Strawberry icebox cake

I first saw this recipe for a no-bake strawberry icebox cake in summer 2010 and wanted to try it out immediately.  Peak strawberry season and the vicissitudes of life being what they are, I didn't get a chance to make one until this spring.  It's an easy recipe, the results are just scrumptious (it really is like a strawberry shortcake), and it makes for an excellent dessert choice for informal spring or early-summer dinners.

Our notes:

• You can't get away with throwing subpar, underripe, pale strawberries in this; we had a couple of these, and I'd thought that they might be hidden under the flavours of all the other strawberries.  This was not the case and there was a big taste difference between areas of each slice that contained visibly ripe strawberries versus areas that had the underripe ones.
• Going strictly by the recipe, I couldn't tell whether I was supposed to put the graham crackers directly on top of the strawberries (implied in the recipe but not as structurally stable), or to put whipped cream and then the crackers on the berries (more stable).  I ended up putting the crackers directly on the fruit, partly because I prefer to follow the recipe as much as possible the first time through, and partly because the whipped cream was the limiting factor in this endeavour.  It seemed to work well, though I'll try the other method next time to see how that goes.
• I have yet to make a good ganache in all the times I've tried.  Maybe I'm not patient enough to keep stirring something for the time needed for all the chocolate to melt.
• We found it best to go conservative on the powdered sugar to put in the whipped cream, even though the recipe calls for a relatively low amount as it is.  We didn't want to the berries to be overpowered by any more sugar than was absolutely necessary to get the cream to not taste like Vitamin D milk.
• I didn't want to over-whip the cream and end up with butter, so I erred in the opposite direction and came out with more of a "Cool Whip lite" consistency.  I don't know if this is ideal or not, but since thicker cream seems like it would lend a better aesthetic to the finished product (by looking slightly less messy), I'd probably whip the cream for a little longer next time.
• The recipe said to let this chill in the icebox...refrigerator for about 4 hours before consuming.  Because I'd made this late in the evening on a Wednesday we didn't get a chance to sample it until Thursday dinner; the graham crackers still had a little body to them.  By Friday and Saturday we thought the flavour and texture had gotten even better, but on Sunday I noticed a small decrease in quality, though nonetheless still good.  The following days showed a continuing (but shallow) downward trend in quality, with the graham crackers becoming more and more insubstantial in both texture and taste.

I took this before the ganache went on because I had a suspicion that the chocolate would make this less photogenic.  That may have been correct, but the finished icebox cake was only enhanced by the addition of the chocolate.

12 July 2012: Addendum!  We made this for an Independence Day celebration and it turned out very well to whip the cream a little longer.  Dom did up the decoration on top:

Festive, no?

Round and round pasta

We saw this pasta recipe on an episode of Giada at Home and it looked like a good springtime meal.  It turned out to be an interesting mashup of flavours and included our new favourite summer produce: zucchini and summer squash.  It also gave us an excuse to buy mascarpone.

Our notes:

• This recipe took a lot of time to prepare: cooking, cooling, and slicing sausages; slicing shallots; slicing carrots; slicing zucchini and summer squash; slicing tomatoes; mixing the dressing.  The given prep time of 10 minutes seems a bit on the optimistic side, though I suppose once everything is chopped the actual cooking doesn't take too long.
• I had cooked the sausage long before Dom got home so that it would have enough time to cool.  This saved time later, but it's my opinion that this recipe is not for those who work full time.  Maybe on weekends or something but definitely not for a weekday.
• Because we had only decided to make this earlier that day, the sausages were still frozen.  I cooked them on low heat in a covered skillet with about 1/2" of water, and kept checking on them for 15-20 minutes.  Worked great.
• Even with "medium" zucchini, 1/2" slices seemed rather hefty.  Though it would destroy the aesthetic of having all round items in the dish, I'd probably cut each piece of zucchini in half or quarters to get bite-sized pieces.  Either that or buy tiny zucchini.  (Side note: the photograph at the recipe's webpage has zucchini slices about the same size around as the pasta, and not as thick.  This was NOT reflected in the recipe's numbers.)
• I would use more than a 1/4 cup of orange juice for the cooked zucchini.  This barely covered the bottom of the pan and there wasn't a whole lot left after the "cook until the juice thickens" step.  Yes, I know it doesn't say "reduce" so I kept vigilant watch over it.
• The recipe calls for rotelle (wagon wheels), but I bought ditalini as our local Kroger doesn't have rotelle.  I always forget just how much volume a pound of ditalini takes up versus a pound of a larger pasta, and mixing together all of the ingredients was a bit dicey even in the pasta serving bowl that we have.  Guess we should just get penne next time if we don't have time to hunt down rotelle--the sauce-to-pasta ratio would probably be a little better with larger pasta.
• Perhaps I didn't allow enough time for the mascarpone to come to room temperature, but there was no way that stuff was going to be whisked, much less "poured" over the finished pasta.  However, the 'dressing', as it were, of mascarpone, lemon juice, and salt, was really quite delicious (once I worked it into the pasta) and provided a nice salty-and-sour contrast to the hint of orange juice that the zucchini had been cooked in.  We actually cut down the amount of salt in the dressing to about 1/2 teaspoon as a full teaspoon seemed excessive.
• Speaking of mascarpone, hearing someone say it "mars-ca-pone", in the same way that people pronounce my name as "Carolyn", sort of irritates me.  (It's closer to "mas-car-pone-eh", and my name is not "Carolyn" in the same sense that it isn't "Marie" or "Jordan".)  Since I've learned over the years that no one likes a know-it-all and since this really isn't a big deal in any case, I usually just brush it off and ignore the momentary and slight rise in blood pressure.  So to save myself a little hypertension, whenever someone pronounces it "mars-ca-pone", I'll just pretend that they're referring to that rum-running Capone family of Mars.  They've got an in with Starfleet, you know.

So all in all, this was a relatively labour-intensive dinner and it's not a good hot-weather dish only in that it requires three different uses of the stove.  However, it was very tasty and the end result was a not-too-heavy springtime dinner that we'll probably end up making again sometime--it'd be a great make-ahead dish as the flavours get better with a little time.

Avocados and pasta: a winning combination

Tagine

Inspired by a friend who lived in Morocco during her stint with the Peace Corps, I've wanted to try tagine ever since she mentioned it in her own blog.  I found at stovetop version at Allrecipes which looked easy enough and would only require us to buy a few things we wouldn't have bought normally.  I really don't know if this particular recipe is authentic in any way, but it afforded us the opportunity to try something new.

This was an interesting flavour combination and I was a little hesitant at first, but by the time the title sequence came up for the episode of Deep Space Nine* we were watching, I was a big fan.  I'd make it again so long as we purchase a vegetable peeler before trying to peel a butternut squash (see our notes).  Also, that will not be my job.

Our notes:

• Butternut squash is tough.  This was the first time I'd purchased one myself and probably will be the last that I try to peel with a knife.  I'm not a fan of risking severe injury in the name of food.
• Coriander is cilantro--didn't know that one.  We didn't miss it in the stew, but it would have been nice to know at the time.
• We added dried cherries for a bit of sweetness, and also because we didn't have any other dried fruit like apricots.  This added another layer to a dish already containing an amalgam of flavours.
• Store-brand vegetable broth works just fine, which is nice because the Kroger down the street doesn't have any other brand of vegetable broth for some reason.

Our stovetop, hard-anodized, Calphalon version of a tagine (pot).
Also known as the "3-quart covered saute pan".

Served over rice because that's the staple grain for us.

*We're halfway through Season 3, and I am so excited to watch the series all the way through with Dom since it's one of my all-time favourite television shows.

Homemade tortillas

After seeing this recipe at AnnArbor.com, we decided to make our own tortillas.  We ended up using the Joy of Cooking recipe due to logistics.  In any event, this was a resounding success.

Our notes:

• These were absurdly easy to make.  Five ingredients total: flour, baking powder, salt, vegetable shortening (or, in our parlance, "olive oil"), and water.
• The two recipes differed only in the amounts of baking powder and shortening.  Joy of Cooking called for less baking powder but far more shortening: 2 tsp. shortening vs. 1/4 cup (!).  The tortillas we made tasted heavily of olive oil--not a bad thing but next time I think we should try the recipe that uses less oil and see if that makes a difference in the texture.
• We used our handy griddle rather than a skillet.  This worked fabulously.
• Our tortillas came out a bit thicker and denser than store-bought ones, and they seemed to be less pliant (i.e. they would tend to crack if you tried to roll everything into a burrito).  Perhaps we should have used more baking powder?  Or less oil?
• The original recipe I had seen called for vegetable oil, and we used olive oil instead.  As a result our tortillas had a stronger taste than if we had followed the recipe more closely, but the substitution did not seem to affect the cooking time at all.

Resting the dough before cooking.

Once again, the griddle came through for us.

Stack o' tortillas.

yum.

Joy of Cooking (2006), p. 608

Key lime sherbet

For the key lime pie, we had only used about half of the lime juice as what we had gotten from the bag of limes.  What to do with the other half, we asked ourselves?  Once again, it was Joy of Cooking to the rescue with a lime sherbet recipe.

Our notes:

• Unbeknownst to me before the fact, this sherbet recipe called for gelatin as an agent to keep the finished product smooth.  Due to our previous almond pudding mishap we had a few envelopes of gelatin in the cupboard.  Much better results this time!
• The recipe called for 1 cup of sugar and we used somewhat less than a full cup; even so, my first impression upon tasting the finished product was one of overwhelming sweetness.  Probably reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup or even 2/3 cup next time.
• The sherbet had a better consistency after putting it into the freezer for a day than it did right from the ice cream maker.  I suppose it'd be the difference between soft serve and what I call 'real' ice cream.
• Our past experiences with our ice cream maker from the 1980s led us to believe that after churning and then storing the finished ice cream, you'd end up with a solid block of frozen product rather than something resembling a scoopable ice cream since the freezer wouldn't freeze it quickly enough.  That was not the case with this sherbet recipe, for which I credit the gelatin.  Surprisingly enough for our homemade ice cream (and related products), this was actually better not directly from the ice cream maker.

Soft serve sherbet.  Delicious, but it melted very quickly.

After one day's storage in the freezer.  Delicious, and it still has a smooth consistency.

Joy of Cooking (2006), p. 838