Lemonade

I like my lemonade tart. I had lunch with some people from work and we got drinks with lunch. By drinks I mean iced tea and lemonade. Not anything more potent, we were in a training class.

I always have the sweet tea but I decided to mix it up a bit and try the lemonade. Sweet tea is one of the few southern things that has grown on me quite quickly. That and calling it a snow day if there are flurries.

Anyway, I had a sip of the lemonade when I decided to go back to sweet tea. It didn't have much of a kick to it at all. When I said that my coworkers they said they thought it was good. So I needed to bring some real lemonade in. This is how I like it. You can add more water if it's too strong for you.

It's got a kick like this. It's not the lemonade you gulp down by the gallon after you've been out in the sun. It's something you sip at and savor while sitting around relaxing and reading a book.





Lemonade

1 cup sugar
1 cup lemon juice
1 cup boiling water
lots of ice

Stir together the sugar and water to dissolve. Cool down to room temperature and add the lemon juice. Chill in the refrigerator. Serve over a glass full of ice.

Soy Blackberry Wings

So there is a blackberry festival in the town where I work in July. With the festival, there is a recipe contest. And of course I feel the need to enter it. Not that I had any recipe ideas. And not that I measure things or am capable of following a recipe. But I wanted to enter anyway.

I decided to go savory. There are lots of sweet options but they all seemed kinda boring. Well I had made that blackberry orange cheesecake a while ago that was actually really good but I wanted something else. K suggested some sort of lamb but I figure lamb is kinda scary for this part of the country. I decided on chicken wings. Everyone loves chicken wings.

This would work well with chicken thighs or legs too. Obviously adjust cooking time accordingly. The sauce is really sticky and messy, the way wings are supposed to be, a little sweet and salty and tangy and just a little spicy and quite good. Especially for something I made up starting with 'OK I have chicken wings and blackberries, now what' Measurements may not be terribly accurate. Adjust to taste.


Soy Blackberry Chicken Wings

1 container blackberries
2 tbsp soy sauce or more, to taste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar or more, to taste
1 tbsp sweet chili sauce or more, to taste
2 tbsp seedless blackberry jam or more, to taste
about 2 dozen chicken wing segments
3 small sprigs parsley, chopped


Place the wings into the steamer basket, cover, reduce the heat to medium and steam for 10 minutes. Remove the wings from the basket and carefully pat dry. Lay the wings out on a cooling rack set in a half sheet pan and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour or more.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Roast on the middle rack of the oven for 20 minutes. Turn the wings over and cook another 20 minutes or until meat is cooked through and the skin is golden brown.

Meanwhile, smash the blackberries in a small skillet and cook over medium heat until it bubbles. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, jam and chili sauce and simmer for about 5 minutes to concentrate. Add any additional flavorings to adjust flavor to taste preferences. Keep over very low heat. 5 minutes before the wings are done, transfer the sauce to a large bowl.

When the wings are done, transfer to the bowl with the sauce and toss to coat. Garnish with parsley.

Barefoot Bloggers: Outrageous Brownies

Woohoo it's my turn to choose! This was an easy choice. I knew it was going to be my choice for ages. This was the recipe that I had been meaning to try forever. I'd seen it on TV and I'd heard people rant about how good it was and this was one of the reasons that I joined the Barefoot Bloggers but I had never actually made them. I know, kinda pathetic and strange, right? Well now I finally did.

Since I chose the recipe I kinda felt I had to make it on time. No more being a slacker blogger. No more late posts. No more 5 word and no pic posts. So May 2nd I decided I had to get all my ingredients and get the ball rolling. That would just be sad if I chose the recipe and then I didn't even make it on time. Nevermind that my recipe is the 2nd one of the month and I had almost a month to make it....

As Ina says on the show, this makes a LOT of brownies. I don't know about you but I don't have 18x13 pans in my house. Those wouldn't even have fit in the oven at my old apt. I learned that the hard way. Damn 13" pizza stone. So I made these in 2 9x13" pans. So this makes 2 trays of brownies that are over 1" thick. Which only makes the lb of butter and 2 lbs of chocolate slightly better. I thought about halving the recipe but hey, it's my recipe so I can't skimp. I'm not sure I'l be making these again this month, at least not a full batch but it's definitely a recipe to hold on to. Halving it still makes a lot of brownies.

Mine came out extremely chocolatey. It was like having a 70-80% chocolate bar. But with lots of buttery richness too. It was a little more cakelike and crumbly than I hoped for but that can be fixed with some minor adjustments.

I made them, took pictures of them, just had to finish up the post and it was the 3rd. Plenty of time to do everything. Then suddenly it was the 22nd and I hadn't finished my post. I was sick for a bit, and things were ridiculous at work for a bit and I was lazy for a bit and suddenly I'm almost out of time!!!!

Well fortunately I thought to finish the post before the day so here goes nothing...

Butter and chocolate. How can it not be good when it starts like this.

And you melt them together until you have this:
And then you add this (eggs, sugar, vanilla, coffee powder)
And some dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt).

Pour it into the pan, bake and get these babies. (I did one with walnuts, one without, half of each with toffee pieces)

Which you cut up into about a million pieces and eat! Yes, I did forget to take a sliced picture and now they are gone.

Here's the recipe. And check out some of the other Barefoot Bloggers here.

Daring Bakers: Studel

So this month's recipe was Strudel. It was supposed to be Apple Strudel but apple just didn't seem right at the time.

I don't know why but I wasn't really feeling it this month. I didn't even check the recipe until the 17th. After I read the recipe this seemed tedious, like making phyllo dough. It's 3$ or something for a box of it, totally worth the price rather than trying to stretch out all these thin layers.

I was home for the weekend and that was the only time I had left to make it so I went at it. I didn't have much trouble stretching the dough. I let it rest for probably 2 hours and then just pulled it. I didn't have a clean cloth table cloth so I used a set of sheets. They were clean. And I rubbed a LOT of flour into it, based on other peoples' comments. I ended up taking it outside to shake off the excess flour when I was done. My neighbors are probably wondering what's wrong with the shrubs that they are white and powdery. Oh well.

I made mine with cherry, blueberry and cheese filling. I forgot the breadcrumbs and the shell was a bit tough. I had to bake it for about 20 mins extra because it wasn't browning.

Edit: Pics added





The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Strawberry Ideas

I just bought a flat of strawberries. I need recipe ideas now!

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

For some reason I have never had any sort of banana ice cream. This seems kinda wrong. I'm a big fan of ice cream. And I'm a big fan of bananas. Maybe because I'm cheap and bananas are pretty much the cheapest fruit there is. Maybe because my tastes haven't matured and bananas are really sweet. Maybe because there is something just a bit phallic about eating a banana. Who knows. Anyway, I like bananas.

I was inspired by this recipe from Evil Chef Mom. She got it from David Lebovitz and I naturally couldn't make it as is. Well really I guess I forgot to check the recipe and add the rest of the stuff. Oops. Mine's pretty good anyway. We'll call mine the simple version. Like all those ice creams that are trying to market themselves on being natural. Like the Haagen Dazs 5 ingredient thing. Only mine is 4 so I'm even cooler. Yup. I did it on purpose. I swear.

I just wanted a little bit to see how it came out. I have to say I am pretty happy with it. The texture is really good. Maybe because there is less volume and it set up better in the ice cream maker. Or maybe because if the higher fat content than some of my other ice creams have had. And it has a really good banana flavor. Definitely there but not overpowering. Now I just need to make that walnut praline.....

I know, the coloring looks really bizarre. But the blue bowl was clean so that's what I went for and my counters are almost the same color as the ice cream. And I was lazy and didn't want to clean my ice cream scoop afterwards so I just used a spoon. It is soft enough that the spoon worked fine for scooping although it doesn't make pretty round scoops.



Roasted Banana Ice Cream.

2 ripe bananas, with some brown spots
1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cups light cream

Roast the bananas with the brown sugar and butter for about 40 minutes at 400F. Scrape the bananas and the syrup into a blender and blend until smooth. Add the cream and blend it again. Put in the fridge and chill overnight. Churn in your ice cream maker.

Reeses Brownies

This is so not a fancy recipe. It uses a boxed mix and Reeses Peanut Butter cups. It's almost that ridiculously simple and packaged that it seems kinda wrong to post about them. But they are really good so I'm posting them anyway.



Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

1 box Ghirardelli double chocolate brownie mix and whatever it says on the box
1 bag Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

Mix up the batter like the box says.
Line a 9x9 pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
Pour in about half the batter.
Lay out the peanut butter cups in a single layer so they cover the batter.
Pour the remaining batter on top.
Bake according to the box.
Allow to cool completely before slicing and eating.