Archive | July, 2009

Recipe: Butterbeer! Part One.

31 Jul

Earlier in the week, a friend emailed me a link to a recipe for real, Tudor-style butterbeer. Apparently butterbeer is not just the stuff of Harry Potter culinary lore, but a real drink imbibed by real people with a real recipe to boot.

This brought to mind my high school days, when I would make faux butterbeer for my friends using homemade  hot buttered rum mix and root beer. I would warm up the root beer on the stove and whisk in the hot buttered rum mix, and serve to friends dressed in festive hats and robes. We always saw Harry Potter on opening night, and we always dressed in costume (we did the same thing for Lord of the Rings). We were were (and sometimes still are) those kids!

When I discovered the root beer/hot buttered rum mix drink I was ecstatic, because it brought an additional air of authenticity to our festivities. When my friend emailed me the REAL butterbeer recipe, the memories came back and that, coupled with the fact that the newest Harry Potter movie has recently been released, inspired me to devote this blog entirely to butterbeer.

And so begins DinnerLove’s two-week Butterbeer extravaganza! This week I am bringing you the non-alcoholic root beer variety, and next week I’ll feature the tudor-style alcoholic recipe. Woohoo!

Butterbeer

Root beer, at least 16 oz

Hot buttered rum mix:

1/2 stick of butter

1 C brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

Leave the 1/2 stick of butter on the counter for a bit to soften it up. Alternatively, you can soften it in the microwave but I always manage to screw that up somehow and end up with a big liquid mess.

So, all you do is cream your ingredients together. Put the butter, sugar and spices into a bowl and stir until they are all combined.

Use 1 TB mix per 8 oz of root beer. I’m only making enough for one person (this stuff is really sweet!) so I heated 8 oz of root beer. When the root beer is warm and bubbly, add the buttered rum mix.

Whisk the mix into the root beer until it is dissolved. Watch the root beer, it will foam up if you’re not careful!

Pour into a big mug and enjoy!

In my opinion, the non-alcoholic variety is probably more true to the Harry Potter books than the tudor-style alcoholic beer recipe. I know that the drinking age in the UK is 18, but Harry Potter and Co have been drinking butterbeer since they were at least 12 and I seriously doubt that Madame Rosemerta would stand for a gaggle of drunk pre-teens in The Three Broomsticks, especially when they have Voldemort to fight off. Could you imagine? Harry wasn’t exactly an A student when it came to magic. If he were drunk he would have been dead!

Until next week, my fellow muggles. Enjoy!

❤ Stef

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Recipe: Basil Pesto with Walnuts

17 Jul

Summer is in full swing, and as such basil is everywhere. Yes, you can grow herbs at any time of year, really, but right now is when they start propagating out of control. I bought a bunch of basil as big as my head for $2 at one of my local Farmer’s Markets, and aside from the fact that I couldn’t stop smelling it (smells amaaaazing) I was immediately seized with panic.

What the hell was I going to make with all of that basil? I only have so many tomatoes! When I thought, duh. I’ll make some pesto! I had never made homemade pesto, because I thought I wasn’t a huge fan. I’m normally a tomato sauce gal. I intended my very first batch for a potato-pesto pizza (just as amazing as it sounds) and when the pesto was done I was in shock. Who knew homemade pesto could be so amazing? It didn’t taste anything like the drab pestos I’d previously been accustomed to. This was fresh, garlicy-sweet, with a slight bite. Absolutely brilliant. I immediately slathered some on toast, and while I ate thought “I’m totally making this for my next blog”.

I know that nearly everyone knows how to make pesto, and that this recipe won’t really be a revelation to anyone. I just wanted to share my enthusiasm, and to let you know that if you have never made pesto from scratch, now is the perfect time to start.

Pesto, makes about 1 C. Recipe from Simply Recipes.com.

1 C basil leaves, packed

1/4 C parmesean cheese

1/4 C olive oil

2.5 TB walnuts (You can use pine nuts if you want).

1.5 garlic cloves, sliced.

salt and pepper to taste

You will need a food processor or a blender. I have an itsy-bitsy Toastmaster Chopster. It’s a mini food processor, not very powerful, but perfect for pesto because it doesn’t liquefy the ingredients.

Put the walnuts in the food processor and pulse a few times until they are crumbly.

Grab your basil and pack a cup full of basil leaves. No stems, and make sure you pack tightly!

Chop the garlic very coarsely, add it to the walnuts in the food processor and pulse them together.

Add the basil and pulse lightly until the leaves have broken up, scraping down the sides of the processor is necessary.

Add the olive oil a little at a time, pulsing between each addition. When you are done, the mixture should be cohesive but still granular.

Add the cheese and pulse to combine.

Now taste and add add salt and pepper as you like.

You can add the pesto to anything, use it for pastas or pizza, or just slather it on a slice of french bread like me.

Yum.

❤ Stef

Recipe: Coffee Can Vanilla Custard Ice Cream

11 Jul

I love homemade ice cream.

I also love to make ice cream, because I can do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. Peach ice cream? You got it! Chocolate custard? You betcha! Caramel swirl with m&ms, chocolate chips and peanuts? Why not? Dooooo iiiiiit.

The only problem is that I don’t have an ice cream maker. I used to, but it was a cheapie one from Target and one day a few years ago it stopped working. I had it running for nearly eight hours before I realized that the little paddle inside wasn’t spinning, so the ice cream couldn’t become ice cream, just liquidy mess. It sucked.

I hadn’t bothered to make ice cream since, because I thought you needed a proper ice cream freezer and I don’t have one. It turns out, you don’t need a freezer at all, just some ice and salt and ingenuity. These things I have in spades, which is why tonight I will have vanilla custard ice cream for dessert, and you can, too.

Recipe from Fanny at Chez Panisse by Alice Waters.

2 egg yolks

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C milk

3 drops vanilla extract

lemon zest

1/2 C whipping cream

First you will need one very large jar and one small. The reason the recipe is called “coffee can” ice cream is because you are meant to use two coffee cans, but I don’t buy my coffee in cans. Jars or tupperware will work just as well. The small jar will hold the ice cream ingredients, and it needs to have a very tight seal. The large jar will hold the small jar, the ice, and the salt.

Separate the egg yolk from the white and put the yolk in a small saucepan.

Add the sugar and whisk. Heat the milk (I used the microwave) until hot, but don’t let it boil. Slowly add the milk (about 1-2 TB at a time) to the yolk and sugar until completely combined.

Heat gently, stirring all the time. You want to thicken the mixture slightly, either until it reaches 170˚ or it coats the back of a metal spoon and you are able to draw a line through it with your finger.

You are supposed to strain it at this point, but I didn’t. This did not negatively affect the finished product, but hey. If it makes you feel better, strain your custard. I don’t like to follow directions.

Add the vanilla and the lemon zest and put the mixture into the fridge and allow it to cool. Once cool, stir in the cream and put the mixture in the little jar. If you wanted to add fruit or chocolate pieces to your ice cream, this would be the time to do it. Put a piece of saran wrap between the jar and the lid.

Put the jar in the freezer overnight, until it is frozen half solid.

Take it out and pack it in the larger tupperware with ice and salt, and shake for about 20 minutes.

If the ice cream is too soft for your liking, you can put it back in the freezer until it is more hard.

Serve!

Add chocolate fudge if you like.

Hooray! Ice cream without a crazy ice cream freezer/maker/mabob.

❤ Stef

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Ice cream postponed!

10 Jul

I’m making totally delicious ice cream for you all, but it is taking a bit longer to freeze than I thought it would. As a result, I’m running out of daylight and won’t be able to post finished pictures and instructions until tomorrow.

Until then,

❤ Stef

Recipe: Garlic Aioli

3 Jul

One of my favorite cookbooks is called Fanny at Chez Panisse, by Alice Waters. It is actually the only Alice Waters cookbook that I own, and it was my introduction to her as a chef/food activist. The book was originally given to my little sister Jesslyn for Christmas a few years ago, but I ended up using it more than she did. The first roast chicken recipe I ever made was from this cookbook. I made it with roast potatoes and this aioli.

Last week I was at my mother’s house and I went through her bookshelves and grabbed back my childhood cookbooks. Fanny at Chez Panisse was one of them, and I thought I would share this recipe with you because it has so many good memories for me. Aside from that, it is totally delicious. I use it to dip roast potatoes and chicken into, but it would also make an awesome sandwich spread. In fact, tonight I made roast chicken and potatoes with this aioli on the side, and I plan on making sandwiches with the leftovers tommorrow. Mmmm.

Ingredients:

1 egg, yolk and white separated.

1 C olive oil

1 clove of garlic, or more if you prefer. I used around 3.

Salt and pepper

1/2 tsp lemon

First, smush up the garlic with the flat of a knife and chop it very finely. Add it to a bowl with just the egg yolk.

Get your cup of olive oil, and make sure you have it in a container with a spout.

Slowly whisk the olive oil into the yolk, about 1 TB at a time, making sure to fully incorporate the oil into the yolk each time.

Once you have added about half of the oil, add a splash of water, whisk to combine, and continue adding the oil. At this point you can add a little bit more oil each time because the mix will be generally cohesive.

Once you have added all of the oil, add the lemon and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with whatever you feel like! It is best eaten the same day, but it will keep in the fridge for a few days, too.

❤ Stef