“one ingredient ice cream”

if you read food-related interweb pages at all (besides this one, of course. and if you don’t, who could blame you?!), you have no doubt heard of THE MOST AMAZING, DELICIOUS, HEALTHY, AND EASY ONE INGREDIENT ICE CREAM.

because it seems like everyone is yelling about it.

so obviously i had to give it a try.

turns out the one secret ingredient is frozen banana. take several (i used five. yes, five, even though there are four in the picture) ripe – but not too brown – bananas and slice them into chunks. freeze at least overnight, or until you open your freezer and they remind you to go back to them.

then apparently all you do is throw them in a food processor and blend until smooth. on the interwebs, this is a miracle akin to the second coming.

you can also – apparently – add mix-ins (like at coldstone!) like chocolate chips, fudge, nuts, frozen berries, mini marshmallows, whatever.

i used 1/3 cup chocolate chips, 1/3 cup peanuts, and all the peanut butter left in the jar (about 1/4 cup) because, why not? if i had had coconut, i would have added that, too, and called it “dirty monkey.”

you can put the mix-ins in whenever, but i wanted mine a little chopped up, so i put them in early.

well, the first go of the food processor didn’t work quite well. i think the banana may have been too frozen, because it didn’t get the least bit creamy, only chunky.

so i let it sit for a couple minutes while i wrote this, and finally, after a lot of stopping and starting and stirring and thinking that my machine was going to overheat, it finally did what it was supposed to do.

it got creamy.

and i have to say…

it’s THE MOST AMAZING, DELICIOUS, HEALTHY, AND EASY ONE INGREDIENT ICE CREAM!

shredded brussels sprouts

i still use miss erin’s balsamic brussels sprouts recipe every time i make them. it’s the best and only way to eat brussels sprouts, if you ask me.

this time, he bought the ‘sprouts and they were so big, they were practically small cabbages.

(wine glass is only there to provide you some sense of scale. of course. i never cook and drink…)

so cut the ends off and peel off the outside layers. rather than just cutting them in half the long way like i usually do, though, i cut them the short way, into ribbons.

toss with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

then lay out on a pan

and roast until brown and crispy!

sauce with honey and balsamic.

mmmm. not only do they take less time to roast then when halved, they have more surface area for browning!

i served with tomato and white bean glop on polenta.

brown rice bowl with lemongrass, tofu, and cashews

unfortunately, this recipe sounded great, but didn’t turn out as well as i hoped.

for all the flavorful ingredients i put in, it didn’t taste like much…

plus, i used quick cook brown basmati rice from trader joes and it was TERRIBLE. awful, mush texture and really odd flavor.

BUT

what i did like – and have used again since – was the technique for baking tofu. this is what they say:

Rinse and drain tofu. Cut tofu into 1/2-inch thick slices and place between clean kitchen towels (or paper towels). Place a heavy object such as a skillet or cutting board on top to press out excess liquid. Let sit 15 minutes.

Cut tofu into 1/2-inch cubes and toss in a bowl with 2 tablespoons soy sauce.

Lightly oil a baking sheet and spread the tofu cubes evenly on the sheet. Bake tofu for 15 minutes at 350 degrees and flip over. Continue baking for about 10-15 minutes until tofu is toasted and chewy. Remove from oven.

the only change i make is to marinate it in more complex sauce – soy sauce, fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic powder, a little peanut oil.

it’s fabulous. once it’s baked, you can add it to fried rice, salad, stir fry. or eat it plain. yeah, i’ve done that.

leaf and stem pistou

in the spirit of saving and using everything, tamar wants you to turn the left over stems, leaves, and other green parts of veggies that you usually throw away into “pistou,” a garlicy green sauce that is good for spooning over meats, adding to soup, schmearing on bread, etc.

so here i go…

add 1/2 a cup olive oil, some salt, and three garlic cloves. simmer until soft, then blend (oops, turns out my food processor isn’t quite water-tight…), and keep in the fridge.

when you’re getting ready to use it somewhere, you may want to gussy it up first, like adding a good handful of parm, for example, or more olive oil. i made pistou pasta and pistou pizza!

i also froze what was leftover. he always complains that we never have any ice around because i use the ice cube tray for food. guess i do…

will i cook like this every week? i’m not sure. but literally throwing nothing away (except the garlic papers, and i’ll bet tamar would have used them somewhere, too!) was a pretty awesome experience.

roasting vegetables i hadn’t thought to roast before

i’m reading tamar adler‘s inspirational book “an everlasting meal.” the emphasis is on simplicity, health, minimizing waste, and using leftovers from one meal as the basis for another. one thing she encourages you to do is roast a whole bunch of vegetables at the beginning of the week and eat them in different forms for the next few days. that’s my kind of cooking, so i decided to give it a try.

but she recommends using vegetables that i hadn’t thought to roast before, like cauliflower and broccoli.

i’m sure she’d be proud that i also threw in two old sweet potatoes that i didn’t know what to do with, and some carrots from a bag i got to snack on that were too big to snack on.

oil and salt everything (“things that grow together, go together” – as in, root vegetables can cook together, things with florets – brocoli and cauliflower – can cook together)

and roast at 400 degrees until they are “completely tender.”

she also recommends an unusual (at least to me) way to cut your cauliflower:

sort of like bread slices, not by floret.

and she wants you to keep all the stems and leaves, etc to make “pistou.” more on that later…

basically the point is not to waste anything, so i think she’d be proud when all i ended up with was:

as for the veggie themselves, i was most skeptical about the broccoli, which i’ve always been taught to keep as close to uncooked as possible.

but i ate them all week with some rice and an onion-caper-anchovy-mustard vinegarette.

it was good and filling and easy and felt super healthy. not the best for summer, obviously, but a great way to get your veggies in the off-season.

tips for melting chocolate

i had to use up the rest of the cake, so i decided to make another batch of bonbons. these are chocolate inside, chocolate outside, and flakey salt on top! man, were they a huge hit…

as i mentioned, i’m getting better at working with melted chocolate. the secret, i’m learning, is not to get it too hot. yes, you want it to melt, but that’s it.

the technique i’m going with at the moment is to boil the water in your pot (or bottom of the double-boiler, if you are so luck as to have one…), put the bowl on top, and turn off the burner but keep the pot on it.

then eventually when the water stops simmering, you can turn the burner back on to low.

the point is that i used to keep the water at a ranging boil under there the whole time, and that just mistreated the chocolate and kept it from behaving well!

chocolate-covered candied orange slices

candying is a method of preserving, like canning or salting. since it’s winter and we’re all trying to stave off the scurvy, i thought i’d make some candied orange peel. you know, for medical purposes… chocolate-dipping optional (as if adding chocolate to anything ever is actually optional).

this is one of those kitchen things that sounds scary and hard to do, but is actually totally easy and not labor-intensive at all. you will totally impress your friends, and keep them from getting scurvy at the same time. #winning

start by buying two organic oranges and washing them very very well. this is important because you’re going to eat the rind, and you don’t want all those nasty pesticides undoing the healthful benefits of eating citrus.

cut each orange in half, and then into half-moons, like so:

meanwhile, bring one and a half cups of sugar to a boil in 3 cups of water.

when it’s boiling, turn it down to a simmer and add your oranges.

simmer for one hour and 45 minutes. or so. your house will smell amazing, assuming you like the smell of oranges…

(note: i realized about halfway in that i didn’t have enough liquid, so i adjusted the recipe. i have given you my adjusted amounts here.)

when the oranges look all glossy and sugary, they are ready to come out.

use a fork or a slotted spoon (be careful because depending on how thick you cut your half-moons, they may be a little fragile. oh, and they are wicked hot) and move them to pieces of waxed paper.

let cool/dry at least five hours. i left mine out overnight, then threw them in the fridge for two days until i was ready to chocolate-dip them. if you want to go head and eat them now, please feel free.

if you want to take them to the next level, go buy yourself some candy-making chocolate. i found this bag at a local party store, but a big grocery store probably has some, too.

this is not the highest quality chocolate, but it’s made for melting and rehardening and molding candy and such.

melt the chocolate in a double boiler, or in a make-shift double boiler if you don’t own one.

there’s about two inches of simmering water in the pan, which is heating the bowl and melting the chocolate.

make sure not to get even a single drop of water in your chocolate, or it will seize up. this is bad. if it happens, google “seized chocolate” and you will find tips for unseizing it.

anyway, using your fingers or a fork or whatever works for you, dip your slices in the melted chocolate and gently scrape off the excess, depending on how thick you want your chocolate layer.

put slices back on waxed paper and chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

battling scurvy never tasted so delicious…

beef stock cubes

dealing with leftovers after the holiday always makes me nervous. i hate throwing out food, so i stretch everything as far as i possibly can, and i really bend over backwards to use everything up.

remember what we did to save fresh herbs?

you can do the same with beef stock, chicken broth, or whatever you didn’t use on turkey day.

freeze it up in your ice cube tray (then wash your ice cube tray very well!) and save to drop into soups or to make quick gravies.

refrigerating bananas

i keep my bananas in the fridge, and people always give me weird looks.

yes, the skin gets black, but the flesh stays as ripe as the day you put them in. this is important for someone who buys ten bananas on sunday and needs to keep them from rotting throughout the week…

whole foods says so.

saving leftover fresh herbs

if you end up with too much of a fresh herb (in this case, basil) that you’re not going to be able to use up before it goes bad, don’t throw it away!

instead, put it in a blender or food processor with enough oil to make a paste.

then spoon it into an ice cube tray

and freeze.

when it’s hard, you can pop the cubes out and store them in a plastic baggie in the freezer.

use it whenever you need some of fresh herb in a sauce or soup or whatever, all year long.