Chocolate Stew Blog | Play with your food

Key Lime Pie Ice Cream

I somehow ended up with about 20 limes and nothing to do with them. I didn’t want to make a key lime pie because then I’d have a whole pie sitting in my fridge with a short shelf life. After contemplating multiple recipes, I decided to give this key lime pie ice cream recipe that I found on the Cooking Light website. It turned out so good that I plan to make more within the next few days. It really does taste very similar to key lime pie and I love the graham cracker crumbles mixed in. I love “things” in my ice cream so I added quite alot of graham crackers to this! I used a Cuisinart ice cream maker and it only took about 30 minutes, then I put it in the freezer for a few more hours to firm up. I altered the original recipe slightly, but if you want the original, just click the links above.
1 1/2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice (or bottled Key lime juice)
1/2 cup whipping cream
Dash of salt
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free sweetened condensed milk
1 cup graham cracker crumbles
Combine first 5 ingredients, stirring with a whisk. Pour mixture into freezer can of an ice-cream freezer, and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. Stir graham crackers into ice cream. Spoon ice cream into a freezer-safe container, and cover and freeze for 1-2 hours or until firm. Sprinkle each serving with 1 teaspoon graham crackers and garnish with lime wedges, if desired.

I would prefer it slightly more tart so I think next time I will add a bit more lime juice and leave out a little of the condensed milk. Still turned out great and I recommend it as a light, easy summer treat! I am now also looking forward to trying some more ice cream recipes, like mango…..mmmm I love ice cream.

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Posted on on July 6th, 2008 in uncategorized | No Comments »

Korean BBQ Beef

I love Korean BBQ - Bulgogi - and definitely recommend that everyone give it a try at least once in their life. The marinade on the meat is what makes it unique. Take away the marinade and you pretty much just have beef/pork and rice. I have been to a few different restaurants and had it served a few different ways. One way is to have the restaurant prepare the meal for you and they bring it out on a fajita-like platter. Another way is to cook your own. They bring the uncooked, marinated meats out along with a hot griddle and you can cook the meat to your liking. This is fun but, like fondue, it is not a good choice for a quick meal!

(Funny side story - I was at a restaurant one time with some friends and we were cooking our own meat. Our waitress kept coming over to “assist” by putting more of their raw pork on the griddle and would then, using the same tongs, take my cooked beef off the griddle and put it on my plate. Total cross-contamination and it freaked me out completely. When she would walk away, I would sneak my meat back onto the griddle so I could cook off whatever pork contaminates were now all over my beef. We went round and round, doing this through the whole meal and I had to re-cook my meat so many times that it was almost leather. This was the last time I ever did the “cook your own” method.)

I was shopping at my favorite Asian market (just west of Legacy and 75 in Frisco, I believe) and came across Bulgogi sauce. I hadn’t had bulgogi in quite some time and I though why not try it at home?? I’m adventurous!

I love the Asian market, but I absolutely will not buy any meat there. I would advise you to do the same. I’m not saying there is definitely anything wrong with it, but I don’t think you can ever be too cautious when it comes to meats. I wouldn’t say it is kept in the best conditions. That, and I really don’t approve of the way they handle their live seafood. In fact it makes me so angry and sick that I try to avoid that part of the store as much as possible. I walked past a cart last time with poor little barely-alive crabs sitting on ice, slowly dying, some already dead. Now, I love meat and seafood, but I don’t believe any creature should be mistreated. There is always a humane, respectful way of getting the same result.

But I won’t go into my animal treatment rants on here…

So…just avoid the meat.

Later, After browsing the meats at the grocery store for a while, and I decided to use a roast for my beef rather than using any sort of steak. I went with a roast because I wanted large, flat pieces of meat that I could sear…just how it is in the restaurants. This turned out to be a perfect choice and I will definitely be using roasts for these types of dishes from now on. I can’t wait to do this with stroganoff! It was tender and juicy and made enough for about 6 meals.

I marinated the sliced beef in the Bulgogi sauce for about an hour and a half in the fridge, then laid it out on my Cuisinart griddler to sear on high heat along with some sliced onions. It turned out fantastic and was such a big hit that we went back the following weekend for two more jars of sauce. The one I used was a clear jar with a red label and it says “Korean BBQ Sauce” and “Marinade” on it. I don’t see a brand name but it does say Orient Chef Premium. This most resembled the sauces I’ve had in restaurants. I just served it with plain white rice.

Cooking away on the Griddler…

Buy your own Cuisinart Griddler from my Amazon Store
Cuisinart GR-4 Griddler

I will absoultely be making this again because it was so easy and tasted great.

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Posted on on June 30th, 2008 in uncategorized | No Comments »

Chinese Pork Dumplings

I am a HUGE believer in bulk cooking. I love making a large batch of little things so I’ve always got items in the freezer that I can pull out when I’m in a hurry or don’t want to cook. One of the things I like to keep in my freezer is homemade tamales, but I will post that recipe some other time. I finally decided to try my hand at chinese dumplings. I love getting dumplings at dim sum and I love the potstickers at whole foods, so it’s about time I learn to make my own. I really wanted to do potstickers, but I apparently didn’t cook them correctly and my potstickers, well, stuck to the pot! I found it is much easier and healthier to just steam them so I don’t have to use oil. I still love potstickers, I just need to work on those a little more :) You can also boil these for about 4-5 minutes but I think steaming gives them a better texture.

I wanted to make these semi-traditional and use pork for the filling. I didn’t want JUST pork though and I couldn’t find ground chicken, so I just used ground turkey. Any will work. I also added in some minced napa cabbage, a little soy sauce, some ground ginger, and minced onion. They are easy to make, just a little time consuming, but they are awesome to keep in the freezer. I can just pull some out, steam for 20 minutes, and that’s it!

Here’s my recipe that makes about 200 dumplings. If you get the Reynolds Handi-Vac or something like it, these will keep for quite a while. You can make this alot easier on yourself by prepping an area ahead of time. Put out some cutting boards to put the dumplings on and keep some paper towels near by. I like to do this sort of thing sitting at my kitchen table so I can watch tv

Chinese Pork Dumplings

2 packages of ground pork (about 2.5 lbs)

1 package of ground turkey (about 1.5lbs)

5-6 cups of minced napa cabbage

1/2 minced yellow onion

1 Tablespoon ground ginger

1/2 cup soy sauce

4 packages of dumpling wrappers (about 200)

1 egg

Make an egg wash by mixing the egg with an equal amount of water. Combine the meat, cabbage, onion, ginger and sauce in a large mixing bowl. Dip your finger in the egg wash and wet the entire edge of one dumpling wrapper. Put about 1 Tablespoon of filling in the middle, fold in half and press the edges to seal. You can pleat the edges to make it more decorative if you want.

Here’s a video of me showing how to make a more decorative edge. The wrapper is green because I was using a vegetable wrapper!

Folding a Dumpling

I put them in a single layer in my Handi-Vac bags with a paper towel to absorb any excess moisture. If they are frozen, they’ll take about 20 minutes to steam (my favorite way to cook these). If fresh, it will be 10-15 minutes. Just make sure the filling is cooked all the way!

Once I get about halfway through with these I think I will try some all veggie ones!

Dipping sauce (feel free to alter however you like):

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

1/4 soy sauce

2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

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