Ice Ice Baby

But it's not vanilla flavoured.

So, I don't have an ice cream maker of my own. Recipe Guy's was a ton of fun to play with, but it lives at his house, so when I want to have home made frozen treats, I have to improvise.

It's not really improvisation though. It's just old school. Before ice cream makers, you just had to keep stirring. Just keep stirring.

But, since I'm really kinda lazy, I only stirred every half hour or so. This is the perfect recipe for hot lazy summers. Little work, lots of payoff. And believe it or not, it's actually almost healthy.

Melon Sorbet

What you need:

• 1/2 a cantaloupe
• 2 plums
• a few berries
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp your favourite booze
• 1/4 c water
• 1/4 c sugar
• a chunk of ginger
• 1 vanilla bean

What you gotta do:

Peel and slice your chunk of ginger. Put the sugar, ginger, vanilla bean and water in a pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Let it boil for a few minutes, then remove it from the heat and let it cool. Fish out the ginger and the bean.

I did this ahead of time and had some already handy, but Taneasha did it too when she made limeade, if you need the visual.

To your simple syrup (that's what you just made), add your lemon juice, orange juice, and booze. I had rose liqueur on hand, but melon, lemon, lime, vanilla, or even mint would work too.

Now, the fruit. Really, any combination would work, but there's something about cantaloupes that lends it perfectly to sorbet. The plums add contrast with their nice dark skins, and the berries fill it out with tartness. You may be tempted to add more berries. I was. It was way too tart and tangy. Go easy on them, and let them be a decoration and a source of colour rather than a main ingredient.

Dump all the chopped fruit into the food processor.

Give it a whirl.

Still a little chunky. Just right. Put the lid back on and start drizzling in your syrup/juice/booze combo.

Once it's nice and smooth, pour it into a pan.

Any shallow pan will work. You want shallow to take advantage of surface area. It'll cool and freeze faster and you'll have a sweet summer treat faster. Alternatively you could add more booze and pour it into a tall glass with an umbrella.

If you are determined to wait for something a little more frozen, pop it into the freezer.

After about half an hour or so, it'll be starting to harden around the edges.

Your goal for the next hour and a half or so is to not let it. Bust up all the frozen chunks and stir. What you're doing here is the same thing the ice cream maker does. So, yes, you could do this in the ice cream maker too. You're preventing large ice crystals from forming, and encouraging small ice crystals to form. Much more fun and tastier to eat.

So, after turning it back into a slurry, pop it back into the freezer for another 20 minutes.

It'll be harder and harder each time. Now, doesn't that sound fun. ;)

Eventually, you won't want to stir it any more.

You'll want to scrape it out of the pan (letting it warm on the counter for a few minutes first helps) and put it into bowls. You may even want to top it with whipped cream.

Or, you may eat it so fast you forget to take pics of it.

What's your favourite fast and easy summer treat??

Pistachio Porn

Around the same time I posted the request for recipe requests, I also asked the guys at work. Most of them defer and claim they’ll love anything I make. I think they’re just afraid I’ll stop bringing them cookies if they offer any critical feedback. Anyone who’s ever critiqued my writing knows that’s just not true. I’ve been absolutely shredded in the past and I’m still… um, if I wasn’t in school I’d still be… writing.

Fortunately, we’ve got a new guy at work.

When I told him I’d make anything, any recipe that would challenge me, but still fit in the magic cookie tin, he came back with this:

Indian Spice Cookies

Wow. Neat! I’ve used garam masala in curries, but I’d never seen garam masala used in a dessert.

Garam masala isn’t a spice on it’s own, so this isn’t quite like making a snickerdoodle which has the cinnamon on the outside… and it’s not quite like a gingersnap. Ginger snaps use a mixture of spices, but they’re all “sweet” spices. Garam masala includes things like cumin (used in making chilli and curry) and black pepper!

I was so making these things.

But of course I can’t just make a plain old cookie even if it was crazy spiced. But I didn’t want to mess with the reportedly soft and chewy texture by adding nuts or something, so I decided they needed some kind of prettying up. A little bit of icing never hurt any cookie. So I made a rosewater glaze and then pressed the damp glaze into finely chopped pistachios.

A bit of a gilded lily, yes, but I think the sweetness of the nuts and glaze worked well to balance the amazing bite of the cookies.

These went over amazingly well with the guys in the construction trailer. And yes, I know, I’m shooting fish in a barrel, but I figure if the cookies weren’t great, 6 guys wouldn’t have cleaned out the entire tin in half a day.

Unfortunately I didn’t actually have garam masala on hand. What I did have were many of the spices that often go into the mixtures that you find in the spice section. Those mixtures can vary in content, and in heat level so I made my own, and scaled down the more savoury spices. If you’ve got some in your cupboard already, give it a shot. If not, here’s what I did for mine:

Garam Masala:

• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 1/2 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves (I think I may have used allspice though)
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Put them all together in a jar and shake.

Now that you’ve got perfectly balanced garam masala, you can make the cookies.

What you need:

Cookies:

• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 tsp. Garam Masala
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Topping:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 tsp rosewater
• About 1/2 to 3/4 cup of very finely chopped pistachios

What you gotta do:

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Cream the butter and brown sugar.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.

If you feel like dirtying another dish, sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl. If not, pile the flour on one side, and put the other dry stuff on top.

Mix the dry stuff together a bit before starting to incorporate it into the wet part.

Spicey!

Drop teaspoons of dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment if you don’t want to have to wash it afterwards.

Bake the cookies for a mere 10 minutes. Watch them. Don’t let them get too brown. They’re quite golden in colour already and a little extra will have them looking too dark.

Cool them on a rack while you chop the nuts. 

put all the glaze ingredients (not the nuts) in a bowl and mix them.

Dip the cooled cookies into the glaze

and then press them into the nuts.

Once they’ve set, pack them up in the cookie tin, take them to work, and see if anyone can guess what they’re seasoned with.

I’m going to give Lyra Marlow’s suggestion of creamsicle cookies a shot in a couple weeks. And I’m really wondering how I can pull of angel’s suggestion of strawberry shortcake!

What’s the strangest ingredient you’ve ever put in a cookie or dessert??