Cranberry Pecan Green Beans

Fresh green beans sautéed with Cranberry Honey Butter and tossed with toasted pecans.

Green beans are one of my standard Thanksgiving Side Dishes, and I'm reminded again how silly it seems to wait another 2 months in order to celebrate the harvest. By the time American Thanksgiving rolls around the only 'fresh' local vegetables are hardy greens like kale and long-storing winter squash and potatoes.  Everything else has been put up. The Canadians have a better plan--have Thanksgiving in October, and do it on a Monday so you have an entire weekend to prepare the feast. None of this 'last minute rush around after work on Wednesday' craziness. No matter which day you're giving thanks for the harvest, here's a recipe for you.

The green beans have been plentiful this year in Ohio. From our farmers here in the SW corner of the state on up to Meghan's farmers in NE Ohio--lots and lots of green beans in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares.

On a whim I decided to combine some of my Cranberry Honey Butter with some of my copious volume of green beans. [I'll be honest, inspiration struck me when I opened the freezer door and a roll of cranberry honey butter fell out.] I thought it would look pretty with the bright green beans, so I whipped up a quick side dish.

To save time and dishes, I briefly cooked the green beans in the microwave and toasted the pecans in a dry skillet. Then it was a simple matter to assemble the finished dish.  Try this one at home.

Beef Tongue Nachos

Wait wait! Don't run away so quickly after reading the title. The picture caught your eye, right? Have an open mind! Try something new! Hear me out. You might like it.

One cook's trash is another cook's treasure. It fascinates me that, across the world, certain foods are perceived as desirable in some ages or areas and seen as unwanted in other times or places.

• Wheat bread was seen as a peasant food in earlier times, and white bread was the bread of well-to-do folks.
• Yellow cheese (from pastured cows) is more desirable on pizzas in Asia, whereas white cheese is the desired pizza cheese in the US. The source of this fact is a fascinating article I recently read. You can find it here. My spouse also backs up the idea that pizza cheese in Korea was just different than what he'd been used to [before my pizzas, that is]. Now anything goes.

Beef tongue evokes strong reactions. Depending on experience folks either love it because they've tried it or cringe because it looks like, well, a tongue. In keeping with my philosophy that if you choose to eat beef, you might as well use all of the cuts offered, I am firmly in the "love it" camp. My kids are still cringing because beef tongue looks different than all the ground beef in tidy packages in the freezer (link to my Ground Beef Recipe Round Up).

Does beef tongue skeeve you out?  How 'bout Mashed Potato Casserole, that can be made the day before, and cooked in a slow cooker or baked in the oven? My recipe for Make Ahead Irish Mashed Potato Casserole is in a Featured Bloggers Favorites contest over at SavingStar. Voting enters you in a chance to win a $50 American Express Gift Card, and the winning blogger also receives a gift card. You can find the contest here.

The whole family pitching in to make beef tongue enchiladas. The recipe is coming.

Each time I prepare tongue, the flavor overcomes more of the cringe factor. By our next cow it should be quite commonplace. With this tongue we had enchiladas, sliders, and nachos because there was plenty of meat and I felt like experimenting. This recipe gets shared first because I love the colorful photos and I could go for a plate of nachos right about now.

Fall Color Vegetable Appetizers {Sriracha Pumpkin Hummus}

Pumpkin, carrots, beets, tomatoes, tomatoes, olives and artichokes form a fall color palette in this array of appetizers, including Pumpkin Sriracha Hummus.  Combine the dips for a layered autumn vegetable appetizer--another Awesome Veggie App and Snack (link to my Pinterest board).

If you're rolling your eyes at the thought of a pumpkin recipe already, I'd like to share with you a photo of me that my daughter took on August 6th.

This 42 pound pumpkin was the first volunteer (meaning, I didn't plant it--it came from the compost) I harvested this year. I've since harvested another large one and 5 little ones, including the one shown in the ingredients photo below. I've got 2 more large ones on the vine.  So even if you're not ready for pumpkins, the pumpkins are ready for you. Props to me for exhibiting the restraint to wait until after the autumnal equinox before posting.

Even though it is easy to whip up and awesome vegetable appetizer in the summertime, such as this fattoush dip with kale hummus or this layered summer vegetable appetizer, the slight extra work involved in the Fall (i.e., turning on the oven to roast autumn vegetables) is not unwelcome.  In fact, though I'm happy to warm the kitchen up on a cool fall day, some of these Fall recipes involve nothing more than a food processor or blender. We're now celebrating Fall (and looking forward to more Fall vegetables in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, so here's a suggestion (or 3) of how to enjoy your produce.

Since the beets in my farm share are prolific (yet I still cannot get enough beet greens) I wanted to keep rockin' the beets [get it?  Rockin' the beets?] but I also wanted some nice fall colors to pair with the beets.  I whipped up some Orange-spiked Beet and Walnut spread and thawed a jar of Fresh Tomato Pesto. When I saw this incredibly easy pumpkin hummus over at Naptime Chef I decided to whip that up, add a teaspoon (or more) sriracha to half of it for a bit of a kick, and have the assortment of dips shown above. That pumpkin hummus tasted so good that I grabbed one of my pie pumpkins and did it again from scratch (my Sriracha Pumpkin Hummus recipe is below).

Layer all of these flavors on a platter, add some preserved and fresh vegetables for different textures and flavors, and you've got yourself a feast for your eyes and your belly--and that of a male as well.

Now, this is not a comment on 'girl food' vs 'man food'. Far from it! More like an observation on changing perceptions or stereotypes of gender-related food choices. I participate in a photography group on base, and last week we were hanging our photos for display on the wall of the club. The theme was 'wild color' so I submitted the first photo of this post. An elderly veteran and his wife came in and were commenting about all our photos. They asked what was in that picture, and I told them. Then the gentleman commented "and your husband eats that"? "You bet", I told him. He loves a plate piled high with vegetables--though technically he was deployed when I fixed up the plate for me and snapped the photo. His plate would be more piled and less photogenic since 'it's all going to the same place'.

Sriracha Pumpkin Hummus topped with Fresh Tomato Pesto, Orange-spiked Beet and Walnut Spread, olives, and artichoke hearts--a veritable feast.

Now matter how your pumpkin arrives--in a can from the store, or rising like a Phoenix out of your compost, you can enjoy this dip--and layer it with other ones to enjoy Fall colors in your meal.

Patty Pan Squash Crumble (Reflections on Two Years of Blogging)

Patty pan squash, simmered with spices, tucked between a sweet crumble dough then baked. Summer squash for a Fall dessert. Revisited after 2 years of blogging.

Since I've been doing this blogging thing for about two years now, I've decided to revisit a recipe post from my first weeks of blogging. A post that has bothered me. Oh, the recipe is a sound one--though I did tweak it a bit--it's the rest of the elements of blogging that bothered me. I'll list them out for you.

• The title. Summer Squash = Fall Dessert? Sure, that's a valid description of the post, but it's not really going to come up on many search engines. I may be ridiculously boring and obvious in my recipe titles these days (see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index for proof) but at least you know what you're getting with a Fig Jam, Goat Cheese, and Fresh Pear Pizza, don't you think?
• The presentation. When I made this before, I observed that it probably would be good with ice cream but I didn't go get some and try it. After my IceCreamWeek experience, it doesn't make sense not to eat ice cream when you can. I'll admit this time I didn't go out and get some ice cream--I sent my son. We're all glad I did.
• The photo. This one shouldn't be a surprise, but I will point out that at least the original photo was taken in natural light and is in focus, and also not extremely close up. You can see it here.  Not a horrid photo, right? But it doesn't tell a story. I'm continually working to improve my photos by adding elements that tell a story, like I learned in my 30 Days to Better Food Photography course.

The story of this recipe remake can be told through these three photos. After setting up the shot I asked the kids for help--with the promise of snacking once I was finished. I'd say they liked it.

Happy 2 year anniversary to Farm Fresh Feasts.  Thanks for reading.

Pear Walnut Sourdough Coffee Cake

Chopped pears and walnuts flavor this simple sourdough coffee cake.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

My sourdough starter is a toddler now, and moving into a big kid bed back onto the kitchen counter. When the starter lives on the counter, I feed it every few days and take out a cup or so with each feeding.


In the past year I've used that cup of starter to make countless loaves of Multigrain Sourdough Bread, monthly batches of sourdough waffles using this King Arthur Flour recipe, and the occasional treat:  this sourdough coffee cake.

During the summer, though, my kitchen is too warm to leave the starter out--it gets funky fast--so it lives in the fridge.  Out of sight, out of mind. I can't tell you how many times I realized we would need bread ready to eat before I'd have time to wake up the starter and bake a loaf--so off to the store we'd go--walking, for exercise but still. Blerg. I'm glad the weather is turning so the kitchen is cooling down. It's great for the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, great for canning tomatoes, and great for the sourdough starter. Remind me of this fabulousness when there's frost on the inside of the kitchen windows, please?

While the recipe title says pear, I've also made this with chopped apples. Apparently the type of fruit doesn't even matter, because my son looked over my shoulder at the post title as I sat writing in the orthodontist's office--the free samples at Costco resulted in a lost retainer--and remarked "there was fruit in the coffee cake?" I try and try to nourish the family with wholesome food, and while it does get shoveled in the pie holes perhaps the subtle nuances in flavor get missed.


Note: here's the inspiring recipe for this coffee cake. I added fruit, used no sugar in the batter, changed up the spices, and pumped up the topping with oats because I love throwing my oats around. I also tried the method of starting it the night before--using unfed starter straight out of the fridge. This works fine in my kitchen. I've also let it rise in my oven on the bread proof setting until the top is gently puffed.


For more recipes using pears, please see my Pear Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Cheddar Apple Soaked MultiGrain Muffins

Grated apple and cheddar cheese with an assortment of whole grains make these muffins a delicious Fall treat.

What? A departure from my standard soaked oatmeal muffins?  Yep.  The dog woke me up extra early so before I was fully conscious I'd added oats, cornmeal, and whole wheat flour to the bowl with the buttermilk.  The dog went back to bed, and I made muffins.

When I'm solo parenting while my spouse is deployed, a favorite easy meal is apples, popcorn, and a protein. Sometimes it's popcorn with sliced apples and peanut butter, but usually it's a platter of apple slices, cheese chunks, and a big bowl of popcorn. This is easy to fix for dinner & a show treat night.

While my kids were in braces I really missed that meal (no popcorn allowed) and I had to come up with alternatives. I'd been thinking of adding a bit of cornmeal to my muffin batter--the crunch goes nicely with the tender crumb from adding cheese--and I'm pleased with the result.

These muffins are not too sweet, and in fact would be tasty with a bowl of Chicken Cider Stew or spread with some apple butter. Multigrain and multipurpose, I'd say.

Roasted Garlic and Fennel Focaccia

Focaccia flavored with fennel seed and roasted garlic, in two thicknesses, and topped with an assortment of pizza toppings. Friday Night Fennel Focaccia Night, anyone?

The subtitle of this could be "we I do the hard work so you don't have to" but that would imply that making focaccia is hard, which I don't think it is at all.  In fact, a secondary goal of this blog is to de-mystify and normalize the act of making pizza at home (to that end check out my Pizza Primer for photo tutorials on making pizza).

The primary goal of this blog is to encourage readers to support their local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms by providing practical support via recipes showing what to do with fresh vegetables, how to put up what can be saved for later, and how to use those stored vegetables in the off season. [Mission statements can be run on sentences, can't they?]

I've shared focaccia recipes on the blog before, always on Fridays, since my family demands enjoys our Friday Night Pizza Night, and this time I decided to experiment with the pan size and see which we preferred.  I have a 10 inch and a 12 inch cast iron skillet (ok and a little '2 fried egg' size one from my friend Miho, but that's too small for focaccia).  I made a double recipe and tried a portion in each skillet. The results are shown in the first photo above.  For me, I like a thinner focaccia and prefer the 12 inch skillet, but if you wanted this as a bread the 10 inch skillet would do just fine.

The other reason I'm sharing this recipe today is to tickle your brain about planting garlic this Fall.  If you live in an area where tulips grow, and you have access to a plot of earth, you can grow garlic. If you don't get cloves from your farm share, check out the farmer's market or a gardening friend. The garlic from the grocery store is usually treated to inhibit sprouting, and you don't want that. Plant the cloves, pointy tip up about 4-6 inches under ground, sometime after Canadian Thanksgiving and before American Thanksgiving. I get more detailed about how I grow 2 crops (garlic and basil) in a single raised bed over the course of the year in this post.

Grilled Butternut Squash & Peppers--a side, a main, or a meal.

Chunks of grilled butternut squash and bell peppers as a side dish, tossed with grilled sausage for a main dish, and/or combined with pasta for a complete meal.

Just because school is back in session and the leaves are turning it's no time to put away the grill. In fact, grilling winter squash when it looks like Fall and the calendar says it's still summer seems like a good idea. If you want to get all-season about it, I even made this recipe in the Spring, using the tail end of my Strategic Winter Squash Reserve.

What's a Strategic Winter Squash Reserve? I'm glad you asked. It's one of the ways I feed my family from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share all year long. During the season (approximately late May-ish to early October-ish) we eat some of the share and put up the rest for later. One of the easiest vegetables to put up is winter squash. Winter squashes (acorn, buttercup, butternut, pumpkin and spaghetti are most common) are terrific long-storing vegetables. In a cool dark place (the cold corner of my breakfast nook once it stops hitting 90 outside) the squash will keep for months. Many months. Just be sure to look over your squash every few days and use them in a timely manner.

I've revamped my Visual Recipe Index! For more ideas on what to do with your butternut squash, click here.

This recipe follows the Bus Stop method of cooking I've used in previous posts, such as the Potato, Beet and Leek Soup (and How to Make Vegetable Stock). Depending on how far you take this 'bus', you'll make a vegan side dish, a paleo/grain free main dish, or a complete meal for omnivores. Or all three--with a single cooking session.*

Deep Dish Green Tomato & Goat Cheese Pizza

Green tomatoes and goat cheese add fresh flavor to the classic deep dish sausage pizza.

For more recipes using green tomatoes (none of them fried) please see my Green Tomato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating up the farm share, the garden abundance, and what's ripe at the local farmer's market. Want to know How to Use this Blog? Click here.

I think too many people think the only way to eat a green tomato is to fry it.  Not me.  Green tomatoes are a terrific vegetable to play with, and I like them so much I actually canned some last year.  The year before I froze some--and I'm here to tell ya that either way (chopping & freezing or chopping & boiling water bath canning) you can put up green tomatoes and use them year round. Please try them--and not in 'fried green tomatoes' form, either, though the inspiration for the goat cheese in this pizza came from a grilled goat cheese and fried green tomato sandwich. I suppose fried green tomatoes are good for something after all.

Now, I'll have more to say about green tomatoes next week, when I get my Green Tomato Curry post up. In the meantime, I spent the past 36 hours canning 7 quarts of tomato sauce from the (red) paste tomatoes in my garden plus 14 pints of salsa from a tiny fraction of the canning tomatoes I bought from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. I also did this:

And between all the canning and all the walking, I'd rather just get this recipe up and go to bed.
It's a tasty pizza, and an easy spinoff of my How Not To Make Lou Malnati's Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza method. [Got red tomatoes? Make that. Vegetarian? I'm working on it. I just love that disc of sausage too much to think of alternatives.]

Tamale Pie with Hatch Chiles

This one pan gluten free meal combines beef and vegetables with cheese under a cornbread crust.

Full Disclosure: I've never eaten real authentic tamale pie before, though I have eaten real tamales* and assisted in the Big Production that goes into making them. I confess I first got the recipe for tamale pie off the bag of a bag of cornbread mix. It called for cans of chili, shredded cheese, and packages of cornbread mix. I fixed it while my spouse and I were still in the first throes of living as man and wife [we'd been married for a while, but it took us a long time to actually live in the same country] and it was fast, easy, and tasty.

This recipe is not quite as fast as emptying a few cans into a skillet, but it's close.

After I got more adventurous in cooking, I started making tamale pie using my own meat mixture, and then later using my own cornbread.  Ever since we joined a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, I'm constantly looking for ways to add additional vegetables into familiar dishes.  You can never have too many vegetables (unless your farm share pick up is the day after tomorrow and you've still got two crispers full of beets and kale veggies).

Last summer, before Butch came into my freezer, I managed to combine chiles from New Mexico, beef from Michigan, and corn from Delaware along with patty pan squash and red onions from Ohio into a tamale pie.  We'd returned from a beach vacation in time to walk down the street to the local grocery store and grab a couple of quarts of freshly roasted Hatch chiles.  I couldn't wait to get started on salsa verde (my usual use for Hatch chiles) so I chopped up chiles and used them in both the filling and the topping for this dish. The kids and I enjoyed the tamale pie so much I put it into the rotation, not that I have much of a rotation what with trying new things all the time, but still. It was a keeper. This is a tasty way to add some summer veggies + ground beef into a one pot meal.

Lately you may have noticed that I've been using lots of Hatch chiles from New Mexico, which 'tis true are not local to me here in Ohio.  Aside from the fact that these chiles taste good--and I don't have to do the roasting--New Mexico has a soft spot in my heart. I've been to New Mexico on vacation, twice, and got married there each time. I married the same guy [we forgot to take photos the first time, or invite our folks, so a re-do was appropriate].  It's not a bad state to get married in--you just needed $25 cash and a photo ID, the minimum age was 13 years old, and my marriage was recognized by the rest of the country. What's not to like? And, as a bonus, they grow tasty chiles there--though as far as I know I've never eaten a Hatch chile in New Mexico. Perhaps if we get hitched again . . . though my spouse would not appreciate a 3rd anniversary to remember.

For more recipes using Hatch chiles, please see my Hatch Chile Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For even more ideas using all kinds of peppers, from mild bell to spicy chiles, check out my friend Kristy's site JalapeñoMania. On my FB page I'm sharing recipes from other bloggers, and I'm pinning good stuff all over my Pinterest boards. Wanna know how to use this blog? Click here.

Fast & Easy Bean & Hatch Chile Dip

Three ingredients and a minute of preparation results in a spicy yet creamy Hatch Chile and Refried Bean dip. This is nice paired with chips and salsa.

Last minute three ingredient appetizer recipes are NOT something I'm good at. I usually roast a vegetable (like this link to a sriracha butternut squash hummus) from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share prior to processing it into a dip or layering it with other vegetables and cheese (like this link to avocado feta hummus) before serving. It's not terribly difficult, but it's got some steps.

Not this time. Not this dip.

I'd just whipped up a batch of fresh salsa using some roasted Hatch chiles and the pile of paste tomatoes from the garden [it worked fine, and was less runny than I'd expect for a fresh cantina style salsa--no recipe though] and I wanted a creamy counterpart. Looking around for inspiration, I grabbed a can of refried beans from the pantry [here's Kalyn's round up of slow cooker refried bean recipes for making your own], some cream cheese, and a couple more Hatch chiles.

I get freshly roasted Hatch chiles from the grocery store a mile down the road. Yes, I MapMyWalk'd it so I can declare the mileage on my half marathon training log. Simon is happy for the walk, and I love the flavor. I freeze individual chiles for use year round. If you don't have a source near you, a can of roasted green chiles would be a good substitute.

Fresh Corn, Hatch Chile & Feta Pizza

Fresh corn, roasted Hatch chiles, and feta cheese top this vegetarian summer pizza.

Even though the humans are remarking on the unseasonable weather this summer, the vegetables are going about their business as usual. It had [please notice past tense] been so unusually NOT hot & muggy that I really never considered grilling our Friday Night Pizza using the Mr BarBQ Grill Stone Pizza Set** that I won on Barry's blog Welcome to the Cookout!™. Speaking of winning . . . .

Did I mention that I won that prize? I did? Good. As with all giveaways, someone's going to win the entire prize package of kitchen tools and cookbooks I've been reminding you about lately. It may as well be you. I can't enter, and besides I already won a pizza set. I'm good. You can't win the #IceCreamWeek giveaway unless you enter. The contest ends on August 31st--enter here! 

Fresh Corn & Hatch Chile Sauté

Fresh sweet corn cut right off the cob, sautéed with roasted Hatch chiles, tomatoes, and onion for a simple, fast and flavorful vegetarian or vegan side dish

I'm really not sure why this dish exceeded my expectations. If you start with fresh, local, seasonal ingredients you invariably come up with delicious foods with little effort. One example is this colorful side of freshly sautéed corn kernels spiced up with roasted Hatch chiles.

I was so busy with the social media sharing aspect of #IceCreamWeek [have you entered? the giveaway ends 31 August. One winner takes ALL. Enter here!] that I had very little mental energy for thinking up new and interesting ways to cook the veggies in our farm share.

Eggplant Walnut Dip

Roasted eggplant blended with toasted walnuts and tahini for a savory summer appetizer

After all the recipe testing and re-testing for HashtagIceCreamWeek I needed to eat piles and piles of vegetables. I say needed both because my body craved them and because the vegetables from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share were piling up all over the kitchen!

I decided to tweak a recipe from last summer: Layered Summer Vegetable Appetizer. In that recipe, I'd kinda glossed over the whole eggplant base in favor of the method [to my madness]. Today I want to shine a spotlight on eggplant dip.

Caramel Toffee Apple Parfaits With Cream Cheese Ice Cream (#IceCreamWeek)

Welcome to Day 6, the final day of Ice Cream Week 2014! This year the event is hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Susan of The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen. We have teamed up with 25 amazing bloggers to bring you ice cream treats all week long. I hope you all threw out the scales this week. Better not to look!

I'm happy to have an opportunity to share a parfait with you for #IceCreamWeek. I developed this recipe because while I like the taste of caramel apples, I don't like biting into them. Since my kids were recently in braces I've learned to adapt recipes to suit our needs. This parfait marries a caramel apple with my favorite apple dip (made with cream cheese and toffee bits). I especially like digging into the chunks of caramel-drenched apples and crunchy toffee bits at the bottom of the glass.

When I was a kid, we'd celebrate the last day of school by walking to DQ to get a treat. My favorite was always a Peanut Buster Parfait because I loved those last, ice cream-tinged spoonfuls of fudge and salted Spanish peanuts at the bottom of the glass. Nowadays I cannot finish an entire DQ parfait myself, so I make do at home.

Bonus Kitchen Hack:  you've probably heard the trick of dipping apple slices in lemon juice or salt water to keep the slices from oxidizing and turning brown. I hope to change your habit to using pineapple juice instead. I keep little cans of pineapple juice in my pantry for this purpose. In my experience, apple slices dipped in pineapple juice will keep chilled for up to 3 days without turning. And they taste terrific! Another note--you can easily substitute vanilla ice cream if you don't want to make the cream cheese ice cream.

You will need an immersion blender, an ice cream maker, and a freezer for this recipe.

Caramel Toffee Apple Parfaits with Cream Cheese Ice Cream (makes 8 or more)

2 cups heavy cream

½ cup half & half

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup whipped cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla

⅛ teaspoon salt

1 large apple, chopped into bite-sized pieces

6 ounces pineapple juice

1 jar caramel topping (you'll have leftovers, and I'm sure you can find something to do with them)

½ cup toffee bits (I prefer the kind with chocolate, but whatever you can find)

To make the Cream Cheese Ice Cream, combine the cream, half & half, brown sugar, vanilla and salt until smooth. I've used a blender, an immersion blender, and a whisk. I don't like the whisk. Churn in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions, and freeze for an hour until firm. You'll have about a quart of ice cream. In a large bowl or zip top bag, combine the apple chunks and pineapple juice. They can hang out together for a while or just meet briefly before draining.
Your choice.

To assemble the parfaits, spoon a tablespoon of caramel topping into the bottom of a tall glass, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of toffee bits and 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple chunks. Top with a scoop of cream cheese ice cream. Repeat the layers as often as you can to fill up the glass (we use little glasses that hold 2 layers), finishing with caramel, toffee, and apples. 

Be sure to visit all of today's Ice Cream Week Participants:
  Oreo Ice Cream Cake by Cravings of a Lunatic
  Coffee and Donut Sundae by The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen
  Pinot Noir Ice Cream by The Redhead Baker
  Triple Peach Ice Cream by Cookistry
  Root Beer Float by My Catholic Kitchen
  Black Forest Ice Cream Shots by The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch
  Ice Cream Sundae with Homemade Hot Fudge by Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
  Key Lime Pie Milkshake by Love and Confections
  Caramel Toffee Apple Parfaits by Farm Fresh Feasts
  Orange Creamsicle Float by Noshing with the Nolands
  Gluten Free Baked Alaska by Gluten Free Crumbley
  Toasted Almond and Cherry Ice Cream by The Messy Baker
  Gluten Free Toasted Marshmallow Brownie Batter Ice Cream by Cupcakes & Kale Chips
  Coconut Ice Cream Snowballs by Mother Would Know
  No Churn Low Carb Zesty Citrus Ice Cream by Yours and Mine are Ours
  Pina Colada Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Magic Shell by Quarter Life (Crisis) Cuisine

We would like to thank you all, our readers, for joining in the indulgence this week. 
Ice cream is always best eaten with friends. 
Kim and Susan would like to thank all the participants and sponsors for joining in the fun. 
It takes a village to make this much ice cream! 

Snickerdoodle Cinnamon Ice Cream Sandwiches (#IceCreamWeek)

Welcome to Day 5 of Ice Cream Week 2014! This year the event is hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Susan of The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen. We have teamed up with 25 amazing bloggers to share some amazing ice cream recipes with you. I hope you belong to a gym. We'll all need it by the end of the week!

Wow. The 5th day in a row I've posted a recipe, much less an out-of-my-blogging-comfort-zone ice cream recipe. If you've been making and eating along with our merry band all week, you probably need a new wardrobe. Like me. Except I've gotten serious about ramping up the mileage for the half marathon I'll be walking in 4 weeks, so I say . . . Bring It On!

One of the awesome things about all this walking is the opportunity to let my mind wander and think up recipes. After I got the idea for Cinnamon Chunk Ice Cream [but before I got around to making it], I was walking while pondering what I could do with such a spicy ice cream. I didn't want to overshadow the cinnamon flavor, but I kinda wanted to have another #IceCreamWeek post. BOOM! [An idea, not a bus, hit me.] Use the cinnamon ice cream as the filling for an ice cream sandwich! And what better cookie to use than Snickerdoodles?

See, walking is good for the mind, the body, and the blog.

While I have tasted each recipe I've made so far, I've also given much of the ice cream away. To me, this is the best of both worlds--I get to make and eat a variety of tasty ice cream treats, and I save money not needing a new wardrobe.

These ice cream sandwiches, for example, went straight to my son's marching band camp. I helped out feeding lunches during the camp and realized that band kids are like locusts. A tray of these ice cream cookie sandwiches vanished in under 3 minutes--and that was with the adults politely getting first crack at them!

full size cookie scoop

I made these Snickerdoodle Cinnamon Ice Cream Sandwiches in 2 sizes. I used my standard cookie scoop* for both the cookies and the ice cream which makes a 2-3 bite sandwich (and about 18 sandwiches per batch). Using half a scoop of each (cookie dough and ice cream) makes about 3 dozen bite-sized ice cream sandwiches.

What's missing? The Cinnamon Chunk Ice Cream, of course! Oh, and butter too.

You will need a mixer, an oven, and a freezer for this recipe.

Snickerdoodle Cinnamon Ice Cream Sandwiches

(cookie recipe from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook)
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
1½ cups unbleached all purpose flour
cinnamon sugar for rolling: 3 Tablespoons sugar + 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 batch Cinnamon Chunk Ice Cream (you'll have a bowlful left over to find a use for)

I like to mix up my cookie dough (and my pizza dough) a day ahead because I don't do kitchen marathons, only USAF (Half) Marathons, so I won't start off asking you to preheat the oven.

In a large bowl (I use my mixer), have a minion cream the butter and sugar while you measure out the dry ingredients (baking soda through flour). Once the minion has added the egg and vanilla and mixed them thoroughly, dump the dry ingredients in mix until well-blended. Chill for several hours or overnight.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix up the cinnamon sugar for rolling in a small bowl [bonus points if it's pretty]. Scoop* cookie dough into the amount you prefer (bite sized or large), roll into a ball, toss with cinnamon sugar, and place on an ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 9 (small) to 11 (large) minutes, then cool in the pan 2 minutes and remove to a rack to finish cooling.  

When you're ready to assemble the ice cream sandwiches, use the same amount of ice cream as you did cookie dough. Flip one cookie bottom up, add slightly softened ice cream, and press another cookie right side up on top. Return to the freezer to harden (I use a metal tray) before serving. 

I assume these would keep, wrapped, in the freezer a few days, but I have no experience with that!

*My cookie scoop holds ½ ounce by volume (1 Tablespoon).

Be sure to visit all of today's Ice Cream Week Participants:
  Roasted Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream by Cravings of a Lunatic
  Blackberry Peach Ice Cream by Scoop Adventures
  Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sundaes by The Redhead Baker
  Maple Whisky Ice Cream by Cookistry
  Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream by Life Tastes Good
  Pineapple Coconut Ice Cream by My Catholic Kitchen
  Coffee Chip No Churn Ice Cream by The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch
  Caramel Macchiato No Churn Ice Cream by Renee's Kitchen Adventures
  Double Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches by Crumb
  Lemon Meringue Pie Ice Cream by Love and Confections
  Snickerdoodle Cinnamon Ice Cream Sandwiches by Farm Fresh Feasts
  Gluten Free Ice Cream Sandwiches by Gluten Free Crumbley
  No Churn S'mores Ice Cream by The Spiffy Cookie
  Cocoa Pebbles Ice Cream Cake by Wishes and Dishes
  Mocha Mint Milkshake by The Gunny Sack
  No Churn Low Carb Peanut Butter Coffee Ice Cream by Yours and Mine are Ours