 4-cheese blend)

Combine the yogurt, mayonnaise, lime juice, cherry peppers, chili powder, a pinch or two of salt, and cracked pepper in a bowl. Taste for seasoning — you are looking for a little zing not a slap in the face, but you may find you need a tad more hot peppers or chili powder. Add more salt SPARINGLY, since the cheese and crab will be somewhat salty themselves.

Gently pick and finger through the crab, extracting all the shell and cartilage you find, without breaking it up too much. Gently fold the crab and the cheese into the yogurt mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use. Serve cold with a sturdy dipper, like tortilla chips or pita chips. IF there’s any leftover (HA!), eat it within a day.

[photo credit: Steve Kullen]

*****

Fresh crab is highly perishable. Keep it refrigerated until you are actually using it.

I used an imported crab labelled “lump” that my market sold at a “backfin” price. Don’t use the $20/lb+ lump in this dip — save that for crabcakes!

I made a variation the day before with NO salt and Old Bay instead of chili powder — also a home run! I went with chili powder rather than Old Bay this time because one of my guests is gastro-sensitive to some unknown component of Old Bay. Honestly — I think I liked the chili powder better

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7/25 update: Over the Fourth, I made a double batch that (surprisingly) wasn’t consumed within a couple of days, so I froze the leftovers. Early this week, I pulled it out of the freezer to partially thaw, threw it in a shallow baking dish (prepare with baking spray first!), and then threw THAT into a 350F oven until hot and bubbly (stir occasionally to ensure heated through). Throw a couple of handfuls of cheese on top, back in the oven to melt thoroughly, and TA DA — hot crab dip!

So I had some leftover coconut milk after last week’s pumpkin curry, and I was NOT going to let it waste (it was light coconut milk so I also was concerned about freezing it). I wasn’t in the mood for another savory curry, I wasn’t making ice cream anytime soon, I don’t really do smoothies, I wasn’t planning to fire up the grill (coconut marinated chicken skewers?) …in my mind, when in doubt, go sweet.

I thought about the consistency of coconut milk. It’s really thick, so I was curious how it might substitute for buttermilk. So I went back to this basic muffin/sweet bread recipe I’ve been playing with, and subbed out the buttermilk for equal parts coconut milk. Inspired! This bread is so moist, and a little dense, almost like a pound cake (I do think that’s the buttermilk-to-coconut-milk sub). The coconut flavor is very subtle — but it’s there. I had grabbed mandarin oranges because they were in the pantry — they turned into little pops of juiciness throughout the bread — nice level of sweetness since the bread is only moderately sweet. Overall — a home run!

Mandarin Orange Coconut Bread, adapted from Heather Christo Cooks’ Lemon Blueberry Streusal Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons orange liqueur
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cup mandarin orange sections, drained, juice discarded

Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare 9″ x 5″ x 3″ loaf pan by spraying with baking spray, lining with a parchment sling, and spraying the sling with baking spray (see photo below). NOTE: Do not use a smaller pan — this produces a HIGH loaf even in this large bread loaf pan!

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt (I like to use the whisk from my stand mixer as a hand whisk for this). Set aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle beater, mix the butter, sugar, eggs, and orange liqueur until well combined.

STOP mixer. Dump in half of the dry ingredients and mix on low until incorporated.
STOP mixer. Add the coconut milk and mix on low until incorporated.
STOP mixer. Add the second half of the dry ingredients and mix on low until incorporated.

Remove the bowl from the mixer stand and fold in the orange segments by hand.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the loaf at 375F for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan, lower the heat to 350F, and cook another 25 to 35 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (or with only a few crumbs).

Allow to cool to at least WARM before slicing! I know you won’t be able to wait until room temperature, but if you slice too soon, it will crumble to bits (good for the dog, not so good for you).

So I had almost 1 cup of fresh NJ blueberries leftover from the weekend. Past experience indicates blueberries do NOT make good margaritas, so it seemed I needed to go in a solid direction. I saw a delicious recipe on a blog I follow, but true to form, I didn’t have enough blueberries to make the full recipe (nor a lemon, nor the brown sugar). So I did what I usually do — make a substitution or two.

Generally when I deviate from a recipe, it’s not so much that I feel the need to IMPROVE upon it, but rather, I’m missing one or more ingredients. Sometimes it’s a home run, sometimes just a lame imitation. I think this one is a good solid double. We’ll see what the Culinary Guinea Pig says

Since I was a hair light on blueberries, and didn’t have the brown sugar to make the streusel, I looked around for something to amp up the flavor alongside the blueberries — and found the bottom of a bag of crystallized ginger in the top of my pantry. It was the perfect POP of flavor that I was looking for … I hope you agree!

Blueberry Ginger Muffins, adapted from Heather Christo Cooks’ Lemon Blueberry Streusal Muffins

1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 – 3 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons bottled lime or lemon juice
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare 10 standard muffin cups with paper liners (have one or two extra liners just in case).

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt (I like to use the whisk from stand mixer as a hand whisk for this). Toss in the ginger pieces and use your fingers to ensure they are separated and lightly coated with flour. Set aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle beater, mix the oil, sugar, egg, and citrus juice until well combined.

STOP mixer. Dump in half of the dry ingredients and mix on low until incorporated.
STOP mixer. Add the buttermilk and mix on low until incorporated.
STOP mixer. Add the second half of the dry ingredients and mix on low until incorporated.

Remove the bowl from the mixer stand and fold in the blueberries by hand.

Fill the lined muffin cups about 2/3 full of batter. Bake the muffins at 375 degrees for 12 minutes. Rotate the pan and cook another 4 to 6 minutes until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (or with only a few crumbs).

Makes about 10 muffins.

Om nom nom nom.