Bourbon pecan ice cream

Bourbon pecan ice cream

From “Lee Bailey’s CountryDesserts”

Ingredients

2½ cups half and half

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

2 to 3 tablespoons bourbon

Method

Combine half and half and sugars in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat until sugars are dissolved. (Avoid boiling the liquid; you don’t want it curdled or it will affect the texture of the ice cream.) Cool, then chill completely.

Stir in pecans and bourbon. Turn mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to directions. Freeze until firm.

Rating: The first licks of the scraper after turning this mixture into a container for final freezing were wondrous. Nice texture, great flavor. When it came time to actually eat this, I asked if perhaps there were too many pecans in it. I received an emphatic no. I'm not quite so sure. I used very finely chopped pecans; maybe I would have been happier with larger chunks. Either way, this is still pretty decadent ice cream, and worth making over and over to experiment. Fair warning: Freezing seems to almost concentrate the booziness.

An almost picnic by the lake

There's a very nice set of lounge chairs and a picnic table outside our cabin. The view is fantastic, and it makes a great lunch spot if you don't mind a few mosquitoes joining the party. But yesterday we opted to have our lunch at the table inside with the same view, no mosquitoes, and heat, since it was still on the chill side.

But otherwise, it has all the requisites for a good picnic: some degree of privacy, a good view and tasty food: I slathered snowflake buns from the store with some of the ranch-mayo-sun-dried tomato spread we brought along, sliced up some pork tenderloin Dave grilled the night we arrived, and mounded on refrigerator pickles, roasted red peppers, thinly sliced cucumbers and some lettuce. On the side we had fresh fruit, cabbage-carrot slaw, deviled eggs and some palate-cleansing, face-puckering pickles I put up last summer.

These pickles are a ridiculously easy way to get those deli-style pickles to your liking. If you haven't ventured into canning yet, this is a good place to start, because it will be very affirming without being too daunting, giving you the courage to venture further. Feel free to add a hot dried pepper if you like. Just don't ever mess with the vinegar, water and salt ratio in any canning recipe.

Fast Favorite Garlic Dill Pickles
Adapted from this Epicurious recipe

Ingredients
3 pounds small pickling cucumbers, ends sliced off so they stand up in the jars
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
2 tablespoons pickling salt
4 heads fresh dill
2 teaspoons dill seeds
4 peeled garlic cloves

Method
Sanitize four pint pickling jars. (If you're just making refrigerator pickles, take the jars piping hot out of the dishwasher.) Bring vinegar, water and salt to a boil. Put a head of fresh dill, 1/2 teaspoon dill seeds and a garlic clove in each jar. Pack pickles tightly into the jar. Pour hot liquid mixture over the top, leaving a half-inch head space. Wipe the rims clean. Top with a pickling jar lid combo. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes after you've added the jars and the water has resumed a boil. (Or let cool on the counter and refrigerate if you're not preserving them for long-term storage.)

And the real reason we ate inside: We wanted to retain some heat in our still-appropriately named winter soup, a maple syrup-sweetened mix of roasted root veggies like butternut squash, sweet potatoes and rutabagas, which I substitute for the turnips in this recipe from Epicurious.

Pasta with smoked salmon, lemon and cream sauce

The inspiration: Each year this glorious big bowl from the cabin's kitchen shelf begs to be filled with something tasty. I do my best to oblige.

The hook: Smoked salmon with dill from Northern Waters Smokehaus in Duluth was the starting point.  It was about a 4-ounce slab, flaked into bite-size chunks.

The recipe: One small red onion, sliced, and sauteed in 1 tablespoon butter. The zest from 1 lemon and juice of half a lemon. A generous splash of cream. Toss with salmon and half a pound of pasta, cooked, and sprinkle generously with grated Parmesan and pepper. In other words, what you have in the refrigerator at the time. Enjoy. We certainly did. Now to hike it off.

Cabin breakfasts

New at the cabin this year: Mix-and-match Fiestaware. I am a happy camper.

For years we stayed quite happily at the Shoreline motel in Grand Marais, and we could happily stay there again. But we've discovered the joys of booking ahead so we can check ourselves into a cabin and check out from the world. One of the perks, to my mind, is control over the breakfast factor. With these scones formed ahead and ready to bake, I’m about 25 minutes from rolling out of bed to a nice, home-baked breakfast.

Freezer scones

Adapted from “Happy Holidays From the Diva of Do-Ahead” by Diane Phillips. Yes, of course I own a book called that. She called these Heavenly Blueberry Scones, for those keeping score. In our world, they are freezer scones, a highly useful commodity.

Ingredients

2¼ cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

½ cup dried fruit (blueberries are swell, but other fruit like dried cranberries or cherries work too)

1½ cup heavy cream

Optional egg wash of 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon cream

Up to 2 tablespoons sugar for garnish

Method

Preheat the oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment. (Or, say, a 13-by-9 cake pan in this case since the cookie sheet that was here the last two years is MIA. Slightly different browning pattern, but oh well.)

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Mix in dried fruit. Gradually mix in cream with a wooden spoon until dough comes together.

Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead a few times. Roll out into a circle ½-inch thick. Cut into 12 wedges. (At this point you can freeze the scones in a freezer container between layers of wax paper. Then thaw in the frig overnight and proceed as directed.) Place on parchment paper on baking sheet. Brush with egg wash, if desired. Then sprinkle with sugar and bake for 17 minutes or so until golden. (I only had cream on hand, so these didn't get quite the usual effect.)

Rating: Not one of my ultimate scone recipes (note that it contains no butter, so it doesn’t have quite the traditional consistency or height), but very, very serviceable. And that make-ahead thing? That’s above price. The cranberries work, but I’m much fonder of the blueberry version, which also seems much more North Shorish. At any rate, these are one more reason to schlep the mega cooler north with us each year.

Don’t worry, if you’re one of the people invited to join us on a vacation, I’ll kick it up a notch to my usual B&B fare, but for just us kids, this is a lovely way to greet the day and the Lake. Speaking of which, it's dark and choppy today, with a fog bank a ways out. The birch leaves are dancing to some rustic folk tune; I'm thinking Bartok. Did I mention that KSJN comes in here?  But we don't have it on right now so we can listen to the waves crash into the rocks.

Packing the cooler for the cabin

The brand of tea available this morning at the restaurant was called Rituals, a highly appropriate name as we indulged in one of our favorites. Breakfast in the revolving restaurant atop the Duluth Radisson is the way we traditionally start Mondays of our vacation, with a serene, slow spin around the skyline enjoying French toast (me) and steak and eggs (the birthday boy).

Another time-honored ritual is the provisioning of a 40-quarter cooler full of goodies to sustain us during our week of therapy in Cottage 1. To get ready, I make up freezer scones, deviled eggs, mixed fresh fruit and a red cabbage carrot slaw with rice wine vinegar. Those go into the freezer along with homemade dill pickles, hot tomato chutney, some roasted garlic, frozen soups I put up last fall, homemade ice cream, strawberries from the farmers market, a few adult beverages and assorted other ingredients for a nice time.

To liven up our sandwiches, I made some quick refrigerator pickles by slicing some red onion and letting it steep in some leftover garlic-hot pepper-flavored dill pickle brine. Also on hand to bring the sandwiches to Dagwoodish-standards: I whirred up some Ranch dressing, sun-dried tomatoes and mayonnaise in the food processor to make a flavorful spread.

We swung by Northern Waters Smokehaus on the way out of town to get some pancetta and smoked salmon with dill for further inspiration. Sure, we'll hit some of the restaurants while we're up here, but with a view like this one out the window, it's time to head outside and grill some veggies and chicken to go over some pasta.

Wild mushroom pasta

Tagliatelle with mushrooms

Adapted from: “Cooking From Above: Italian” by Laura Zavan, one in a series of cookbooks shot entirely from the “aerial” view showing all the ingredients arrayed. It’s a gimmick I didn’t try to replicate, even though it should really appeal to my mise in place fixation.

Ingredients

1 pound tagliatelle or other longer, wider pasta

1¼ pounds of mushrooms (I used oysters, shiitake, baby bellas)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ cup chopped parsley

¼ cup grated Parmesan

Method

Cook pasta according to directions. Meanwhile, melt butter in oil in large skillet. Add garlic, cook for one minute. Add mushrooms and cook until they soften. Season with salt and pepper, toss in most of the parsley. Toss with cooked pasta and Parmesan. Garnish with remaining parsley. Serves 4.

Rating: Tasty. We splurged on decent linguine since we couldn’t find tagliatelle. Every recipe on the planet lately seems to call for it but no mainstream grocery stores stock it. What’s up with that? I think the more substantial pasta helps.

Pasta with balsamic-roasted squash, bacon and blue cheese

Make those leftovers do something. At a recent family gathering I rounded up since I didn't know in advance how many people would show up. I ended up with some leftover squash, which is a boon, in my opinion, because leftover cooked squash cubes are great over a spinach salad with balsamic dressing, or in this case, over pasta.

Ingredients
1 pound cooked pasta
2 ounces crumbled blue cheese
3 bacon slices, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 cups cooked squash cubes
4 large sage leaves, thinly sliced
Chicken broth as needed

Method
Cook bacon until crisp. Add squash cubes and enough chicken broth to make a sauce. Add cooked pasta and blue cheese, sage leaves and toss.

Squash: This is an amalgam inspired by two perfectly tasty recipes in their own right: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Butternut-Squash-with-Balsamic-Vinegar-102288 and the superlative http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Butternut-Squash-with-Shallots-and-Sage-232812.    

Peel and cut up one medium size butternut squash into 1-inch cubes. Toss cubes with enough olive oil to make them glisten; sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper. Roast for 25 minutes at 400 until browned and almost softened. Meanwhile, slice up 2 shallots and saute in olive oil. Combine roasted squash in pan with shallots and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup chicken broth.

And this is what the family dinner table looks like. Non-ironic, complimentary quote from my dotty mother: "Oh, it all smells so starchy."

Creamy pasta with asparagus

We used fettucine because we didn't have tagliatelle on hand and I was too lazy to make my own.

This recipe is to celebrate Spargelzeit, the asparagus season which my German-learning husband tells me is officially over June 24. We’ve never devoted the space to grow it ourselves, but luckily the farmers markets remedy that deficiency with a fat bouquet of nice tender stalks available for $5.

Tagliatelle with asparagus

Adapted from “The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces” by Diane Seed, a gift from a former co-worker at a former job in a former life. (Thanks, Valerie!) It’s in the genre of cookbooks strewn with charming color drawings that illustrate the spirit of the recipes more than they represent the actual dish with any degree of accuracy. This recipe worked even though my 1920s one-and-a-half story bears no resemblance to the Tuscan villa depicted along with it. 

The British book includes ingredients in both metric and American measures, and there are references to cooking things at Mark 4, which can make you feel cosmopolitan while you prepare it. (Well that and the homemade limoncello I sipped while cooking, listening to the Cooking with the Classics playlist in the new Amazon Prime stream. One nit: Who designs a playlist with music that varies so much in sound level when you will clearly not have clean hands free to adjust the volume?)

Ingredients

1 pound tagliatelle or other long, wide pasta ribbons

1 pound asparagus, tough ends snapped off

4 ounces butter (1 stick)

1 slice stale white bread, made into large crumbs

1 cup heavy cream

Chicken stock (or veggie)

½ cup grated fontina, Gruyere or Emmenthal cheese

Method

Cook pasta to al dente.

Meanwhile, cut asparagus sprigs into chunks, about 1 inch on the lower ends of stalks and about 1½ on the upper ends so the bracts stay together. Steam for about 2½ minutes in a microwave steamer bag, or cook via the method of your choice until the asparagus is just shy of being cooked. Stash the bag into the freezer briefly to stop the cooking (or drain asparagus and plunge into ice water).

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Cook bread crumbs for a few minutes until they’ve softened and picked up some color. Stir in cream, a generous grind of black pepper, a splash of broth as needed and the asparagus. Cook for about 5 minutes and keep warm until pasta is ready.

Toss pasta with sauce and cheese. Season to taste with salt if needed, which if you’re using salted butter,you probably won't need.

Rating: The recipe touted itself as being subtle and delicate while producing a lasting memory. That’s a lot of hype to live up to, but it was a very nice dish. The browned bread crumbs really elevate it from a run-of-the-mill creamy asparagus pasta and keep it from being too cloying. Dave thinks it seems almost meaty rather than just a vegetarian pasta (which obviously it can be if you opt for vegetable stock).

Variation: I like this recipe about as well as my other favorite creamy asparagus pasta, an amalgamation of recipes in which three minced garlic cloves are sautéed in olive oil, and then the cream, steamed asparagus, quarter cup of limoncello and some lemon zest are added before the pasta, sauce and Parmesan cheese are tossed together and flavored with salt and pepper. The limoncello adds a nice bright flavor.

Asparagus, fontina and Canadian bacon pizza

Naan pizza with Canadian bacon, asparagus and fontina cheese

Adapted from “The Athlete’s Palate Cookbook” by Yishane Lee. Clearly only one of us in the household is the projected target audience for this book, a collection from a variety of chefs aimed at fueling athletes, but it has a number of likely looking prospects.

Ingredients

2 9-inch naan (we used roasted garlic flavor)

½ cup ricotta cheese

¼ cup pesto

8 asparagus spears (how precise!), ends snapped off and cut into 1½ inch pieces

1 teaspoon olive oil

3 slices Canadian bacon, cut into thin strips

2/3 cup grated fontina cheese

 

Method

Place flatbreads on baking sheet. Mix ricotta and pesto; spread over naan. Toss asparagus with olive oil and salt and pepper; distribute over naan. Scatter bacon strips over naan. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes.

Remove from oven, sprinkle with cheese and bake for up to 5 more minutes, until cheese has melted and naan is crispy.

Rating: Given the ingredient list, I expected to be blown away by this, and wasn’t, but it was perfectly fine, and certainly a fast fix. This is supposed to serve 4. Let your conscience be your guide.

And can we just bottle this amazing breeze?