Not what you’d expect, and everything you didn’t know you wanted.
Ho-ho-ho, bitches. The holidays are in full swing, and you couldn’t get off this train if you wanted to. Might as well lean in, call up a friend, and go hang out. Bring this as a snack, and all will be right with the world. It’s perfect for that liminal space between Christmas and New Year’s, when time is elastic and nobody knows what day it is.
Gluten-free animal crackers took the place of shortbread, and crispy rice was also gluten-free
I used unsweetened dried cherries from Chukar Cherries in Washington. I could take a bath in these things.
I have a kitchen scale so I utilized the weight measurements, but if you don’t they translate into about a cup each of the fruits and nuts
Mise en place makes the recipe come together very quickly
In hindsight, I would make two salamis. One was awfully big and difficult to handle.
(Insert off-color sexual innuendo here)
Serves 1-? depending on how long the conversation goes, how freely the drinks flow, and how many like white chocolate. Next variation will utilize dark chocolate and a different variety of fruit and nuts and be equally delicious.
I swapped out my gluten-free flour blend and an equal amount of ruby chocolate for the chopped chocolate at the end.
And a word to the wise: weighing the ingredients for this recipe is important. I measured by volume the first time around and was totally unimpressed. Measuring by weight changed the whole experience. This recipe makes 36 cookies, and they can be frozen, baked, or frozen unbaked and sliced/baked when ready.
You could also skip the ruby chocolate if you like and make them as written, and you wouldn’t be sad, but this is a theme. 10/10 recommend finding some ruby chocolate for the cookies — you need it for the ice cream anyway, so why not?
Next, make the ice cream. This ruby chocolate ice cream is velvety smooth and rich, studded with unsweetened coconut and chopped walnuts. It’s not the same flamboyant pink of other recipes on the interwebs because I opted not to add food coloring or beet powder, but it you want that shock of pink in your mouth, add a 1/2 teaspoon of powder or as many drops of food color as you like.
New to ruby chocolate, which is a relative newcomer to food? Read more about ruby chocolate here from the company that discovered it.
Ruby Chocolate Ice Cream With Coconut And Walnuts
Ingredients
1 ½ cups heavy cream
½ cup coconut milk
⅓ cup sugar
3 egg yolks
6 ounces ruby chocolate
Optional: Beet powder or red food coloring
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
Method
Heat cream, coconut milk, and sugar in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until bubbles appear at the edges.
While the milk heats, place the egg yolks in one bowl and the ruby chocolate in a slightly larger bowl and prepare an ice bath for the slightly larger bowl.
Once the bubbles appear, turn off the heat and very, very slowly drizzle the heated cream and coconut milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. If you go too fast or don’t whisk you’ll end up with sweet scrambled eggs. Go slow.
Return the mixture back to the heat, turn the flame to medium low, and get ready to stir until it thickens. This can take a minute (up to ten), but don’t get impatient and turn up the heat or you will end up with — you guessed it — sweet scrambled eggs.
When the milk mixture coats the back of the spatula and is thick (like a custardy sauce, not quite pudding), it’s done. Place a strainer over the bowl with the ruby chocolate and pour the milk into it. This catches any stray bits of egg (it happens).
Stir until the ruby chocolate is completely melted and incorporated. If adding beet powder or food coloring, do it at this step.
Place the bowl of what is now delicious, delicious ruby chocolate custard into the ice bath and stir until cooled. Wrap the bowl in plastic and chill until totally cold (at least four hours, but overnight is good, too).
When the custard is cool, process according to your ice cream maker’s directions. I add the coconut and walnuts in at the last five minutes, and it works like a charm.
Sandwich between two cookies, eat out of the ice cream maker, or freeze and serve later.
Note:
This recipe doubles easily.
You can also substitute milks (non-dairy, no heavy cream, etc), but you will not get the same richness.
Sunny, sweet, and tart. Best when the outside of the passionfruit is wrinkly and it feels heavy in the hand.
What do you do when the sun is out, but it’s frigid, with temperatures dropping and snow on the way? And you just need a little tart sweetness in your life?
You make passionfruit and lemon curd.
Floral. Sharp. Delicious.
Put it on a biscuit. Swirl it into yogurt. Eat it from the jar. Your choice.
Passionfruit and Lemon Curd 2 passionfruits 2 lemons (juice and zest) 3/4 cup sugar 2 eggs, beaten 5 tablespoons salted butter
Method In a medium-sized bowl, combine the guts of the passionfruit, lemon juice and zest, and sugar. Strain your beaten eggs through a mesh strainer to remove any stringy bits and add to the bowl. You could also strain the passion fruit guts if you like to remove the seeds, but the little crunch is nice so I leave them in. Whisk these ingredients together and set the bowl aside.
Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over low heat. Whisking constantly, add the egg and juice mixture to the saucepan.
Now is the fun part. Stand over the stove, whisking vigorously, for approximately 10 minutes until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. If you do not keep the mixture moving, you will end up with lemon-scented scrambled eggs. So put on a podcast, and settle in.
If your mixture does scramble slightly, you can always press it through a strainer after it’s thick. This will remove those passionfruit seeds, but that’s OK.
Refrigerate curd. It will thicken as it cools and become absolutely perfect. Best to eat this within a week, but you can also freeze it in ice cube trays and for use in smoothies or even as a swirl in homemade ice cream.
NOTE: You can make this curd with any citrus fruit. You may need to adjust the sugar depending on how tart the citrus is, but you’ll need between 3/4 and 1 cup of liquid for this recipe if using another citrus fruit.
In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.
So it’s Wednesday now, and I have been back in the States since Monday, and I am still exhausted. I have a lingering cough from Canada, and it’s one of those that seems to make getting a full breath hard.
And on the flip side, my entire body seems to be seizing up. I taught small children yoga yesterday and nearly ripped my hamstring in the very simplest of forward folds.
Ah, this mortal coil.
Full disclosure: I spent a fair amount of time (about 15 minutes) on Instagram this morning, lured in by mirror glaze and ultimately repelled by ASMR videos of people eating crunchy things (which makes me want to kill myself).
I don’t miss Facebook at all, but Instagram has been harder. With four days left, I don’t know if I will stay off Instagram after this is done, but I am pretty sure Facebook is dead to me.
Also, side note, since this is, for most intents and purposes actually a food blog, I spent the good part of yesterday making fondant fancies, and, as the Brits would say, I’m fairly chuffed about the taste. I am baking for a teacher friend who is having a writing conference at her school, two kinds of fussy gluten-free treats, and this is one of them.
Still trying to live up to the “fancy” part of the name – right now they look like lumpy green rocks (which is the reason there is not a picture above).
I am feeling low today, for a variety of reasons that don’t need discussing right now. I think if I can feel better and maybe move a little my mood will lift, but right now I just want to lay down for a couple of days. My acupuncturist would remind me that transitions between seasons can be very challenging, especially for us windy vata folk, and I am living into that for real. Travel and crossing back and forth time zones, even just one, compounds the stress.
So I will try to be kind to myself and sit in the sunshine and move slowly like the tiny buds peeking through the warming soil. We will see what happens.
While you guys have been busy blowing off your resolutions and scraping snow off your cars, I have been making money moves. Taking care of business. Planning ahead. Reaching for the stars. Attaining goals.
Ha. Just kidding. That isn’t even remotely close.
I have been doing what I do every January since I became an adult: spending zero cash dollars, watching lots of movies, and cleaning out the pantry.
In December, I stock up on food goods like the apocalypse is pending (which it very well may be, but this is not a political blog only just sometimes, but I am trying to write something nice, so I am not going to go there because if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, but, by the way, fuck 45, and why is this country not in full-scale revolution yet? And also I am glad I am not flying anytime soon, because those TSA workers and ATC are about to not give a rat’s ass about that gun in your luggage and landing your little old plane. But I digress.).
Something about the short days and cold nights makes me fill the freezer and pantry beyond all rational use for a house that now consists of two people, one of whom would rather scrape change from the couch cushions for UberEats souvlaki than spend ten minutes actually cooking herself something, and the other one of whom (me) eats maybe once a day and mostly snacks all the other times.
So because I am pathologically incapable of throwing anything out, I force myself to eat in all of January and only buy fresh veg and household necessities. I have a box of frozen gluten-free pizza from Costco (three pizzas), and if I am careful I will make it to February with those (#priorities), but otherwise, everything else is straight from the pantry.
We have had some epic meals already, starting with spicy lentils over cornbread, topped with a fried egg, for New Year’s Day, and braised spinach with chickpeas, sun-dried tomatoes, and lemon over rice for this recent snow day. I have made three batches of scones, each one better than the last, and I am thinking of going for another in the next few days (except my gluten-free AP flour is running out and cannot be replaced until February 1, and I might want waffles at some point).
I have also added the wrinkle of not buying any sugar, but that’s not going great. Scratch that. It’s going fine, except I had a lot of sugar in the house to begin with, so we’re set and buying extra wasn’t necessary. But I have eaten less sugar this month than normal in general (minus the three candy bars I had this weekend but that doesn’t count because it was a snow day anyway, and I was not at my house).
Today, I wanted something sweet but not too complex to make and fairly immediately gratifying. Something I could justify making and writing about instead of actually doing work I get paid for because today I don’t really feel like writing, but I have to anyway, so if I write and then take a little break that seems fair, right?
RIGHT.
So this is that. I have a bag of pitted Deglet Noor dates (also from Costco. Damn you, Costco!), a jar of honey peanut butter, some vegan chocolate chips, and some applewood smoked salt.
COME AT ME, BRO. These bitches are incredible. And it’s easy to make them with whatever you have. Medjool dates are bigger and sweeter but would be easier to stuff. Almond butter would be delicious (or any kind of nut butter – I toyed with the idea of making some homemade pistachio butter for this, but nixed it due to lack of motivation and the aforementioned immediate gratification). If dark chocolate is your jam, have at it; same with white chocolate, but also how dare you. Salt makes it better, so try different kinds.
All measurements are guesses. I used just enough peanut butter to leave some for toast if I felt like it later in the month.
Chocolate Covered Stuffed Dates With Smoked Salt
Ingredients 15 dates, pitted (fewer if the dates are bigger) Peanut butter 1 cup chocolate chips (see Recipe Notes) 2 teaspoons coconut oil Smoked salt (or flaky fleur de sel)
Method Using a spoon or a clean finger (naughty), stuff each date with about 1/2 teaspoon peanut butter and place in freezer to chill for about 15 minutes.
While the dates chill, melt chocolate chips and coconut oil in a saucepan, stirring until smooth.
Use a toothpick to dip each date into the chocolate until covered. Place on parchment paper and set in the fridge for a couple minutes before sprinkling each with salt (to taste).
Eat immediately, or keep sealed in the fridge for a couple days.
Recipe Notes *You could say, for the sake of argument, that if you had melted chocolate chips left, that adding the same volume of coconut oil and stirring to combine would be a good idea. Pour this into a jar and leave on the kitchen counter, then come down late at night when you want some ice cream in bed, and pour that over the ice cream, and you have homemade Magic Shell that is pretty much the best thing ever. You could definitely say that.
