Chai Glazed Cookie Bars with Blackberry Cabernet Sorbetto - Oh yeah!

I've been researching blogging conferences - so I can take better photos, add some variety to my yummy adjectives, and learn how to get more traffic to my blog. The conference at the top of my list is the International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC), hosted in Seattle in August. There is also the BlogHer Food '10 Conference in San Francisco in October. Yay! I have friends in both cities and I'm looking forward to a west coast vacation.

While browsing some of the blogs hosted on BlogHer, I found this recipe for Chai Glazed Cookie Bars. That same day, I had my first taste of Blackberry Cabernet Sorbetto from Ciao Bella Gelato

and knew that these two things would be a perfect pair. Although you can buy Blackberry Carbernet Sorbetto from your favorite trendy grocery store (find store locations here), I did find a recipe for it. That took me straight to Craigslist to look for an ice cream maker. No luck yet, but perhaps it's a little too early in the spring cleaning season and Wedding Gift Craigslisting season has not yet started. If anyone has an ice cream maker they want to part with, I'll gladly take it. Though I'll warn you - you may want to hang on to it. I plan on posting several alcohol infused ice cream recipes this summer. I haven't tried this sorbetto recipe, but it looks pretty easy. I will definitely try it once I get the ice cream maker and when blackberries are in season. And just to clarify, I'm looking for an electric ice cream maker. I have hand cranked enough ice cream in my younger days. My family used to participate in historical re-enactments, including making ice cream without electricity. This photo from flickr gives you an idea of what I was subjected to at a young age. I think I had that outfit the little girl on the right is wearing.

I did make the Chai Cookie bars. They were easy and straight forward. I did a little research on allspice, one of the spices in the bars. Originally I thought that allspice was a combination of several spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. It didn't make sense that you would need cloves, nutmeg and allspice. But, I learned that allspice is the dried fruit of the evergreen myrtle plant Pimenta Dioica . and is also known as Jamaica Pepper. Allspice is native to the Carribean, Mexico, and Central America. It is called allspice because it tastes like cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Some sites recommend substituting 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and cloves, along with a pinch of nutmeg for 1 teaspoon of allspice if you don't have any allspice on hand.

Garam masala is not a staple spice for most people unless you are heavy into Indian cooking. You could try substituting a mixture of cardamom, coriander, or curry powder. Or increase the some of the other spices. In all honesty, I think the spices in this recipe could use a little tweaking to get it closer to the chai taste but tastes great as is.

Chai Glazed Cookie Bars
From: The Crepes of Wrath

Ingredients
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark or light brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon garam masala
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Glaze Ingredients
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup powdered sugar
2-4 tablespoons milk (start with 2 tablespoons, add more as needed)

Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and grease and/or line a 9x13x2 pan.
2. Beat together the sugars and butter until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes.
3. Beat in the egg and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
4. Add in the flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon, garam masala, cloves, pepper, allspice and nutmeg and beat gently until everything is thoroughly combined. Don't over-mix.
5. If everything isn't quite coming together in your mixer, finish it up by hand. The dough will be very similar to a cookie dough.
6. Press the dough into the prepared pan. I find using the back of a soup spoon is the easiest way to press dough into a pan.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes, until the dough no longer wiggles when gently shaken, and the dough is a very light brown.
8. Allow to cool completely before finishing up with the glaze.
9. To make the glaze, combine the three tablespoons of honey and powdered sugar, then beat together until combined.
10. Add in the milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the icing is a consistency that you like. The thicker the better, in my opinion.
11. Pour the glaze over the bars and allow to set. You speed this up by putting the bars in your refrigerator.

Blackberry Cabernet Sorbetto
From: Danilo Zecchin of Ciao Bella — New York, NY
Adapted by StarChefs  
Yields: 1 pint

Ingredients
1 cup water
½ cup sugar
¾ cup cabernet wine
2 cups blackberries
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 egg white, whipped

Instructions
1. In a bowl of cold water, gently clean the blackberries. Be sure to remove all debris and any soft or discolored berries.
2. In a food processor or blender, combine the berries, water, sugar, lemon juice and wine. Process or blend mixture until smooth. Add the whipped egg white and stir until thoroughly blended. Chill mixture.
3. Freeze (churn) cooled mixture in an ice cream machine, according to the manufacturer’s directions. 4. Garnish with fresh blackberries and mint leaves.
 

No-Fly Lemon-Amaretto Cake

I want to thank everyone for being supportive of my blog. It's fun to write and I appreciate all the comments - and all of the suggestions of what to cook next. Today's recipe was suggested by my friend Mike. He says he has been making this Lemon-Amaretto Cake since he was about 10 years old, minus the alcohol in his formative years.

I actually made this cake back in December, divided into 2 loaf pans, and took them to Finland with me as hostess gifts for the families that I was visiting. You can see slices of the cake on the table (left) during a morning visit with the extended family. (The other photos are from the farm I stayed at during Christmas). Although the cake was well received with morning coffee and was the perfect post-sauna (pronounced "s-ow-na") snack, I would estimate that the loaves added about 5 pounds of weight to my carry-on and I was a little worried that I might have some trouble with getting through security. Alcohol drenched pound cake is a perfect terrorist weapon - brick like and perhaps a good vessel for chloroform. Does anyone else spend time thinking about ways to get things passed through TSA? Really, I would like think they make us safer, but if there are terrorists as smart and as creative as I am...well, we should be afraid. I hope this post doesn't put me on the no-fly list.

I had some discussions with Mike about the best way to soak the cake in the Amaretto syrup to get the most absorption. When warm? When cold? My final strategy was to apply the syrup with several applications, applying both when warm and when cool.

Lemon-Amaretto Cake

source: Cooks.com

Ingredients 

Cake

1 1/2 c. sliced almonds

1/2 lb. unsalted butter, softened

2 c. granulated sugar

1 tbsp. finely grated lemon zest

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. lemon extract

5 eggs

Syrup 

6 tbsp. granulated sugar

4 tbsp. Amaretto liqueur

3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Instructions 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread almonds on a baking sheet and place in oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until just golden. Remove and set aside.
2. Lightly grease and flour two 5 x 8 loaf pans  Sprinkle 1/2 cup of toasted almonds evenly between the bottoms of the two pans (1/4 cup in each pan). See #4 in the notes section.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and lemon zest together until pale yellow and fluffy. Add flour; stir just enough to blend.
4. Add lemon juice and extracts. Stir. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring after each addition.
5. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in all of the remaining toasted almonds.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans and bake until cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 5 minutes. (After 30 minutes of baking, cover top of cake tightly with aluminum foil).
7. While cake is baking, prepare syrup: In a saucepan, slowly heat the sugar, Amaretto and lemon juice, stirring, until sugar melts. Reserve until ready to use.
8. When the cake is done, remove from oven; with a cake tester or a shish kabob skewer, poke holes all over the top of the cake. Carefully pour or brush on 1/2 of the syrup until it is absorbed into the holes. You may need to make several applications because the entire amount probably won't absorb all at once. Cool cake in the pan on a cake rack for 10 minutes.
9. Gently invert the cake onto another rack and remove from pan. With cake tester, poke holes in the bottom and sides of cake; brush each side with remaining syrup. 
10. You can keep brushing the cake with straight liqueur if you want or put some Amaretto in the bottom of the pan and put the loaf back into the pan for soaking. I think used an additional 1/4 cup of Amaretto, and probably could have used more.
11. Let cake cool completely before placing in gift container, gift-wrapping and taking to your airport's security check.
Serves 12 good size pieces. Per serving (with the syrup) : 481 calories, 24g fat, 130mg cholesterol.

Notes about this recipe: 
1. If you don't have lemon extract, don't worry. You can just use a little more lemon juice or leave it out for a less lemony cake.


2. To apply the syrup, I ended up using the squeeze bottle shown in the photo, and poured liquid directly into the holes I created with the cake tester/skewer. I also tried a pastry brush but had less control of where the syrup went. I think you could also just use a teaspoon to help pour the syrup into the holes.
3. You can also use a single 10-inch nonstick Bundt pan (instead of the 2 loaf pans) and cook for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
4. If I make this recipe again as loaves, I will probably sprinkle the almonds on top instead of the bottom. The idea is to have a decorative top of your cake. With a bundt pan, the top is the bottom, so you should put the almonds on the bottom of the pan before adding the batter. For loaves, the top is the top so the almonds should be sprinkled on top, after the batter is put in the pans.

Pot Luck O' the Irish - Asparagus with Honey Garlic Sauce

 I really love pot lucks. You can always count on at least one really, really good thing - more if you have friends that can cook.  My good friends from Boston are staying with me and they conveniently organized a dinner party at my house. I was away in Vegas and a little too distracted to say yes or no. I think they knew I would say yes....I love to host parties, dinners, etc. Pot lucks are great are even better because it's less work.

Here is the recipe I made for last night's pot luck. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Asparagus with Honey-Garlic Sauce
Adapted from Cooking With Beer

Ingredients
1 pound asparagus
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup dark ale or beer (I used Brooklyn Brown Ale)
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 crushed dried thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions
Trim edges of asparagus. Mince garlic. Bring water boil. While water is heating up, combine mustard, ale, honey, garlic, thyme and salt. Mix well. Add asparagus to boiling, salted water. Cook covered, about 2 minutes or until barely tender. Drain. Pour dressing over asparagus.

Notes about asparagus: Asparagus tastes best when cooked soon after purchase. You should make sure your supermarket refrigerates their asparagus or stores it standing upright in cold water. When you bring asparagus home, wrap stalks in damp paper towels and store in the crisper until ready to prepare.

The Go To Moves: "Booty Call Shrimp with Tomato, Basil and White Wine over Pasta" Finished with "Framboise and Ice Cream"

First off, I need to give some blog love to my dear friend Kathleen - she has guest posted here several times. She also writes her own blog which makes me laugh out loud. Last week, she posted about her  one of her "go to" moves, as she describes, "Moves we whip out when we’re aiming to woo, impress, or make the sexy time." She named her "go to" move "Booty Call Shrimp with Tomato, Basil and White Wine over Pasta." You can read more about it with her post and you can find the recipe at the bottom of this post. Get ready to giggle.

I've spent the last few days thinking about how to segway this topic into a new recipe of my own. I was at a Freakin' Frogs in Las Vegas last week - the biggest beer bar on the West Coast according to menu at the restaurant. I'm not sure if this is true, but I do know for a fact that they are the biggest beer bar with the suckiest name in all of the U.S. Aside from the name, it was a great place. The bartender was friendly and very knowledgeable and showed us the cooler with all of the beer selections. He also gave mad props to my city, calling Philadelphia a beer mecca.

Don't worry, I'm about to ramble back onto the topic of go-to moves. One of Freakin' Frogs specials was beer floats - vanilla ice cream with either Lindeman's Lambic Framboise or Young's Double Cream Stout - reminding me of a very good "go-to" move for those of you who fear the kitchen, who are challenged dessert makers, or those who are just too busy. There are other fruit Lambics available, so you can choose your favorite flavor:  framboise (raspberry), kriek (cherry), pêche (peach), cassis (black currant), and pomme (apple).

A "go to" move must be impressive, easy and reliable. I think this one fits the bill. Yeah, it's kind of cheating as far as actual baking skills, but it is such a delicious combination, people will be wowed by the taste, especially if they never have had Fambroise Lambic before or if you live in Pennsylvania and it's kind of a schlep to find a package store that sells this beer. (Read more about the challenges of obtaining beer in Keystone State).

In search of photos for this recipe, I came across a whole blog post about different types of beer floats. Ooo and here is a recipe for Lambic Sorbet! Yum, I'm hungry. 

Booty Call Shrimp with Tomato, Basil and White Wine over Pasta

Subtitle, “I shaved my legs today.”

You really should go to Kathleen's blog and see the wonderful photos and she's funny too. The recipe below is as she wrote it.

Ingredients

1/2 lbs uncooked shrimp per person. I’m persnickety about springing for larger, fresh water shrimp, but do whatever your budget will accommodate.

1/4 cup kosher salt

lots of tomatoes, I like a mixture of plum, vine ripened and cherry

green onions

lots of basil

a few cloves of garlic

salt

pepper

olive oil

a hunk of butter

white wine (cooking or drinking)

pasta

Parmesan cheese

optional additions: spinach, lump crab meat (although i find this to be a low ROI addition)

Instructions

1. Peel and de-vein the shrimp. Make an ice bath with kosher salt and brine the shrimp for 30 minutes.  

2. Meanwhile, quarter and seed the big tomatoes. Discard the seeds and juice. Dice the flesh. Chop the green onions, garlic and basil. 

3. In large saute pan, heat olive oil and butter to medium high. Saute garlic for a minute or so. Don’t let it burn! Add shrimp and green onions. Saute for 4 - 5 minutes, until you can see that the shrimp are fully cooked. If you don’t know what fully cooked shrimp look like, google it. Turn the heat down to medium. Add spinach here, if you’re doing it. Saute until it’s wilted and reduced. Add the diced tomatoes, basil and the white wine, about a quarter of a cup if you’re cooking for two, then splashes as needed. Not too runny! Add salt and pepper to taste. Add cherry tomatoes and cook until they are still intact but the skins look like they’re gonna break. At the last minute gently fold in lump crab meat (if doing), just enough to warm it, but not enough that it breaks up and is lost in the slush.

4. Serve over cooked pasta. Top with parmesan cheese and crushed up roofies. Fluff your hair, touch up your make up, and enjoy!

Lindemans Framboise Float
Vanilla ice cream
Lindemans Framboise – Raspberry Lambic

Fresh raspberries (optional)
Lady fingers or other sugar cookie of your choice (optional)
 

Scoop ice cream into pint glass. Add Lindemans Frambiose. Garnish with one or two cookies and raspberries, optional but adds to the wow-factor.

Note: Lady fingers are a little fancy pants for a cookie garnish, but happened to be in my cupboard when I first made this a few years ago. If you buy lady fingers for this, you might as well buy some marscapone so you can make Tiramisu. Don't worry, there will be a blog post for that sometime soon.

The photo to the right was taken from flickr.

 

Bacon Bourbon Caramel Corn

 I saw a post somewhere today (maybe on DailyCandy?) advertising Bourbon Bacon Caramel Corn and couldn't stop thinking about it all afternoon. When thinking about what to have for dinner, all I could think of was sweet and bacony crunchy popcorn. These thoughts were fueled by the actual presence of bacon in my refrigerator and some popcorn kernels that had been sitting in a Tupperware container on my counter since 2 ears of dried corn showed up in my farm share last summer.

A search on google only found the product for sale, already made. I was only able to find a recipe for caramel corn and used this for my starting point.

I haven't made popcorn from without a microwave since I was young. It was fun to relive these memories. Did anyone else sneak homemade popcorn in brown paper bags into the movies when they were younger? 

Some things I learned while making this recipe:
1. 1/3 to 1/2 cups of kernal popcorn yields 3.5 quarts
2. Don't try to reheat unpopped kernel - the ones that do pop are sadly disappointing, they half pop, kinda like those fireworks that go up and explode into one spark and make you say "Booooooo" instead of "Ooooooooooo"
3. Don't try to taste test boiling caramel sauce, it's still really hot even after you've removed it from the stove for 5 minutes.
4. Try not to burn your bacon. I just got a new griddle. It captured and held heat so well the bacon was done before I knew it.

Popcorn and Bacon

3-5 strips bacon
3 Tablespoons canola, peanut, or grapeseed oil (high smoke point oil)
1/3 cup of high quality popcorn kernels
1 3-quart covered saucepan

Instructions
1. Cook the bacon until crispy, place on paper towels to remove grease, cool.
2. Heat the oil in a 3-quart saucepan on medium high heat.
3. Put 3 or 4 popcorn kernels into the oil and cover the pan.
4. When the kernels pop, add the rest of the 1/3 cup of popcorn kernels in an even layer. Cover, remove from heat and count 30 seconds. This step first heats the oil to the right temperature, then waiting 30 seconds brings all of the other kernels to a near-popping temperature so that when they are put back on the heat, they all pop at about the same time.
5. Return the pan to the heat. The popcorn should begin popping soon, and all at once. Once the popping starts in earnest, gently shake the pan by moving it back and forth over the burner. Try to keep the lid slightly ajar to let the steam from the popcorn release (the popcorn will be drier and crisper). Once the popping slows to several seconds between pops, remove the pan from the heat, remove the lid, and dump the popcorn immediately into a wide bowl. With this technique, nearly all of the kernels pop and nothing burns.

6.  Crumble bacon. Add bacon to popcorn and toss.

If you don't want to add the caramel and bacon you can....
7. Add butter, you can easily melt it by placing the butter in the now empty, but hot pan.
8. Salt to taste.
 

Makes 2 quarts, a nice amount for two people, or for one hungry one.

Bourbon Caramel Sauce
1/2  cup real butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup (or light corn syrup)
1 to 2 Tablespoon Bourbon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Instructions
1. Heat oven to 250 degrees F.
2. Bring butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup to a boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce heat and boil for 5 minutes; remove from heat.

4. Stir in boubon, vanilla, salt, and baking soda and mix.
5. Pour over popped corn and bacon.

6. Spread coated popcorn into (2) 11" X 9" X 2" baking pans.


7. Bake in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

8. Cool for 1 hour, then break up before storing.