Kahlua Chip Ice Cream and the Gift That Keeps on Giving

About a month ago I bought my friend (who is also my housemate) an ice cream maker for his birthday. In truth, I actually bought the ice cream maker on sale and then spent several days debating whether it was appropriate for me to give this as a gift because I wanted it just as much if not more than he did. This winter he had mentioned that he was thinking about getting one but I told him to wait and I would try to find a used one. As I mentioned in a previous post, ice cream makers are one of those things that ends up on wedding registries, used once (if that), and then sent to the basement for that fateful day of spring cleaning. Spring/early summer is the perfect time to snatch one up from Craiglist.

It was May and I hadn't seen one on craiglist yet....and here was one on sale on Rue La La (See note at bottom of post). I wrapped up the box and gave it to him - feeling a little guilty about the win-win of the situation. If he liked it, I would be eating ice cream all summer, if he didn't, I would still have access to an ice cream maker and could make my own ice cream.

Any doubt about whether he liked the gift was erased the weekend after his birthday. He made 3 batches of ice cream for himself (I was away for the weekend!) - vanilla, strawberry, and coffee. He has pretty much continued with making at least one batch of ice cream per week. And ice cream has a way of getting rid of negative feelings, including my guilt of indirectly giving myself such a wonderful gift for my friend's birthday - a gift that keeps on giving....to me.

A few weeks ago I had my first go at making ice cream - Kahlua Chip Ice Cream. The basic recipe for ice cream calls for whole milk, heavy cream (or half and half if the recipe combines them), and egg yolks. You bring the whole milk and heavy cream to a boil and typically add your base flavor during this process. Then you slowly and gradually add the milk/cream mixture to the egg yolks, making sure you don't "cook" the eggs. Once the eggs are diluted and warmed up, you can add this back to the remainder of the hot milk/cream mixture and heat it back up to a custard state. You cool the mixture in the refrigerator and then add to your ice cream machine. If you are adding any chunks (brownies, cookies and cream, peanut butter chunks, chocolate chips, etc), you mix them into the frozen ice cream, just before you place it in the freezer for the last bit of freezing. From what Kevin has learned in his first 10 or so batches, avoiding cooked eggs and reaching the custard consistency is the hardest part of making ice cream.

My first ice cream attempt was somewhat of a fail, but it looks good in the photo, right? Yeah, it's tough to fully fail on ice cream, but I definitely have room for improvement. The problems I faced:

1) It took forever to freeze up in the ice cream machine. think there were two reasons for this. Too much custard in the ice cream machine which will just take longer. I think the alcohol lowers the freezing temperature of the custard, especially if you have added it after the custard has chilled.

2) Adding "water" in the form of alcohol and coffee/expresso affects the custard consistency and increases your chance of forming more of an icy ice cream.

3) Pouring warm chocolate syrup into your ice cream will melt it even more! This whole process seems problematic. Since I was having trouble getting the ice cream to freeze and already had too much custard in the machine, adding the melted chocolate made everything worse.  Melted ice cream did not hold the chocolate in the custard. Instead all the chocolate fell to the bottom. Sad face.

4) Chocolate daggers? Yes, that is what is created when you pour melted chocolate into ice cream...even if you try to just drip it in. This was concerning at first. Especially with all of the chocolate falling to the bottom.

Fortunately, I rescued a small amount of ice cream that hinted at what this recipe could be. As I was adding the chocolate, I actually removed some of the custard and put it directly in the freezer to make room for more chocolate. Since this was still slightly frozen, it stayed creamier, and not as icy. It also kept the chocolate dispersed in the ice cream. The chocolate daggers were thin enough that they break up with any slight pressure of your spoon or your tongue. Hearing the chocolate breaking as you scoop out the ice cream is a really cool sound.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here is the recipe. I'm sure I've convinced you to try it! I'll try another ice cream recipe soon and let you know what else I learn.

Side note about Rue La La: Rue La La is a website that has three day sales, featuring items from a range of different designers and high end kitchen and houseware companies. If you are interested in joining, send me a note and I will send you an invite and will get a credit for the referral).

Kahlua Chip Ice Cream
Adapted from: Food Network

Ingredients
8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1 quart half-and-half
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup brewed double-strength espresso, cold
1/2 cup Kahlua or other coffee liqueur
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Instructions
Place a large mixing bowl in the freezer. In another large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale yellow. In a saucepan bring the half-and-half to a boil, let it cool down to a warm temperature about 125 F. Gradually add a small amount of half-and-half into the egg mixture, whisking really quickly. When you've added enough half and half into the egg mixture to warm it up and dilute it, you can slowly add that back into the pan of half-and-half. A tedious process, but this helps to prevent the egg from "cooking." Heat the half-and-half mixture up until the sugar dissolves and the mixture becomes a custard consistency, about 145 F. When a custard consistency, the mixture will coat a spoon, as shown in the photo. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla, cold espresso and Kahlua. Place plastic wrap on top of the custard liquid to avoid the formation of a thick film while chilling. Place in the refrigerator to chill. Pass through a fine strainer. I started with a combination of a mesh strainer and a tea ball - but quickly gave up on the tea ball. The idea is to strain out any accidentally cooked egg pieces.

Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. (Depending on the size of your machine, you may wish to process in two batches.)

When the ice cream is nearly done, melt the chocolate over simmering water.  Transfer the frozen ice cream into the chilled bowl from the freezer. Pour in the melted chocolate, stirring and mixing vigorously with a wooden spoon. (Perhaps this is one area where I might have gone wrong, I totally skipped this and poured the chocolate into the spinning ice cream maker! Doh!) Transfer to a container and freeze until firm.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp and the Bare Kitchen Challenge

My mom used to make rhubarb pie with fresh rhubarb from a patch behind our house. I remember harvesting the rhubarb with my mom. We would have to bushwhack our way through a jungle of overgrown weeds and uneven hillside behind our house. It always felt like we were some kind of expedition. When reached the rhubarb patch the plants reached my 6 year old waist and the leaves were as big as my head.  I remember being really sweaty and fighting bugs, the notorius Maine no-seeums. It seemed such a journey but was probably only 100 yard round trip.

I never liked rhubarb pie - it was too bitter for my taste.  But I always liked the challenge of harvesting it.

Twenty-five years later.....in a more urban location, I drive about 4 miles to pick up my farm share and find 4 stalks for rhubarb and a quart of strawberries in this weeks share. I search google for a recipe, thinking that I'll give rhubarb another go as my taste buds have matured as an adult and I seem to have a more open palate - I hated cheese when I was younger and now love it! For all you people who believe Google is watching you...here is more proof. The first or second "hit" from a search of "strawberry rhubarb recipe" is a recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp that contains alcohol. Man, Google totally has me profiled and will soon be feeding me audio ads through my phone while I sleep.

Now armed with a great recipe, I check my refrigerator and cabinets and realize I'm missing or low on several staples:

Not enough strawberries - just shy of a quart after snacking on a few when I got home from the farm.

Unknown quantity of rhubarb - yes 4 stalks, but how many cups does that make?

No brown sugar. No big deal since I can make my own brown sugar with molasses and white sugar - Add 2 Tbsp. of dark molasses to 1 cup of white sugar and mix thoroughly. Damn, no molasses. Hmmm, maybe white sugar and some honey?

Low on butter, gasp! I only had 6 tablespoons and the crisp part of the recipe called for 12 tablespoons.

It was late at night and I didn't want to make a trip to the store even though I was missing major crisp ingredients. I decided to use what I had for strawberries and rhubarb - 4 stalks of rhubarb equaled 4 cups and 1 quart of strawberries was about 3 cups. I added a little more sugar to the strawberry rhubarb mixture - I suspected I might be missing some sweetness since the recipe called for 5 cups of strawberries  I decided to halve the crisp recipe to match the amount of butter I had on hand. Finally, I made an amber sugar, substituting honey for molasses in the make your own brown sugar recipe. By the way, I made up the term amber sugar - but it sounds like it should exist...and it does, but has nothing to do with honey.

Wow, I think that is the most experimenting I've ever done with baking and it turned out really wonderful. The strawberry rhubarb mixture was plenty sweet - I could have gotten away without adding the extra sugar. Next time I will only use the extra sugar if I use strawberries from out of season or from California, which tend to be less sweet because they aren't vine ripened. The honey gave the crisp an earthy taste and half as much crisp made for a less heavy dessert. I served it warm with some homemade vanilla ice cream. You can use store bought if you didn't buy your roommate an ice cream maker for his birthday. Topped with whipped cream would be tasty too.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Adapted From Southern Food from about.com
 Serves 8 to 10

Ingredients
4 cups chopped fresh rhubarb (about good sized stalks)
1 quart (~3 cups) strawberries, hulled, rinsed, sliced
1 cup granulated sugar (plus 1/4 cup if you are using non-locally ripened strawberries)
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup Grand Marnier liqueur, or use Cointreau or Orange Juice

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar (or amber sugar - 1/3 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons honey)
3/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/3 cup chopped pecans, slivered almonds, or other chopped nuts
Pinch salt
1 large egg, slightly beaten (the original recipe called for 1 egg, and I used most of the egg for the halved version. Didn't feel the need to waste half an egg and it turned out fine)

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 to 2 tbsp. confectioners' sugar
1/2 to 1 teaspoon almond extract, or Amaretto liqueur

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly butter the bottom of a large (4-quart) baking dish. A 15x10x2-inch pan will hold 4 quarts, or use two smaller pans, such as 11x7x2-inch or 9-inch square. In a large bowl, toss the rhubarb and strawberries with the granulated sugar and orange zest. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the Grand Marnier or Cointreau or Orange Juice and toss with the rhubarb mixture until well coated. Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish and set aside.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the butter, flour, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon with a pastry blender until crumbly. Stir in the almonds or pecans and salt, then stir in the egg with a fork until well blended. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls evenly over the rhubarb mixture and bake for 45 minutes, or until nicely browned and bubbly. Remove from oven and keep warm while making whipped cream. If desired, serve this crisp with ice cream instead of fresh whipped cream.

In a medium size bowl, whip the cream with the confectioners sugar until soft peaks form. Beat in the almond extract. Cut the warm crisps into squares and serve topped with generous dollops of the whipped cream.

Tequila's Up in Your Grill

Seriously, I should know how to spell Tequila without looking it up.....perhaps I can blame it on my lack of blogging? Wait, no, I should be apologizing for that, not using it as an excuse. Hopefully after this post about 2 Tequila marinades, I will no longer have a spelling problem and I'll be well on my way to a series of new posts and you will have forgotten about my little cooking/blogging hiatus.

These two Tequila marinades are quite similar, the first is a little more citrusy and the second has more of a spicy bite. You can use them with fish, shrimp or chicken. I recently used the Citrus Tequila Marinade with shrimp and accidentally learned a few things about ceviche. Ceviche is citrus marinated seafood, using fish or shellfish. Ceviche's origin is argued to be Spanish, Polynesian, Latin America, or South America. Citric acid, typically from lime, lemon, or orange, causes the proteins in the seafood to become denatured - this pickles or "cooks" the fish without heat. Traditional style ceviche only needs to marinated around 3 hours.

Back to the recipes....I mixed up the marinade, peeled and deveined (eww!) the shrimp, and then let the shrimp marinate while I prepared the rest of the meal (grilled veggies and dessert - Strawberry Tiramisu! Yes, a post for this will follow.). This was about an 1.5 to 2 hours. When the shrimp came out of the marinade they looked white and cooked on the edges - just like ceviche! Not a terrible thing since it was just the edges, but if I had marinated them for much longer, it could have led to toughness. So how does ceviche stay succulent and flakey and not tough? The seafood is chopped into very small pieces and then marinated for up to 3 hours depending on the recipe - because the pieces are small, the consistency of the seafood will remain similar throughout.

So the lesson learned here - shrimp and fish only needs to be marinated for 30 to 60 minutes when cooking with heat. Other useful tips I learned: 1) Marinate poultry 1 to 3 hours, and 2) Any marinade coming in contact with raw meat, seafood or poultry must be boiled for one minute before using it for basting. Or just reserve some of your marinade before adding your meat.


Citrus Tequila Marinade
Adapted from somewhere on the Internet
Makes about 3/4 cup for about 1 and 1/2 pounds of meat

Ingredients
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 2 limes)
3 tablespoons Tequila
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed (check out this debate and decide which you want to do)
2 pinch salt
ground black pepper, too taste

Jump to instructions below.

Tequila Mockingbird Marinade
Source: Bon Appetit

Servings: Makes about generous 3/4 cup. Marinates about 1 and 1/2 pounds of meat

Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 tablespoons tequila
2 tablespoons triple sec
1 large jalapeño chili, seeded, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime peel
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons of cilantro, chopped
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

Instructions
Mix all ingredients in small bowl or tupperware container big enough for your meat. Let stand 15 minutes (Can be prepared 1 day ahead). Add your meat. Cover and refrigerate.

Marinate poultry 1 to 3 hours and seafood 30 minutes in refrigerator. Drain (do not pat dry) and grill. If you are using wooden skewers, be sure to soak the skewers in water for 15 to 30 minutes to prevent sparkler action.

Optional:

Boil remaining marinade in heavy small saucepan 1 minute or reserve ~1/4 cup of marinade before you add the meat. Drizzle some of marinade over poultry or seafood just before serving.

BBQ Skirt Steak Kabobs Mad Scientist Style

My boyfriend is a mad scientist. It says so on his business card. He specializes in metal finishes at a furniture/fixture design and fabrication firm. He mixes up chemicals for special patinas to make new things look old. Though sometimes he uses chemicals to make things look really new.

The mad scientist has cleaned off his patio and fired up his charcoal for a summer of BBQing. Today I'm sharing one of his grilling recipes. In true mad scientist form, he doesn't use recipes. I had to translate his "a little bit of X" and "some Y" into actual measurements for the rest of us traditional recipe followers. Because his directions weren't exact to begin with, you can take some comfort knowing that you can't really mess this up.

The only ingredients are brown sugar, rye whiskey or bourbon, some salt and pepper. The brown sugar caramelizes with a rye or bourbon flavor and through the Maillard reaction it browns the meat into wonderful melt in your mouth flavor. The mad scientist recommends skirt steak for a good kabob. He says it is the most underrated cut of beef. I trust him on this - he once worked as a butcher and sold a rib steak to Julia Child.

BBQ Skirt Steak Kabobs
From the Mad Scientist

Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1-2 tablespoons rye whiskey or bourbon
1 1/2 pound of skirt steak cubed for kabobs
1 medium onion chunked for kabobs
skewers

Directions
Mix salt, pepper, brown sugar, and rye (or bourbon) in a small bowl. Place cubed steak in a larger container (a ziploc bag works great!), pour marinade over the steak. Marinate for about 30 to 60 minutes.

Wet the skewers by placing under running water for a bit or by soaking in a container of water. Wetting the skewers helps to prevent them from burning. Build your kabobs, alternating a steak cube and an onion slice. You can also put together other kabobs with your favorite veggies -  red peppers and mushrooms are shown in the photo below. In general, it's a good idea to make separate meat skewers and separate veggie skewers, since they often cook at different rates.

By this time you should have fired up your grill - or perhaps 30 minutes ago if you use charcoal. You need high heat - so be sure your coals are red hot. Place the kabobs on the grill. Turn the kabobs - grilling each side until brown. Remove from heat and let rest. Enjoy.

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.