Last month, Sara and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary by taking a class together at the Kitchen Window. The class was called “Happy Hour Ice Creams and Sorbets”, and we did very well by that theme with vanilla stout ice cream, cherry merlot ice cream, chocolate whiskey ice cream, and peach champagne granitas. Our group also came up with this great slush recipe, and since it seems to be the Summer of Slushies, this should fit right in.
Pomegranate Lime Slush
2 1/2 C water
1 C sugar
1/3 C fresh lime juice
1/2 C vodka
1 C pomegranate juice
1 tsp grated lime zest
1. Bring water & sugar to a boil in a saucepan. Simmer, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes.
2. Stir together sugar water and remaining ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Freeze mixture, flaking the crystals with a fork every hour or so to keep it slushy. (In our class they froze it in 9×13 pans so it would be easier to flake — this isn’t absolutely necessary, though)
Note: we didn’t actually do the fork-flaking every hour part. If you’re not worried about having perfect, big ice flakes, it also works to just let it thaw a little before serving.
Between our CSA and our backyard, we’ve had to eat rhubarb almost every day for the past few weeks. So far, I’ve made 2 crisps, 1 batch of muffins, and 1 pie. Here are some pictures and recipe locations.
Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp
Recipe from Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook (1996). So good I made it two weekends in a row.
Rhubarb Muffins
Recipe from Allrecipes. I took a suggestion from the comments and added 1/2 tsp cinnamon to the batter and another 1/2 tsp cinnamon to the sugar sprinkled on top. A good weekday snack.
Rhubarb Raspberry Pie
I love making pies. I actually thought I’d try a store-bought crust this time, but I discovered that they’re all made with lard, so I bought shortening instead and made my own — more tiring, but also more satisfying (for me, at least). This pie and crust recipe are both from Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook (1996). The recipe doesn’t actually call for raspberries, but that’s what I was craving, so I adapted the Strawberry Rhubarb Pie recipe. Next time I’ll look for a different recipe. This was good, but had too much sugar (2 cups). The crust was great, though.
I believe I’ve mentioned that we’ve had some birthdays around here.
It’s becoming a tradition that Sara requests this chocolate peanut butter cake every year. It’s a sour cream chocolate cake topped with peanut butter cream cheese frosting, and a chocolate peanut butter glaze. This cake just wins.
Our dear friend, Angela, also had a birthday, and requested a red velvet cake. Actually, it was more of an off-hand suggestion, but I take all cake requests seriously.
Three notes on the red cake:
1. Recipe calls for 6 Tbs red food coloring. 3 Tbs is PLENTY.
2. This cake may or may not have given me indigestion (it’s one of several suspects). The important thing is that I did not food poison the birthday girl.
3. New cake stand + dome keeps cats out of the cakes. It does not keep them out of the powdered sugar, though:
I’m not really big on V-day (unless it’s for ending violence against women), but it seemed like as good a reason as any to try out the Chewy Brownies recipe in my March/April 2010 issue of Cook’s Illustrated.
And holy crap. They’re good. Really, track down a copy of this magazine, and make these brownies. I also took their advice and splurged on the Sharffen Berger and Ghiradelli chocolate to use in it. Not a waste. I mean really, just look at these again:
Time: About 1 hour plus a couple hours to cool off.
