(f)easter dinner

Saturday was the much-anticipated (F)easter dinner with coworkers. We served salad, rosemary olive oil bread, two types of pasta (made by Trader Joe's, not me, sadly, after my failed experiment), bolognese sauce, pesto sauce, tiramisu, and toasted almond gelato with espresso (known as "affogato"). I'm not kidding when I say that every so often, I just need to make a ton of time and labor intensive food! It's an urge that strikes rarely, but when it hits, you're best served to just get out of the path of the oncoming apron-clad little blond girl and just let her go to town.

I'm happy to report that everything turned out well, despite the general haze of exhaustion through which it was all prepared. My pesto succumbed to the horrors of oxidation, so the thin top layer of it was a lovely brown color, but the rest was unscathed, and it all tasted just as pesto should. I highly recommend Ina Garten's pine nut and walnut recipe. As far as I know, I'd never made pesto from scratch before, so that and the gelato were the only two new things I added to my repertoire this weekend. As much as I like to try new recipes, sometimes the classics are just calling your name. 

But I digress. As much as we all enjoyed everything, I have to say my absolute favorite was the affogato. I had gotten in my head about a week ago that yes, yes we did need two desserts, and that gelato + warm espresso just had to be one of them. That was the end of that discussion. The toasted almond gelato recipe came to me entirely by accident, but I'm so, so happy it did. I'm not sure I could imagine a better flavor to meld with the espresso. I must say, Williams-Sonoma has yet to lead me astray, and this recipe was no exception. 

So because I'm sleepy, and have about a million billion jillion house-related things to tackle in the next 2 1/2 weeks, I'll stop rambling, and leave you with a slew of photos from the feast. Recipes appear at the bottom, and on the LKTC-tested recipes page!  

bolognese

pesto

tiramisu sampler (to make sure it tasted ok, and that none of the eggs were bad before I served it to a group of people!)

the pan of tiramisu for the crowd

the espresso for the affogato, percolating away in my stovetop machine, which was saved from the garbage by this trick

since I didn't manage to capture the affogato, I offer Williams-Sonoma's photo instead

We all had a great time stuffing ourselves silly, and given that (F)easter dinner was the night before, you guessed it, Easter, and we are a group of many religious views, we had some amusing discussions on the tenets of (and misconceptions of) different beliefs. Perhaps my favorite was my coworker who asked me to explain the Holy Trinity, and when I did so, said "oh, I thought the holy spirit was Gabriel!" 

Anyways, hope you had as enjoyable of a weekend as I did. And if you're also feeling a strange but prominent desire to spend a day in the kitchen, here are the recipes I used. I promise the day will quickly slip away between whisking and kneading and mincing and simmering. And also that you'll have a meal that is entirely worth it. Enjoy!  

Recipe Roundup:

• Ina Garten's Pine Nut and Walnut Pesto
• LKTC's Bolognese 
• Food Network's Almost Famous Rosemary Bread
• Williams-Sonoma's Tiramisu
• Williams-Sonoma's Toasted Almond Gelato

ps-many thanks to Neha, who remembered at the last minute to photograph everything!

peachy

For the first, and Lord knows, maybe last time in my life, I have an office. As in, a room with four walls and a door, people. This is a particularly exciting, if temporary, development in my life because my old desk at work was not only in a very high-traffic area, but had no walls. Nope, just a slightly elevated ledge, which, let me tell you, never stopped anyone from interrupting what I was doing, be it eating a meal, conducting a conversation, or reading a report. 


So I am thrilled to be sharing this amazing space for a couple of weeks until my new team is banished to a sad, dejected old building a few blocks down the street. For the next few weeks, I'll arrive to a desk drenched in the all of the pink and red glory of the sun rising above the Potomac River and Reagan National Airport. And yes, in case you were wondering, I'm wholeheartedly aware of the irony inherent in my having a daily view of air travel, which is the source of much anxiety to me.

not a bad view to take in when writer's block strikes

Anyways, my view is far from the only peachy thing going on right now. I also have a freezer stocked with peach sorbet. The best time to try such an endeavor would clearly be when I had a fruit bowl full of ripe peaches. Unfortunately I had no such thing. Instead this experiment was inspired by a bag of frozen peaches just begging to be used. I know, I know, you're all lucky to know such a logical girl like me. 

photo courtesy of the recipe

Unfortunately mine looked a little less flawless and smooth than the photo above, but it came out pretty tasty. I mean, it's essentially fruit + sugar. I followed this recipe with no substitutions other than the obvious fresh for frozen swap. I'd love to try it again with ripe, fresh peaches for a more intense flavor, but I certainly will put my first batch to good use in the form of dessert the next few nights.

If you're thinking "the LKTC hasn't made ice cream in a while," you'd be right. The machine itself, the glorious Fiona, was a gift from someone I most often would rather forget, and I don't always have all the necessary ingredients (eggs, milk, and/or cream) on hand. But for some reason, perhaps the bottomless mimosas at brunch?, I came home Sunday ready to bust Fiona out of her prison in the freezer, and I'm glad I did. 

Along with this (very welcome) warm weather, spring has brought me a few things worth celebrating, and I think ice cream is the perfect way to do just that.

an ode to pumpkin recipes

I'm awfully tired. There's "I just didn't get my full eight hours last night," and then there's how tired I am today. I looked so worn out this morning, in fact, that my usual 7am coffee buddy walked past my desk, and said "well I was going to ask if you wanted to get coffee, but you look like you NEED it."

Point is, my ability to articulate myself has been compromised, as it's taking all I've got right now to keep my head up at work. So, I'll be brief in my praises of pumpkin. 

Recently I've tried two new pumpkin recipes, one for bread, and one for gelato. A friend of mine is deploying, and gave me about a dozen cans of pumpkin that he won't be able to use while he's away. Hence the seasonally appropriate kick I seem to be on, here.

Anyways, the bread was light but full of spicy goodness (as in, lots of good spices, not lots of crushed red pepper, because that would just be disgusting). I read most of the notes attached to the recipe, and followed the common suggestions of cutting down the sugar to 1 cup (a mix of white and brown, too), and upping the spices. I made a normal size loaf, and a baby loaf, and tossed a handfull of chocolate chips into the latter. The baby loaf was far more popular than the plain one, so if/when I make the bread again, I'm including the chocolate chips, no question. Wild woman right here.

The gelato was something I originally tried a couple weeks ago before Thanksgiving. I not only had the excessive pumpkin supply on hand, but a lot of leftover milk and cream from Friendsgiving. So I gave the recipe a shot, adding the spices suggested at the end of the basic instructions. It was delicious! So rich and creamy, and just the right amount of pumpkin and spices. I made it again at our family Thanksgiving celebration, and it came out grainy, which was disappointing, but it's entirely my fault for being beyond impatient and not letting the cream/egg/sugar/pumpkin mix cook long enough on the stove (cooking on an electric stove is such an adjustment for me).

And in case you're wondering, somehow I haven't ballooned by 20 pounds this season. I think I have my coworkers, the ever-willing guinea pigs, to thank for that...

ps-I have no cloves on hand, so any recipe that includes those, just assume I've left that spice out, and that the world did not stop spinning, nor was the dish a failure.

pps-recipe page updated to include these beauties

super bowl reese's cup

Towards the end of my impromptu week at home, we went in to the city for dinner with our family friends. We were celebrating a birthday, and as I mentioned, I wanted to handle dessert so that I could try and tweak the chocolate peanut butter square recipe that I first attempted for Allie's birthday.


When I made the squares the first time, I couldn't find Nabisco famous wafers, but managed to locate them at our local Harris Teeter this time. I was hoping that'd make all the difference in terms of a more cohesive crust. I just had to crush them with a rolling pin first (which was a surprisingly effective outlet for some pent up stress). 

I was a little over-excited by the presence of a microwave for butter-softening purposes, and things got a little out of control. By a little out of control, I mean in the last few seconds of heating, the stick of butter simply collapsed in the microwave. And no, I did not put it in a dish to warm it...

Gross, right? But butter disaster aside, I managed to whip everything together fairly quickly (which is an impressive feat, as I swear I'm the world's slowest, messiest cook). I'm disappointed to report that the crust was still a bit of a crumbly mess. Next time, I'm nearly doubling the butter quantity in the hopes that it will help things stick together better. Anyways, I threw together a little assembly line, and the (very heavy) pan was in the fridge in no time. 

We threw that in the cooler with wine, the mini peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's, and dark chocolate gelato that I'd made earlier in the day. 

If you have an ice cream maker, by the way, I am telling you this with all the seriousness I can muster: drop everything now and go make this. It is insanely delicious. If you can find Hershey's "special dark" cocoa powder at your grocery, that really takes it to the next level. And if you, like me, decide to make the batter before a marathon day of shopping, and leave it in your fridge for more than the one hour they suggest, fear not. That pudding like consistency that you come home to? Yeah, it still makes lick the bowl-worthy gelato. 

After dinner at our friends' house, we pulled out the dessert and set up yet another assemble line. Onto the plate went a peanut butter square, a scoop of gelato, a sprinkling of leftover cookie crumbs, and a few mini peanut butter cups. By dessert, the men-folk were watching football while we ladies chatted elsewhere, and from the den emerged a declaration from one of our friends: "Jenny, I am so proud of you...this is like the...Superbowl of Reese's cups!" He then begged for seconds of what is possibly the world's richest dessert. Success. 

(currently wondering why I didn't steal any leftovers...)

oh, meat

Last week, before I fled DC for home, Sophie came over for dinner, and I basically forced her to eat steak since it would otherwise go bad during my extended trip. Because I didn't want to face packing, I decided to search for a good marinade recipe.  Many of the options google presented me with involved balsamic (I'm not a fan) or some other steak-type sauce that I don't own.  So I cruised over to Dinner: A Love Story (which is quickly becoming a go-to after Epicurious and food network), and found their seemingly simple recipe.


I didn't have scallions and I skipped the hot sauce (Sophie doesn't like spicy food), but it came out pretty well nonetheless. It didn't have an overwhelming flavor, but wasn't too plain and boring, either. 


The steaks, however, were definitely overcooked, and I blame George (Foreman).  See, George and I are still getting to know each other.  He seems to be pretty old, and is entirely lacking in any sort of options. You plug him in, and that's it.  So I'm not quite sure when it reaches maximum heat (or what that temperature is).  Nor am I sure of the average cooking time for various foods.  So what I'm saying here is that it's a bit of an experiment every time. 


The first time I checked the steaks, they were practically still raw, so we let them cook for what seemed like a reasonable extra amount of time. And then they were far too done for our medium (or medium-rare) preferences. But Sophie was a good sport and pretended it was perfect. They at least looked pretty...

On the side we had roasted baby potatoes with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary (aka the convenient, long-time pinch hitter in my family's dinner arsenal), which were perfectly crisped (I'm allowed to have a moment of selfish gloating over the potatoes, right? I mean, I totally bungled the steak temperature). We skipped the wine thanks to my weird esophagus pain, which was so bad that night that I only ate because Sophie practically forced me to do so. But I made up for it by offering her a dessert sampler of all the ice cream flavors in my freezer at the moment. 

bottom left: chocolate with crushed red pepper, top: salted caramel, 

bottom right: jacked up cookies and cream

I think it was a hit

After dessert, Sophie gamely offered to do the dishes. While she scrubbed everything else, I used the little scraper tool that comes with George--easily the grossest part of the whole process. When I popped the grill plates off for Sophie to scrub, I noticed (and pointed out) a tiny pool of grease on the counter.  


"Oh, meat," Sophie said. Oh, meat, indeed. I couldn't help but think of her matter-of-fact statement the entire time I was reading The China Study. I first heard about the book on the CNN Health site (probably one day when I was a little on the bored side at work). Dr. Gupta briefly described the study, explaining that there's a whole slew of physicians and researchers who believe we can eradicate heart disease and drastically reduce instances of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other less-severe health issues by eliminating animal protein from our diets. I realize it sounds drastic, and probably hard to buy in to (especially if you're an enthusiastic meat-eater like me), but the wealth of evidence the authors presented is staggering to say the least. 


I'm not saying I'll be an overnight vegan, or even vegetarian (in fact, I made risotto with chicken last night).  But the information they presented was eye-opening and hard to ignore. I'll definitely be thinking about making some changes in the LKTC...

lake of caramel

I'm spending some time at home for all sorts of reasons, none of which are worth really discussing.  But let's just say that I found myself frighteningly close to purchasing a one-way ticket to Italy and/or volunteering for a stint in a war zone, and I knew it was time to take a little break. Luckily my bosses were really generous about the whole thing, and so here I sit, "relaxing" at home.   


Relaxing gets the quotation marks, because I'm not the best at chilling out, and there have been some...exciting...moments since I got home. 


Saturday we had some friends over for dinner.  Right before I jumped in the car to drive home Friday, I tossed Fiona in the back seat.  She was a horrible car companion, very boring and quiet, but I knew she'd redeem herself making salted caramel ice cream (a special request from Mom).  


Making the ice cream batter went much smoother than my first attempt, which probably had something to do with having an extra set of hands in the kitchen.  When it was time to churn the batter, though, Fiona and I had our first spat.  


I left everyone on the patio chatting to quickly toss the batter in the machine.  I was obviously not thinking straight, or was just really excited for ice cream, because I neglected a hugely important step.  I DIDN'T PUT THE BOWL ON THE BASE.  So I turned the machine on and started pouring the batter in to the base of the machine.  Luckily I realized what I'd done before I poured in every last drop, but it was still a huge mess. There was suddenly a lake of caramel in the kitchen, and I was so ill. 


I poured as much batter as possible back in the mixing bowl, cleaned Fiona up as best I could, pulled the churning bowl from the freezer and set it on the base, and tried again.  It worked (as you can assume most things will when you do them CORRECTLY), but I was worried I may've gunked up the motor.  So while I fumed, Mom got to work cleaning with a paper towel/wooden skewer contraption...

Thankfully neither the ice cream nor Fiona seemed to suffer from my total idiocy.  In fact, it was completely amazing scooped over brownies and "lacey" cookies...

I only wish I could have enjoyed it more, but I haven't been feeling well at all. In fact, I pretty much convinced myself that I've acquired an ulcer.  Whether it's an ulcer or my first brush with heartburn in my entire life, my esophagus hurts like nothing I've ever felt before (and no, there is no logical correlation to my eating habits).  Subsequently my appetite has taken a nose dive.  In what I can only imagine is a logical next step, I spent most of yesterday extremely dizzy.  Even I, one of the most anti-doctor people ever, was ready to go to urgent care first thing this morning. 


And then the dog groomer called us early this morning to let us know our dog had a huge bruise on her throat. Since I'm home and the parents are at work, I got to pick her up from the groomer and take her to the vet. It turns out I'll make one nervous mother if I ever have kids, because I was especially worried. The vet assured me that Gracie is fine (apparently dogs, like humans, bruise when they have blood work done, and she had just had her annual vet appointment Saturday). Still not sure if I'm fine, though, as I've now talked myself out of my own trip to urgent care. 


I'm here for another week, but I'm hoping we've gotten all of the excitement over within my first few days, or I'm going to go back to DC just as strung out as I was when I left...

where are my people?

On the morning of earthquake day, I had a long conversation with one of my two bosses.  It started out as some sort of briefing, but somehow ended up being about of our frustrations with grown up life. (Note: she has way more ground to stand on, as she is married with kids, owns a home, and leads a large team of eccentric auditors.)  


But we both agreed that even though we had some suspicion that post-college life wouldn't be easy, we assumed we'd be compensated, at least in some small part, by the company we would keep.  We figured we'd find ourselves among smart, funny, successful, kind people, and that would dull the pain of mortgage (or rent) payments and the 9 to 5 grind.  


Instead, we have found ourselves consistently surprised by how unintelligent, disappointing, and/or hurtful people are.  Where in the world are my people? we want to know. Probably not in this office, we concluded. And then the earth rumbled. Big day, really, between existential crisis conversations and building evacuations. 


So when I got home from the earthquake, I decided to go ahead and make the jacked up cookies and cream ice cream, and realized that this is the kind of ice cream you make for your "people."


It's a labor of love, what with the sticky, messy affair of coating (football-shaped!) oreos in melted chocolate...

And letting vanilla bean pods steep in warm milk for an hour...

And then there's that whole egg yolk-cooking step that I have yet to execute gracefully (not to mention photograph successfully).  The dulce de leche-making step should go on behind the scenes of the rest of this, cooking up nicely in the oven while you melt chocolate and steep vanilla.  Unless you're me, and forget to cover the pan of sweetened condensed milk with foil.  And then you pull the oven open an hour later to find curdled sweetened condensed milk. After having had to smell and deal with that business, I'm here to tell you that stuff should be reserved for whatever the opposite of "your people" is.  

But even without the dulce de leche, it is divine...

I've made plenty of tasty ice cream with Fiona, but this was a new level of success.  This is the ice cream you make for the people who are there for you when those dumb/hurtful/disappointing people have you in a bit of a tizzy.  For the people who let you rant and rave and complain, even when they've heard it all before.  For the people who force you to eat even though you've stressed yourself out so much that you barely remember what an appetite feels like (and may have given yourself an ulcer...).  For the ones who remind you that you're actually very lucky after all.  Bless all of you, especially the ones who I haven't been able to give a container of jacked up cookies and cream yet.  

lent leftovers

I have this little list tacked up on my fridge (sadly there's no photo, not even a crappy blackberry photo).  It lists all the dishes I had hoped to attempt (and dare I say...perfect) over the course of my "no eating out" edict during Lent.  Off the top of my head, I remember: waffles, pancakes, biscuits, patatas bravas, and drunken noodle.  

Embarrassingly, I only attempted (and in the case of biscuits, I'd say nearly perfected) the first three. If you search for a patatas bravas recipe, the wide array you'll find is, in my mind, overwhelming.  I typically check a few different recipes each time I'm trying something new to get a handle on possible variations, but there were just too many in this case.  I decided I'd just have to visit Jaleo often to devise my own approach.

I can't recall what my excuse was in the case of the drunken noodle dish.  It's my favorite Thai dish, and one of the things I probably missed most during Lent.  I suspect sheer laziness likely won out in this battle.  

BUT, great news. Well, great for me anyways.  Allie decided to try and make it, and it was amazing. She found this recipe, and we made a trip to the local H Mart to round up supplies.  We didn't find everything we were looking for (looking at you, mini corn and young green peppercorns), and spent a lengthy amount of time contemplating the overwhelming plethora of soy sauce/oyster sauce options. Following many "oh what the heck, let's try it" proclaimations, we found ourselves facing one of the area's more tenacious storms this summer.  The lightning/thunder were seemingly right on top of us, and I've literally never seen it rain harder in my life.  We made a run for it, and subsequently looked like we had showered in our clothes.  The soy sauce, however, was fine. 

While the ingredient list looks daunting, I think I speak for Allie accurately when I say it was fairly easy (if a bit heavy on the prep work), and really delicious.  We used regular Thai basil and skipped the mini corn and green peppercorns with no real impact (in our opinions).  We did a soy sauce taste test, though, and we're here to tell you that the recipe calls for different varieties for a reason. It definitely gets the LKTC seal of approval, and I'll hopefully try making it myself soon. 

See, isn't it pretty? (don't mind the awful phone photo)

 

My contributions were small, but complimentary (of course I'd say that, but you're going to either have to trust me here, or make all of it yourself to test my assertion).  I made Asian slaw with ginger peanut dressing, which was light but spicy, and a good starter for the drunken noodle. I actually cut the honey and oil quantities in half, and we didn't notice any impact on flavor or quantity of dressing.  Luckily I realized last-minute that I accidentally bought parsley instead of cilantro at H Mart, and managed to correct my novice error. Not only do I loathe parsley, but it would've tasted awful in this dish. 

it was also a bit chopping intensive...

  

but overall, worth the effort!

For dessert, I brought the chocolate red pepper gelato that I made a while back.  I already knew Allie would love it, but Alicia was a fan, too, and couldn't get over the tickling sensation the red pepper left behind.

Never one to be satisfied for long with any singular kitchen success, tonight I tackle the "jacked up cookies and cream" ice cream recipe...

some like it hot

I'm still very much captivated by Fiona (the new ice cream maker), and I'm constantly looking for new recipes to try.  I'm accumulating quite a collection of flavors in my freezer as we speak.  So when Allie suggested we try ciocolato con peperoncino for Sunday dinner, naturally I was quick to jump on board, even if it meant further freezer crowding.  


The flavor was one we first tried in Venice at our favorite gelateria (Il Doge, in case you happen to be planning a visit soon...and you should).  While I nearly always bought mint or straciatella, I gamely tried Allie's chocolate with red pepper once, and found it intriguing.  And by intriguing, I mean spicy. 


So I combed google for recipes, and ended up using this one, and adding about half a teaspoon of red pepper.  I honestly couldn't tell you how it turned out though, because in a very very rare moment in my life, I was not even the tiniest bit hungry between lunch last night and breakfast this morning.  It smells (and looks) good, though...


Next I plan to try a recipe that's curiously named "jacked up cookies and cream." The oreos are coated in melted chocolate before being broken up and added to the vanilla ice cream. As if that weren't quite ridiculous enough, you add a swirl of dulce de leche.  I'm supposed to be giving it to friends, but we'll see how much (if any) of it makes it out of my apartment!

Yolky's first use was a great success!

 I'm still working on gracefully navigating the egg-cooking aspect...

 It still blows my mind that this soupy mess...

 ...becomes this deliciousness!

That's all for now, but I'm working from home today, so, you could very well see more from me later on when the cabin fever sensation really sets in...

a salty weekend

Like any true type A girl, I have a running list of projects I want to tackle.  It is sometimes in my mind, sometimes on a piece of paper I inevitably lose, sometimes on my blackberry.  This past weekend, in between various social stuff, I decided to take on two of the long-standing items: hangers and salted caramel ice cream.

Re: hangers... I decided a while back that I wanted my hangers to be consistent in my closets.  A luxury, sure, but I had a little wiggle room in my budget last month, so I went for it.  And last weekend, I decided it was time to take the matching black hangers out of their many boxes and get cracking.  Which led to my living room looking like this:

As if whipping my wardrobe in to some level of submission wasn't tiring enough, I also took on the ice cream.  I've made ice cream with Fiona before, but this would be my first attempt at an egg yolk-based recipe.  It also would involve making caramel.  Eeek. 

To tackle the project, I consulted this salted caramel ice cream recipe from Epicurious (typically one of my top go-to recipe sites).  I really wish recipes were better about indicating time requirements.

Still being a total novice in the kitchen, I don't have a good grasp on things like how long it takes sugar to become caramel (not long).  Or when to stop cooking the sugar (um, still unsure).  Or how long the milk will take to dissolve the caramel (a lifetime). Or the appropriate length of time to cook the eggs in the milk to avoid both salmonella and scrambled eggs (a heck of a lot less time than you'd think).

So I heated...

And swirled...

And dissolved...

And strained...

And got (amazing) ice cream!

Note that there are no pictures of the whole egg-cooking adventures.  Let's just say it's a two-hand process that does not lend itself well to photography or any other distractions.  It was a little stressful navigating the recipe for the first time, but, the result is so sinful, I can't even explain it.  Luckily it's beyond rich, so I only eat a few spoon fulls at a time, but it's just as dangerous as the chocolate ice cream with mint chocolate cookies.  

Now that those two things have been crossed off the list, I've got my sights on other projects (including new ice cream flavors, and much less thrilling things like 401(k) rollovers).  Exciting times, I know.

dangerously delicious

Ok, lucky for you all, I'm beyond exhausted and not feeling verbose.  I'm in training this week, and it's 8 solid hours of lectures, group bonding, and embarrassing adventures public speaking.  My brain literally aches.  I don't think I've had to concentrate this consistently since I graduated. 


So I will very quickly tell you about how my new ice cream machine and I are getting along. IT IS AMAZING!


Quick enough for you? I thought so. 


The first recipe I've tried is the one for basic chocolate ice cream, found in the instruction booklet that came with Fiona. Towards the end of the churning process, I threw in some chopped mint chocolate cookies.  I could lie and say Allie helped me polish it off, but the reality is, she ate a tiny bit, and I ate the rest.  In one sitting.  Obscene.  

So much chocolate.  So good. 

Wheeeeeeee.  (yes, I was captivated by this for longer than I care to admit)

We can all agree that I'm a terrible food photographer, but can we also agree that this looks delicious? I thought so. 

Here's the recipe in the event that you don't own the Cuisinart ice cream machine, or long since lost your instruction book:

3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

pinch salt

1 cup whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract [in typing this, I realized I read this as teaspoon, not tablespoon, but I didn't think the ice cream was lacking in flavor]

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugars, and salt.  Add the milk and, using a hand mixer on low speed or a whisk, beat to combine until the cocoa, sugars, and salt are dissolved [I used a whisk, it worked fine].  Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla.  Cover and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours, or overnight [I opted for overnight]. 

2. Turn on the ice cream maker and pour the mixture into the pre-frozen bowl.  Let mix until thickened, about 15 to 20 minutes [mine took about 10, but I also halved the recipe]. If you're going to add something like chopped cookies, do so about 5 minutes prior to the end of the mixing time. 

Just be prepared for the implications of having homemade ice cream in your freezer!  

introducing fiona

My office is a giant, messy construction zone, I'm super sleepy, and I'm preparing for a week away from work (for a training session), so my ability to focus and articulate myself is compromised.  (As I type this, a tattooed, hard-hatted man is gingerly removing the ceiling tile directly above my head.  I'm a little concerned about my lack of hard hat here, fashion statement aside)

So instead of cruising amazon.com to tack items on to my new "kitchen covets" list, I'm crossing a few off.  

When I was home last weekend, my Mom told me that my Dad had been searching for an egg separator for me ever since they read about my frustrating baking day.  (Side note: not to brag, but they're pretty much the greatest) When we took a family trip to a nearby outlet mall to stay out of the rain, he managed to find one at a kitchen supply store.  

Look how adorable this thing is! 

 (you can buy one here)

And, it's little name is "Yolky." Too cute.  Cuteness overload? I'm sorry, but I really hate raw eggs, so if I'm going to have to touch them, the more I can be distracted by my fun little egg separator, the better.  Bonus: it clips to the edge of mixing bowls.  How much more functionality could you possibly want?

Yolky is going to be my new best bud in the kitchen, because a sweet friend of mine read my first "kitchen covets" post and sent me the ice cream maker as a surprise!  What's the connection, you ask? Many of the ice cream recipes I've found call for plentiful egg yolks.  The bowl of the ice cream machine is in the freezer getting nice and cold, and I'll be able to use it starting tomorrow morning. I'm like a little kid, I'm so excited to give it a whirl. In case you're curious, The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz is apparently the go-to instruction manual/cookbook hybrid. I'll let you know how well Mr. L and I get along...

In addition to Yolky  and Fiona (the oh-so-cliche name for my new apple red ice cream machine), I've added a silicone pastry brush to the arsenal of the LKTC. If it had cost me more than about $3, I'd feel more guilty about what might appear to be a superfluous tool.  But it, in fact, cost me less than $3, and means I can now brush butter or oil on things without using a craft paintbrush from my art supplies drawer.  

It looks just like this guy, but is red.  (The LKTC is mainly black, white, and red, in case you hadn't picked up on that trend).

(image from here)

The brush also came from the kitchen supply store at the outlets this past weekend.  Once Mom, Nanny, and I heard of Dad's egg separator discovery, we had to explore the store ourselves.  I could've spent a good chunk of change in the store, but I was flying back to DC the next morning and my tote bag was already burgeoning from the clothes I'd packed for the weekend (and rent was due the day of my return). 

I'll be back in a few days with ice cream updates and to introduce you to my family's "slopover" tradition. I know you're on the edges of your seats.