cooking ala mel

Rich Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

May 13, 2011

Anybody that knows me the tiniest bit knows how much I love ice cream. Alex got me an ice cream maker for Christmas that I could use in the dorm (with 12 oz. bowls), and my dad got our family a quart sized ice cream maker for at home..which no one actually used up until now. I’m planning on taking it with me when I move into the apartment; I’m obviously the only one that will use it!

Because it took too much work to lug things back and forth between the kitchen and my dorm room to make ice cream any fancier than just cream, cocoa powder, some sugar, and a bunch of crushed oreos, I never really branched out and tried anything extremely decadent. Although, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the simple chocolate oreo I’ve been making up until now. I could mix it all up in my room, and it tastes fantastic. You can’t go wrong with it. But I do want to make some better ice cream.

Being at home, I have a kitchen at my disposal, which means I can melt chocolate..dark chocolate.. without having to move anything back and forth other than the ice cream maker, since it’s kept in our basement! So of course I had to make an extremely chocolatey ice cream. And oooh is it rich. I think one scoop of this would be enough, which is absolutely insane – I can NEVER get enough ice cream.

I swoon to think of all the toppings I could use for this.. I first tried it with some butterscotch syrup (fantastic!), and I think some fresh berries would be pure heaven. Maybe some Reese’s? Or just a swirl of peanut butter? Oreos would always be good.. I’m going to have fun with this batch – I have a whole quart! But then again, I also have a family that loves ice cream just as much as I do. I’ll have to make more after tonight!

Chocolate Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop
2 ¼ cups half-and-half (I used fat free..it was all they had!)
6 T cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
6 oz. dark chocolate, chopped (I used Ghirardelli’s 86% bar and double chocolate bittersweet chocolate chips)
1 cup milk (I used fat free)
1 t vanilla
¼ t instant espresso powderWhisk the cream, cocoa powder, sugar and salt together in a large sauce pan. Heat until it comes to a full boil, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and whisk in the dark chocolate until completely melted. Add the milk, vanilla and instant espresso powder. Blend for 30 seconds with either a blender or an immersion blender until smooth to prevent any grittiness from the chocolate. Place into a medium bowl and chill in the fridge for about 4 hours. Pour into your ice cream maker and freeze according to its instructions. Freeze until firm, about four hours.

Baked BBQ Potato Chips

May 10, 2011

I brought home three potatoes that we had left from our pantry, and my parents already have pounds and pounds of potatoes. To use them up, I decided to make some potato chips..baked. I try not to have anything fried if I can manage it, so there’s nooo way I’d fry up potato chips! With the seasonings I used, it ended up tasting very similar to BBQ chips. Fantastic. Now I just have to keep myself from eating all of them..

Some of the potatoes weren’t sliced as thin as I would like, so they didn’t get as much of a crisp, but the flavor was still excellent, so it hardly matters. A mandolin would probably be best to use to slice the potatoes.

Baked BBQ Potato Chips

3 small potatoes, sliced very thinly

Olive oil spray

a pinch each of:

onion powder

garlic powder

chili powder

paprika

black pepper

salt

Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Once your potatoes are sliced thin, pat them dry with a paper towel. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray the foil with olive oil. Lay the potatoes down in a single layer (touching is fine). Spray the tops of the potatoes with olive oil. Sprinkle your seasonings over the potatoes. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until edges are browned and the potatoes are crispy. Store in an airtight container.

Garbage Smoothie

May 9, 2011

After an extremely exhausting semester, I’m finally home for the summer. I get to “relax” a bit for a few weeks before Alex and I move into our new apartment. In the meantime, I’m doing lots of baking to prepare for my sister’s bridal shower that I’m having for her in two weeks. I started today with two different batches of cookies..I’m excited to share them in due time!

I’ve still been doing Insanity (which is getting crazier and crazier as the weeks go on), and today’s workout was an hour and a half, with the fit test and then the max interval circuit. I was dying. So of course, I was starving after. I always have some greek yogurt mixed with flax seeds, nuts (or nut butter) and berries, but there was no way that’d be enough today, so I made a smoothie too. I combined pretty much any fruit I found in the fridge…it was delicious.

Garbage Smoothie

makes one serving

4 large strawberries

about 15 blueberries

4-5 ice cubes

half a banana

one slice of honeydew or cantaloupe

1 cup fresh spinach

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Serve immediately.