Flourless zucchini brownies

I have not made flourless brownies with a secret ingredient in them since the great U2 incident of September 2009. Loved the show, hated the traffic. Ate almost the entire pan of brownies with a friend while waiting to get out of the parking lot. I liked them, but the thought of them still stresses me out. I may still have PTSD from that four hour ride (that shouldn't have taken longer than 50 minutes), but I digress. It is time for a new "secret ingredient" brownie.

I saw this recipe posted on a friend's facebook page this past week. I figured, why not-we have insane amounts of zucchini from our CSA haul last week, and I had just about every other ingredient in the house just waiting to be used. Plus-and this is a bonus-it looked pretty easy. Aside from grating the zucchini, of course, and even that wasn't all that bad. *Almost* a one bowl dish (I used a grater and a plate to hold the zucchini, so I can't really call it a one bowl brownie recipe. Technically.). I was in a baking mood this weekend and wanted to try something new.

As I made these, Adam came downstairs, lured by the smells coming from the oven. Unfortunately (well, fortunately for me), once he discovered that it was chocolate baking, he didn't feel the need to taste test. See, the good thing for me is that Adam doesn't care much for chocolate, so I get to eat all of it in the house. The bad thing for me is that Adam doesn't care much for chocolate, so I have to eat all of it in the house. Normally I wouldn't complain, but I can't justify eating a whole pan of brownies by myself. So I did the next best thing, and I brought them to work.

I'll admit that I was a little bit embarrassed when mention of the brownies made it into today's staff meeting (but welcome to you guys if you're reading this!). I was excited that they were such a hit, though. I loved them too-soft, chocolate-y, a little nutty hint (kind of like a chocolate peanut butter). It uses my new favorite, almond butter, and the only bad thing about that is that I'm now out of it and have to head back to Trader Joe's for more (I enjoy my almond butter and raspberry jam sandwiches on Fridays, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.). These brownies were sweet, but not sickly sweet. Soft and gooey, but not so gooey that they couldn't be eaten without falling apart (unless you ate two straight out of the oven like I did). You can hardly tell that there's zucchini in it, and these brownies work for those who want to eat better but want to pretend they're cheating. They're gluten-free, even (if that's your thing. If it's not, you really don't miss it here anyway). How could you go wrong?

I'll tell you how. When the pan is empty.


 Flourless Zucchini Brownies (recipe obtained from delightedmomma.com)

1 c. almond butter (I love Trader Joe's raw almond butter, and they're not as expensive as some other brands. Sometimes you can luck out at Market Basket too)
1.5 c. shredded zucchini (about 1-2 zucchini)
1/3 c. honey
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 12 oz. bag of dark chocolate chips (the original recipe calls for just one cup. I like my brownies extra chocolate-y!)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place all ingredients into a medium bowl and mix well. Line your 8x8 baking pan with foil or parchment paper, then put baking spray over it to prevent sticking. Pour batter into pan and make sure it is evenly spread out. Bake brownies for about 40 minutes (some ovens might need about five minutes more or less). When a knife inserted into the center comes back clean, they're ready!

Buttered Popcorn Ice Cream

I'm sure you think that, from the look of my last few posts, all I make at home during the summer is ice cream.

....well, you're right. Kind of.

In between making recipes with the food we've been getting from our produce and fish shares each week, there is plenty of ice cream in this house.  Though we still go to our favorite ice cream place down the road for special occasions (watching Big Brother! Long day at work! It's too hot out to do anything except eat ice cream for dinner!), I've seen some interesting recipes that I couldn't not try. Besides, if they turned out to be awful, all we need to do is hop in the car for a little bit of black raspberry or chocolate peanut butter for her, and butter crunch or black raspberry for him.

I stumbled along this recipe at least a month or so ago. I skimmed it quickly, then almost dumped the recipe-all because it had eggs involved. Though I love eggs, I have a very hard time cooking things like ice cream or curds with them-without a doubt I'll scramble the eggs, no matter how careful I am. Since this recipe also included eggs, I actually stopped reading it and went searching on the internet for a Philadelphia-style (no eggs) duplicate. Of which none existed-that I could find, anyway. So I went back to the recipe and read it again, where I found that it wasn't a traditional type custard like I had seen, where you combined the eggs into the hot liquid and prayed it wouldn't curdle. This time, you cooked the dairy, let it cool, combined it with the egg yolk mixture, then heated it through together. I liked this option much better.

The weird thing here is the popcorn. I had no idea what to expect. Would it be too salty? Would it be too buttery? Would it even taste sweet at all? When I finally got a bite, I found that the ice cream kind of reminded me of the jelly belly buttered popcorn flavor. A little bit sweet, really rich, and an aftertaste that kind of made you want to take another bite. Then another. (In full disclosure, though I generally don't care for jelly beans, the Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn is the only flavor I used to like.) I tried to follow the directions on this recipe and instead of adding the caramel corn to the actual mixture, I put it on top, like I would chocolate sprinkles. This way, I got the richness of the buttered popcorn combined with the crunchy sweetness of the caramel corn, finishing it off with a velvety sweetness at the end (I really don't know where all this descriptive is coming from. I'm going to blame it on excessive watching of the Food Network).

I don't know if I'll be feeling like making this ice cream as often as I would coffee oreo, vanilla, or salted caramel. Knowing what this one tastes like, though, and that I can not only do it successfully, but also keep in my wheelhouse of ideas for unique flavors, makes me feel like this could be a good party-type ice cream. If you're feeling like something a little different, this ice cream is certainly for you.

Buttered Popcorn Ice Cream (recipe from Serious Eats)

• 2 c. heavy cream
• 1 c. whole milk
• 2 c. freshly popped butter-flavored popcorn (the recipe recommends using a microwave buttered flavor popcorn, to infuse the flavors better. I used Orville Redenbacher movie theatre butter, which also was able to be purchased in boxes with single serving bags. When popped, it came very close to the 2 cup amount).
• 6 egg yolks
• 3/4 c. sugar
• Salt, to taste
• Optional: 1 c. Cracker Jacks or caramel corn, roughly crushed

In a medium sized pot, bring milk and cream to a minimum simmer, with bubbles around the edges, but not at a boil. Remove from heat, stir in cooked popcorn, cover, and let steep for 1 hour.

In a second pot, mix together egg yolks and sugar well, by a whisk, until the mixture is thickened slightly. Place, covered, in refrigerator until the popcorn/dairy mixture has finished steeping.

Pour popcorn/dairy mixture through a fine mesh strainer into pot with egg-sugar mixture, then whisk quickly until well mixed together. Make sure to press on strained popcorn with a spoon against the strainer to squeeze out all remaining dairy.

Put saucepan on medium heat. Stir occasionally as it cooks, until a custard forms on the back of a spoon but a swiped finger across the back leaves a clean line. Add salt to taste. Strain custard-like mixture into a covered container and chill overnight.

When you are ready to make the ice cream, put the mixture into an ice cream maker, and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. If using Cracker Jacks or caramel corn, crush them in a plastic bag using a rolling pin while the ice cream is churning. The caramel corn does not need to be pulverized-just smashed into smaller pieces. Scoop into a bowl, and add some crushed popcorn pieces on top. 

Strawberry Shortcake Bars

A few months ago, I read about a recipe online. I don't remember what the recipe was now, but I do remember reading that it came from a cookbook that was about making classic foods from childhood-fruit roll ups, cheese-its, poptarts, and even peeps! I didn't need any more convincing; I had to have this cookbook.

Of course I had the best intentions, and the cookbook sat, well read but not really used, for several months. 

Over the past few weeks, we have gotten lots of strawberries in our weekly farm share and from our  weekly farmer's market. I've made strawberry rhubarb pie, strawberry banana bread, and strawberry freezer jam. I remembered this recipe and went to check to see if I had all the ingredients to make it, and lo, found I was out of strawberries. Good thing I was headed to the store this weekend.

I remember eating strawberry shortcake bars (and their close sibling, chocolate eclair bars) as a kid, and though I didn't have them often, I always had a soft spot for them. I haven't had any in years, so when I saw this recipe, I was intrigued. I really wanted to try them and see if they were actually as good as I remembered them. 

On a side note, I was curious about the same thing when Hostess declared bankruptcy last year. I went out and bought a few packages of cupcakes to split with my sister and a friend (cupcakes only because every store I went to was out of twinkies already). They were okay, but really not as good as I remembered them. As a kid, though, there were very few things I didn't eat, and fewer things I didn't like! I was hoping that these strawberry shortcake bars wouldn't fall into the same trap that the Hostess cupcakes kind of did.

Although this recipe isn't terribly difficult, it is time consuming and can be frustrating if things don't set properly. Part of my problem might have been cheap popsicle molds, and three out of four of them came out in pieces when it came time for me to assemble them. Adam and I made lemonade out of lemons with those, if you will, and put them in a bowl with vanilla ice cream and the crumbs on top and ate it with a spoon. It didn't have the same feeling as eating it off of a stick, but still pretty tasty. The ice cream overchurned, possibly due to me putting the whole vanilla mixture into the freezer to quick-freeze it instead of putting it all in the fridge for the day, but once it sat out for a bit, was melted enough to spread it over the bar. 

When I finally ate the one lonely bar that made it all the way through the process tonight, I was brought back. I think I needed a wooden popsicle stick to make the whole experience complete, but the plastic mold was a nice consolation prize. It was interesting to bite into the bar rather than eat it with a spoon. If I can master getting the molds out intact next time, I'd love to perfect the technique and make it look much prettier rather than do a rushed job to make sure things don't melt too quickly. 

This is most definitely a weekend project, but it's so worth it when they're done.

Strawberry Shortcake Bars (recipe from Classic Snacks Made From Scratch)

For strawberry ice cream:
1 16 oz. bag of frozen strawberries, thawed
1/2 c. whipping cream
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch

To make strawberry ice cream:
Place the first three ingredients into a blender or a food processor. Blend and pulse together until you have a thick puree. Add the sugar and cornstarch and blend together for another minute. The mixture will look very much like a strawberry smoothie at this point. Pour the mixture into six popsicle molds and freeze.

For vanilla ice cream:
1.5 c. whipping cream
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

To make vanilla ice cream:
Put the cream into a pot and bring it to a minimum simmer over medium low heat. It is ready when the cream is steaming with small bubbles along the side of the pan. Bring the pot off of the heat and mix in the sugar and vanilla until fully blended. Put the mixture into a bowl and cover it, then refrigerate for at least four hours or put it in the freezer for at least two hours. (I wanted instant gratification, so I froze it).

For cake crumbs:
1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 c. powdered milk
3 Tbsp. powdered freeze-dried strawberries
1 Tbsp. powdered sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

To make cake crumbs:
Place a small bag of freeze-dried strawberries in a spice grinder or a food processor (I found my strawberries at Trader Joe's). Pulse until it becomes a powder, then transfer 3 Tbsp. to a bowl (you will have extra, save it for the next time you make these!). Whisk the flour, powdered milk, the now-powdered strawberries, the powdered sugar, and the cornstarch together until fully combined. Melt the butter, and cool down a little bit. Combine the butter and the dry ingredients together gently to make rough cake-like crumbs and clumps.

To put the bars together:
When the vanilla base is ready and chilled, put it in an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacture instructions (I froze mine for 25 minutes and found it overchurned slightly, so I had to let it re-melt a bit to make sure it would spread across the bars easily. Just keep checking it as it is in the maker).

Take the strawberry popsicles out of the molds (I put the molds in a bowl of warm water to try and loosen it) and place on a sheet tray with wax paper. Using a strong rubber spatula, spread the vanilla ice cream entirely over the strawberry layer. Sprinkle the cake crumbs along each side, covering the vanilla ice cream layer completely, and gently pressing the crumbs into the popsicle to make sure they stick. Place the bars on the sheet and let it refreeze for at least one hour.

Creamsicle Ice Cream

I have been on an ice cream making kick lately. Not necessarily by choice, but rather , on request. Over the course of the last month, I have made 9 quarts of ice cream. Luckily, 6 of them were repeats: I made vanilla bean, coffee oreo, and salted caramel for one friend's birthday party, salted caramel, key lime pie, and coffee oreo for Adam's birthday, and salted caramel, coffee oreo, and mint chocolate chip for another friends' birthday party.

...the obvious question here is why am I not posting recipes about coffee oreo or salted caramel ice cream here? Well, you see, I'm a little tired of making those at the moment and I didn't take pictures the first, second, or third time I made them. All in due time.

Today, however, I came home from work and was craving ice cream. For the first time in awhile, the temperatures hit 80 or above in Boston, and it is glorious out. Why I'm not hearing an ice cream truck driving around right now is mind-boggling-those guys would make a killing today. I thought about making key lime pie ice cream again, but was looking at a recipe book for old-school favorites, and came across...strawberry shortcake ice cream bars. There are a lot of steps to that particular recipe, but it looked so appealing, and reminded me of eating them as a kid.  In some roundabout way, that made me think of creamsicles. Those strawberry shortcake bars, like the caramel and coffee oreo ice creams, will be put on the short list for another hot day.

Ice cream, as a general rule, is not really all that difficult. I actually said that to a friend of mine this week, and she responded "you say that about every recipe!" True, I might say that, but ice cream really can be simple if you pick the right recipes. I don't use a custard base (which will make me temper eggs) because I always scramble the egg into the hot milk mixture I have. I use Philadelphia-style recipes instead, which have cream and milk as the base. I also have an ice cream maker, which I found on Amazon for about $30, refurbished, a few years ago. That little machine has gotten quite the workout (especially over the last few weeks) and has been worth every penny.

Creamsicle ice cream is the easy way out for a creamsicle fanatic. It's got all the taste without the extra work to have a vanilla ice cream center and an orange outside. It makes me think of warm summer days and makes me hungry for more ice cream. Best of all, it's fruity, so it gives me a false illusion that I am eating something healthy.

Creamsicle Ice Cream (recipe obtained from thehappygirlexperiment.com)

1 c. whole milk

2 c.  heavy cream

3/4 c. sugar

1 vanilla bean, or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

zest from one orange

1/2 teaspoon orange extract

Make sure that the ice cream bowl is completely frozen; often they need about 5-6 hours to completely freeze in the freezer. I generally keep mine in there all the time so it is ready when I need it.

Combine the milk, heavy cream, and sugar in a bowl and whisk vigorously until completely blended, about one to two minutes. Add in the scraped contents of one vanilla bean or the vanilla extract, the orange zest and orange extract, and whisk to combine. Place in fridge to chill for one to two hours.

When ready to churn, place mixture in the frozen ice cream bowl and churn according to manufacturer instructions. Generally ice cream takes between 25-30 minutes to gel completely together. Place in freezer safe container and let ripen for a few hours, or just eat directly from the bowl. 

Salsa Verde Turkey Burger

...hello?...hello? Is this thing on?

Yes, I haven't been around in awhile, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of recipes I could talk about. Honestly, I'm not sure why I haven't posted in awhile, but I have been trying new recipes, and will hopefully be getting around to posting them soon.

I digress, I'm supposed to be talking about turkey burgers.

I found this recipe while I was browsing on pinterest (which I still don't really get, honestly). I was looking for something different to make for dinner, and was specifically looking for a recipe that I could use with the frozen chicken in our freezer. So of course I picked the recipe that had the ground turkey, not the one with chicken breasts (well, I did, but I wanted to try these first).

When I think of burgers, I really don't think of turkey burgers all that much. I love a nice rare red meat burger, loaded with cheese, tomato, extra pickle, and bacon (if I'm feeling ambitious enough to make the bacon). I may be one of few these days that enjoys my red meat on the rare side-though I don't often eat them that way if I'm with people who I know don't like rare meat. I know it grosses some people out, so I compromise, and order it medium rare, which is still pretty tasty. We grew up eating burgers pretty rare, so that's what I'm used to.

Turkey, on the other hand, can't be eaten rare. Y'know, salmonella and all.

When I stumbled across this recipe, I decided it was going to have to be something I wanted to try. I quite enjoy salsa verde (maybe more than regular salsa?) and this looked like it would have a nice kick to it. At the very least, I was pretty sure that at least Adam might enjoy the heat in this burger, so at least we might be one for two in the dish satisfaction department, since I'm still getting used to a lot of heat in my dishes (spice wise, not temperature wise).

There is a lot of heat in this one. I only found salsa verde with jalapeno, so there's that. I was looking for whole wheat breadcrumbs at the store and came home with chipotle panko crumbs instead. The burger's topped with pepperjack cheese, which added even more bite.The original recipe called for green tomatoes, but they're not in season yet, so I went with a regular tomato. I topped it with an avocado "mayonnaise" that was in the recipe, but made it with greek yogurt since that's what I had. I put it in between two slices of whole wheat pita (so that I could taste the burger but still get a good crunch), and I made my trusty sweet potato fries and a salad to have alongside it.

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this burger. I tasted the heat throughout, like  the spice would come back around and hit me again after I'd swallowed each bite. The avocado "mayo" gave it a buttery, cooler afterthought. I really liked this one. The only drawback was that the original recipe said to broil it in the oven, and I am constantly burning things I mean to broil, so I grilled it on the stove instead, and watched the thing fall apart when I flipped it over. The good thing is that cheese hides a lot of those errors, and also holds it together! It made sense though-the burger is pretty wet to start when raw, and I may not have let it sit for long enough (though in my defense, I had it on the grill for about ten minutes a side on high heat). In the end, it was all about easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, which is what I need on a Friday night after a long week. This recipe fit that bill, and then some. Good thing I have more patties stored in the freezer right now so I can have this again for lunch tomorrow and dinner tomorrow night.

Salsa Verde Turkey Burger (recipe adapted from www.closetcooking.com)
1 pound ground turkey (I was looking for the italian ground turkey, but had trouble finding it. I bet it would make it even spicier!)
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1/4 c. bread crumbs (I used chipotle panko)
1/2 c. salsa verde (jarred is okay)
pepper jack cheese, one slice for each burger
1 avocado
1/2 c. mayonnaise (I used plain greek yogurt)
1 clove garlic (grated) (I used a small amount of minced garlic)
pita bread, toasted
green tomatoes (sliced) or pickled green tomatoes (sliced) (I found none of these tonight, and so a regular tomato did just fine)

Directions:
Mix the turkey, egg, breadcrumbs and salsa verde in a bowl. Form 4-5 patties and place them on a hot griddle on the stove (alternately, make the patties and freeze them individually, on a sheet pan in the freezer, then put in separate freezer bags. This way you have burgers anytime you want them. They can either be defrosted in the fridge or, if you are short on time, place the freezer bag in a bowl of cold water for about ten-fifteen minutes). Grill for about ten minutes a side on high heat. Put the cheese slices on the patties and melt for 2-3 minutes more. In the meantime, combine the avocado, greek yogurt, and garlic in a bowl, and mash together until you have a nice spread. Slice the tomatoes to your desired thickness, and split and toast the pita. Spread some of the avocado mayo on the bottom half, and top with a burger and a slice of tomato.