Homemade Raspberry Ice Cream and Fudge Sauce

Today is my sister, Linda's birthday! Happy Birthday!! In honor of her special day, I thought I'd post the very best homemade ice cream recipe in my world.

I call this...drum roll, please...

"The Very Best Homemade Raspberry Ice cream I've Ever Made".

(I modified a couple of recipes that I found somewhere online to come up with creamy frozen sensation.)

Here you go:

The vanilla base:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 2 cups half-and-half cream
• 2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 
  
• In a heavy saucepan, mix together the first five ingredients. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat a metal spoon and reaches at least 160 degrees F. (I actually used a candy thermometer for the first little bit, and then got bored and took it out so I'm not really sure how hot mine got.) Remove from the heat; cool quickly by setting pan in ice and stirring the mixture. (I think this is an important step because it stops the eggs from cooking more, thus preventing an eggy taste.) Cover and refrigerate overnight.
• 
  
• Raspberry stuff:
• 4 cups raspberries
• 1 C sugar
• 1 C water
• 
  
• Simmer raspberries, etc. on the stove until the juices release and it starts to boil a little. Strain the seeds using a sieve or something better, if you've got it. (This takes FOREVER, but it is definitely worth the time when you aren't eating seeds.)
• 
  
• When ready to freeze, pour custard, vanilla, and raspberry stuff into the cylinder of an ice cream freezer. Freeze according to the manufacturer's directions. It took us two batches because of the size of our ice cream maker. Freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight (I recommend holding out a night. It will be hard. But it's worth it).

Then, top with homemade hot fudge. Oh, you don't have a really yummy hot fudge recipe?

That's okay. I've got one:

Ben and Jerry's Hot Fudge (from my mother-in-law's Ben and Jerry cookbook)

4oz unsweetened chocolate

1/2 C butter

3/4 C cocoa powder

2 C sugar

1/2 C milk

1/2 C heavy cream

Melt chocolate and butter, stirring frequently, in the top of a double broiler over simmering water. Add cocoa and whisk until dissolved. Gradually stir in sugar. (The mixture should look like wet sand.) Cook, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes. **Don't let your water simmer completely away...it won't smell very nice if you do. Gradually stir in milk and cream and keep stirring until completely blended. Continue cooking, stirring, and checking the water for 1 hour. The fudge is ready when it is completely smooth and all of the sugar has dissolved.

Comments: Adding a tablespoon or so of corn syrup will keep this fudge from getting grainy when you reheat it. Add the corn syrup towards the end of the hour of cooking. Also, if you don't have unsweetened chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate will work just fine. Just subtract 1 T of sugar per ounce from the recipe. Then, when you do heat this yummy stuff up, just take what you want from your (refrigerated) jar and heat at 1/2 power. This is also good by the spoonful whenever.

DC1 Naan Bread

Naan Bread (from India)

1 T yeast

1 C warm water

1/4 C sugar (heaping)

3 T milk

1 egg, beaten

2 tsp salt

4 1/2 C bread flour

2 tsp minced garlic (optional)

melted butter

Dissolve yeast in water. (Let stand about 10 minutes in your mixer.) Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt and enough flour to make a soft dough. I normally add all except a cup of what is called for and then see if it needs more after mixing for a little bit. Knead for about 6-8 minutes (in mixer with dough hook or on floured surface if you have big muscles). Place dough in a well-oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise until doubled...about an hour.

Punch dough down and knead in garlic if you want it (I didn't do this). Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a wiffle ball. Roll into balls, place on a tray, cover again and let rise again (about 30 min.).

During 2nd rising, preheat grill to high AFTER spraying it with pam (Ethan says it doesn't create much of a fireball...just a little one, if you spray it when it's hot). Then when your dough balls have risen, at the grill side, roll one ball of dough into a thin circle. Pretend it's pizza and hand toss it if you want. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 min, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter and cook anther 2 to 4 minutes.

Gobble up. Good also with honey or chocolate jam (Nutella) although this may be desecrating the original intention of the bread. Is best right off the grill. The next day they turn into hard tack. (But, my kids will eat cardboard as long as it has Nutella or honey to go along with it!)

DC1 Chicken Tikka Marsala

The spread of DC1. (DC stands for Dinner Club.)

Chicken Tikka Marsala (Recipe adapted from Patience's Moorpark 1st ward cookbook)

For Marinade:

1 C yogurt

1 T lemon juice

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp cinnamon (heaping)

2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp pepper

1 T minced fresh ginger (or a tsp of ground ginger)

1 tsp salt

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

Marinate chicken for no less than 1 hour...up to overnight. Then grill outside in a basket or on skewers or on the stovetop (excess marinade should be discarded) until juices run clear. Set aside for the moment.

1 T butter

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt

1 (8oz) can tomato sauce

1 C heavy cream

Melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic for 1 min. Season with cumin, paprika, and salt. Stir in tomato sauce and cream. Simmer on low until sauce thickens, about 20 min. Add grilled chicken and simmer for another 10 min. Serve over rice or with naan bread

**Comments: I always double the sauce because we get 15oz cans of tomato sauce. If you do this, don't double the salt, but do add a lot more chicken. This is very spicy--at least to my innocent tongue so easy on the cayenne and pepper.

The beginnings

A few weeks ago, I was trying to come up with dinner ideas. As I wrote down a bunch of recipes with impossible foreign names that I imagined sounding yummy, I remembered that my kids don't usually like to eat foods outside of their comfort zone. I knew I had three options: 1) never tell my family what they were eating, 2) lie to them and tell them that I was just making a recipe that was given to me by the grease monkeys at McDonald's, 3) make dinner so much fun for the kids that they wouldn't care what they are eating. Option 3 seemed to be the best for obvious reasons. I buzzed Charity and asked her if she wanted to be in a dinner club with me. Once every month we would alternate who cooked dinner (the other would bring dessert). The cousins could play, the "adults" could talk, and hopefully we could get some good eats in the process. Well, yesterday was our first official dinner club meeting. Ethan and I were in charge of dinner. Charity set an impossibly high bar with her dessert. The food was so good and everyone, even the kids, ate way too much. But after all was said and done, Charity and I wanted to come up with a way to have our dinner club recipes handy. So, here it is. Hopefully, this can become a dumping ground for all of our club recipes and other tried and true favorites of those that want to contribute.

If you want to join in the fun, email me and I'll send you a contributors invite. The only rules are that you must have personally made the dish and preferably liked it, and you need to stick with our labels. We'll try to organize it logically with the dishes labeled in basic groups: entrees, bread, side, dessert, beverage. Happy eatings.