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

Cinnamon Chunk Ice Cream (#IceCreamWeek)

Welcome to Day 4 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 satisfy all your Ice Cream Cravings.

So far on #IceCreamWeek I've shared How to Make an Ice Cream Pie at Home, Chocolate Beet Milkshakes, and Lazy Leftover Fruit Salad Ice Cream. All of these are pretty easy to throw together. It's time to get real to work. This is a two part recipe. Today I'll share the ice cream, and tomorrow I'll share the Snickerdoodle Ice Cream Sandwiches I made with it.

Lazy Leftover Fruit Salad Ice Cream (#IceCreamWeek)

Welcome to Day 3 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 treat you to tons of amazing ice cream recipes. Have you entered into the giveaway?
Ice Cream Week is shaping up to be the best week ever!

Do you ever want a cold sweet creamy dessert, but you don't feel like working too hard for it?

This is where I was, mentally, the first time I made this dessert. I didn't have any eggs or heavy cream on hand and didn't feel like walking a mile down to my local grocery store--nor sending the kids. Nope, like I say in the title, I was just in a lazy mood.

I opened the fridge instead.

In keeping with my desire not to waste food, I started with some fruit salad that was leftover from breakfast. Using only what I had in the fridge/pantry, my daughter and I concocted this treat. When I heard about #IceCreamWeek I decided to make it again, take photos, and write the directions down so you could be lazy too.

This recipe is not a very labor-intensive undertaking, not like making an ice cream pie at home. Shoot, if you don't even want to turn on the stove to toast the nuts--skip it. You'll still get a sweet treat with little effort.

Note: This recipe uses a frozen banana. I don't like to eat bananas that are all spotty, so once they reach that stage I toss them into the freezer (in their skins, the perfect covering). If you don't have any frozen bananas a fresh one would probably work as well. Another Note: This recipe uses an ice cream maker with a pre-chilled bucket--so make room in your freezer for that bucket--it lets you be lazy!

This recipe uses a stove or hot plate, an ice cream maker, and a freezer.

Lazy Leftover Fruit Salad Ice Cream (serves 6 to 8)

½ cup chopped pecans
1 cup milk, or cream, or half and half (2% is what I used)
1 ½ cups vanilla yogurt (full fat)
⅓ cup brown sugar
1 frozen banana, peeled and chopped into small pieces
1 cup chopped up fruit (blueberries and peaches are lovely together)

Preheat a dry skillet over medium high heat. Toast pecans in skillet until fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. In a large bowl, whisk together milk, yogurt and brown sugar. Stir in banana pieces. Churn in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Mine takes about 15 minutes before it start thickening. Once the ice cream starts thickening, add chopped fruit and toasted pecans to the ice cream maker. Churn 5 more minutes. Serve at once for a soft ice cream, or transfer to a freezer container and freeze for an hour until firm.

Be sure to swing by all of today's Ice Cream Week Participants:

• Roasted Blueberry Milkshake by Cravings of a Lunatic
• Cherry Almond Chocolate Ripple Semifreddo by The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen
• Peach Pit Swirl Ice Cream by Scoop Adventures
• Pumpkin Gelato with Salted Caramel Swirl by The Redhead Baker
• Salted Butter Pecan Brittle Ice Cream by Cookistry
• Lemon Curd Ice Cream by Life Tastes Good
• Pistachio-Cherry No Churn Ice Cream by The Life and Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch
• Blueberry Frozen Yogurt by Renee’s Kitchen Adventures
• Raspberry Ripple Buttermilk Gelato by Crumb
• Chocolate Cookies ‘n Cream Milkshake by Love and Confections
• Lazy Leftover Fruit Salad Ice Cream by Farm Fresh Feasts
• Apple Cinnamon Ice Cream by Noshing with the Nolands
• Gluten Free Devil’s Food Ice Cream Cake by Gluten Free Crumbley
• Blueberry-Kiwi Lemonade Shake by The Spiffy Cookie
• Caramel Macchiato Soft Serve Ice Cream by Wishes and Dishes
• Carrot Cake Ice Cream by Mind Over Batter
• Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream by The Gunny Sack
• White Peach Ice Cream with Bourbon Caramel by Quarter Life (Crisis) Cuisine
• No Churn Low Carb Peach Ice Cream from Yours and Mine are Ours

Chocolate Beet Milkshake (#IceCreamWeek)

Welcome to day 2 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. It's an epic week full of frozen treats, beets [wait, what? beets?], and a giveaway!

Go Jacks! Let's get the new school year off to a great start!

Humans crave connection with other humans. Vegetables can forge that connection.

This may seem a strange way to start headnotes on a chocolate beet milkshake recipe, but I'll circle around and it will make sense, I promise. This will be especially true if you're a person who eats seasonally from a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share or one who succumbs to the bright colors of the farmer's market and ends up with way more vegetables than you planned.

A couple of weeks ago I took my son to sled hockey camp. We were fortunate that several Big Names in the sport were in attendance. My son held gold medals from Sochi 2014 and Vancouver 2010 and skated alongside the gracious athletes who earned them. The last morning of camp I met the guest coach. Conversation quickly turned to food, as it always does around me, and he shared memories of the meals he'd eaten while in Sochi and in other international travels. Then I mentioned something about our farm share, and this man said "I'm looking forward to fresh corn".

BOOM! All of a sudden this guy went from, in my eyes, an internationally famous coach (with whom I had little in common) to a fellow seasonal eater. I, too, know the feeling of anticipating the vegetables of the upcoming season. In late winter I crave the fresh greens of Spring, in Summer I crave tomatoes, and in Fall I'm crave sweet potatoes and winter squash [winter is the time of the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, my freezer, and my pantry].
Local, seasonal vegetables forged a connection.

How to Make an Ice Cream Pie at Home (#IceCreamWeek)

Welcome to 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 and a giveaway all week long. I hope you have as much fun as we are! Break out those stretchy pants and celebrate Ice Cream Week with us.

In my teens I worked at Baskin Robbins. I started out scooping ice cream--making cones, shakes and sundaes. By the time I was in college I was the summer/holiday ice cream cake and pie maker, filling in for the mom who worked full-time during the school year. Having thus established my bona fides, I'd like to share how simple it is to make an ice cream pie at home.

At the ice cream shop I didn't get all Little Red Hen-ish. Instead of raising the cows and planting the wheat, I just assembled the desserts using pre baked cakes, pre churned ice cream, pre made fudge sauce and the like. If you'd like to make your own ice cream, fudge sauce, or pie crust there are recipes from my fellow bloggers below and I'd like to give a special shout out to Beth's Thin Mint Ice Cream, Donalyn's Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, and Carla's Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce because they are recipes I've bookmarked to try.

Today I'm not going to show you how to make ice cream--instead, I want to show the techniques I learned while making ice cream pies for a living--and how you can do this in a home kitchen [or at work in a thrift shop--really anywhere with a freezer, a flat surface, and access to clean water will do].

#IceCreamWeek is Coming!

That photo is not a pizza. Nor is it anything involving vegetables. Instead, this is a warning to you. I'd like to announce a radical departure from my usual routine and suggest you consider digging out the stretchy pants. Instead of my typical posting schedule--sharing a vegetable- or fruit-inspired recipe on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will be sharing 6 recipes [all involving ice cream] over the next week. You could say I've been churning (or no churning--puns totally intended) quite a lot lately.

You know we eat more than just the goodies from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, right? Even though we are walking distance from Graeter's ice cream, I occasionally make ice cream treats at home. In fact, I've wanted to share How to Make an Ice Cream Pie on this blog practically from the start. With my blog's focus--on how to make the most of the produce from your farm share, garden, or farmer's market--I didn't really see how I could include an ice cream pie.

When Kim announced that she and Susan were hosting HashtagIceCreamWeek I knew I had my opportunity. I had a blast participating in HashtagAppetizerWeek, so why not join in the fun? I'm not completely chucking my local produce focus out the window this week--in fact 3 of the 6 recipes I'll be posting use a fruit or vegetable. The others? Well, it's Ice Cream Week and I believe in going big with the flavor--and fat carries flavor, as does chocolate [I'm just guessing here, roll with me].

Six different recipes is a lot of ice cream to crank out [the puns, they keep coming], so it's a good thing that I am training to walk a half marathon next month and shared some of these recipes with my son's marching band and the gals at work. It's hard to share ice cream and take photos, though, so the pies . . . well . . . I had to keep making them to get a decent photo of a slice. I had to. Really.

On Monday I'll share How to Make an Ice Cream Pie at Home. This concept recipe is one I use often, with whatever flavors we're craving at the moment (Chocolate Mint/Grasshopper Pie, Caramel Fudge Pie, and Sea Salt Caramel Pie are big favorites). On Tuesday I'll nod to the vegetable focus of this blog with a Chocolate Beet Milkshake.

I'm sharing a lazy way to use up leftover fruit salad in Lazy Leftover Fruit Salad Ice Cream on Wednesday. Thursday we're getting spicy with Cinnamon Chunk Ice Cream, and on Friday we're turning that ice cream into Snickerdoodle Ice Cream Sandwiches. We'll round out the #IceCreamWeek recipes with Caramel Toffee Apple Parfaits on Saturday.

In addition to a whole host of bloggers churning out ice cream recipes each day, we've got giveaways, too! Stop in and check it out. I'll return to my regular posting schedule [after a good training walk and a nice long nap] on Monday August 25th with Eggplant Walnut Dip.

This is not ice cream. These are vegetables.