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Archive for January, 2011

Triple Chocolate Ice Cream – Made with the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 5:15 pm

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We recently purchased the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker to review for our beautiful KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer, so naturally, we had to promptly set about trying out recipes from the manual that came with the ice cream maker.

Well! one that has become a firm favorite is the Triple Chocolate Ice Cream. This divinely decadent ice cream is not hard to make and the chocolate flavor just hits the taste buds with that overwhelming feeling of pure pleasure.

Ingredients:

450 ml (2 cups) whipping cream – divided
1 square 30g (1oz) extra dark chocolate cut into chunks
1 square 30g (1oz) dark chocolate cut into chunks
450 ml (2 cups) half-and-half (milk and cream)
230g (1 cup) sugar
40g unsweetened cocoa powder
8 egg yolks
4 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt
1 bar 50g (1.55oz) milk chocolate chopped

Directions:

In small saucepan, place 120ml whipping cream, extra dark chocolate, and dark chocolate.
Heat over medium-low heat until chocolate melts, stirring frequently.
Remove from heat; set aside.
In medium saucepan over medium heat, heat half-and-half until very hot but not boiling, stirring often.
Remove from heat, set aside.
In a small bowl, combine sugar and cocoa powder. Set aside.
Place egg yolks in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Turn to speed 2 and gradually add sugar mixture; mix about 30 seconds or until well blended and slightly thickened. Continuing on Speed 2, very gradually add chocolate mixture and half-and-half, mix until well blended.
Return the combined chocolate and half-and-half mixture to medium saucepan, stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until small bubbles form around edge and mixture is steamy. Do not boil. Transfer half and half mixture into large bowl; stir in remaining 330ml (1 1/2 cups) whipping cream, vanilla and salt.
Cover and chill thoroughly in the fridge for at least 8 hours.
If using the KitchenAid Ice Cream Attachment – Assemble and engage freeze bowl, dasher and drive assembly as directed in attachment instructions. Turn to STIR Speed (Speed 1)
Using a container with a spout, pour mixture into freeze bowl. Continue on STIR (Speed 1) for 19 to 15 minutes or until desired consistency, adding milk chocolate during last 1 to 2 minutes of freeze time. Immediately transfer ice cream into serving dishes, or freeze in an airtight container.

Yield: 16 servings 120ml (1/2 cup) per serving.

Trust me, this is one ice cream recipe that you will make over and over. I have yet to move onto the other ice cream recipes which I can tell from the ingredients will be just as nice, but chocolate is my weakness.

Some of the other ice cream recipes included in the manual are:

French Vanilla which can be served simply as vanilla ice cream or used as base for variations such as Strawberry ice cream and Cookies ‘n’ Cream ice cream
Caramel Pecan ice cream
Gingerbread ice cream

And then there are the delicious Sorbet’s etc

Creamy Lemon-Orange Gelato
Fresh Raspberry Sorbet
Minted Mango Sherbet.

However, there is nothing to stop you being inventive and using your own favorite recipe.

Melt the Chocolate

Heat the milk and cream

Combine the sugar and cocoa powder

Separate the eggs

Mix and reheat the mixture

Freeze mixture. Then Serve & Enjoy

Spring Soup Courtesy Jamie Oliver Recipe Yearbook 2010/2011

Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 8:38 pm

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Recently we have been getting back into cooking, thanks to Masterchef Australia, Nigella and of course Jamie Oliver. I had a friend over for dinner the other night and the Chicken Breasts with Prosciutto that I shared with you recently, was a big hit.

Well today for lunch we decided to make Spring Soup which is just one of the tasty recipes from Jamie’s Recipe Yearbook 2010/11 . This recipe is easy to prepare and absolutely yummy. I sure hope Jamie doesn’t mind me sharing this recipe with you. As there were just 2 of us for lunch we halved the ingredients, but if you make the full amount you can have the leftovers for lunch again, because this will taste just as nice the next day.

Spring Soup (serves 4 – 6)

Ingredients:

a large knob of butter (I also added a splash of olive oil)
4 shallots, sliced
400g baby leeks, sliced, (I used 1 large leek as there weren’t any baby leeks at the market)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (the baby processor did an admirable job)
1/2 bunch Thyme (fresh from my herb garden)
400g baby carrots, halved lenghtways (I like my carrots cut smaller so chopped them up to my liking)
8 chicken thighs or drumsticks, skin removed and discarded. (Chicken thighs have more flavor by I used a chicken breast that was in the freezer)
2 liters of chicken or vegetable stock
200g small soup pasta (didn’t have any so just used the pasta in the cupboard)
juice of 1 lemon.

Method - Jamie’s:

Melt the butter in a large pan on a low heat and saute the shallots, leeks and garlic with the thyme sprigs until soft but not colored – about 15 mins Stir in the carrots, then the chiken, Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Season, then simmer gently for 90 minutes.
Using a slotted spoon, remove the chicken from the soup and set aside. When cool enough to handle, shred the meat off the bone, then return to the pan with the pasta. Cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the pasta is tender. Add lemon juice to taste.

Tip: You can use leftover poached or roast chicken insted of the thighs or cooked, shredded drumsticks, just add the chicken at the end with the pasta.

Our Method:
We were pushed for time (needed to go shopping) so we took a few shortcuts.

The same -Melt the butter, add oil over a low heat and saute the shallots, leeks and garlic with the thyme sprigs until soft but not colored. Stir in the finely cut carrots and chicken which we had diced.
Add the stock and simmer for about 20 minutes.
Add the pasta and cook for another 15 minutes.
Omit the lemon juice
Fry up some prosciutto and crumble into the soup before serving.

Notes:
Okay, here’s what we found – the soup has a very intense flavor so next time I will use half stock and half water. I used lemon Thyme so I didn’t add the lemon juice and just as well because the lemony flavor was just right. We didn’t need the prosciutto to add flavor as the soup has plenty. We like proscuitto anyway so it didn’t matter.

The soup was served with a slice of Quinoa and Flax-seed Wholegrain bread.

There are a load of really tasty and easy to make recipes in the Jamie’s Recipe Yearbook 2010/11 , and we will be making many more in the coming weeks.