Blackberry Chip Ice Cream

Makes About 1 ½ Pints

Pages 263-265 The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier

Recipe 30, 89 to go in our @Urban Takes on The Pioneer Woman challenge.

@recipe The Pioneer Woman

@story Marla Cantrell

Want to be the most popular kid on the block?  Then make ice cream.  Homemade ice cream, made with fresh eggs and cream from Ozark Natural Foods.  There’s something about making ice cream yourself that makes you feel connected to every other Arkansan who’s spent an sweltering afternoon hand cranking the handle of an ice cream maker, until the handle just won’t turn anymore.

The only difference is that if you’re like me, you used a fancy-smancy electric ice cream maker, and kept it inside, because outside was so hot you thought the ice cream might never harden.

Confession: This is my first batch of homemade ice cream.  I rocked it.  And I’m getting ready to make my second batch.  Who’d thought it could be this easy.

Ingredients:

2 pints fresh blackberries
Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups half-and-half
5 large egg yolks

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

4 oz. semisweet chocolate

Directions:

Combine the blackberries, 1/4 cup of the sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan. Cook over low heat, covered, for 20 minutes, or until the blackberries are broken down and syrupy.

Pour the mixture into a bowl through a fine mesh strainer.

Using a whisk or spoon, force out as much of the deep purple liquid as you can, then set it aside to cool.  Discard the blackberry pulp and seeds.

Heat half-and-half and 1 cup sugar in a separate saucepan over medium-low heat.

Using a whisk, beat the egg yolks until pale yellow and thick.

Temper the egg yolks by splashing a very small amount of the warm cream into the yolks, whisking constantly.

Pour the tempered yolks into the saucepan. 

Cook over medium-low heat until thick, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes.

Pour the heavy cream into the bowl with the berries.

Then pour in the custard mixture and stir to combine.

Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

When it’s frozen, chop the chocolate into chunks.

Stir into ice cream.

Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container and allow it to harden for several hours or overnight.

It’s READY!

Thai Chicken Pizza

@recipe The Pioneer Woman

@story Marla Cantrell

Makes 8-10 servings.  Pages 145-147 in The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier.

Recipe 29, 90 to go in our @Urban Takes on the Pioneer Woman challenge.

The real test of a new recipe is simple.  Would you make it again?  The PW’s Thai Chicken made the grade.  Thai sweet chili sauce, chopped peanuts, bean sprouts and fresh mozzarella, all from Ozark Natural Foods.  This is gooood stuff.

And the peanut sauce.  I had enough left over to use on several of my other dishes, like fried rice.  Now, I’m a little addicted, and I keep talking about this dish.  I may have become a bit of a zealot. 

The only alteration I made to the recipe was that I omitted the fish sauce.  Just couldn’t quite get there.  If you do, let me know how it is. 

Thai Chicken Pizza

2 garlic cloves, peeled

2 Tablespoons minced fresh ginger

¼ cup soy sauce

3 teaspoons sesame oil

½ teaspoon fish sauce

1 ½ cups smooth peanut butter

4 Tablespoons Thai sweet chili sauce (sold in the Asian foods aisle)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Salt and pepper to taste

1 recipe Pizza Dough (see at end of this recipe)

Olive oil, for drizzling

4 Tablespoons Thai sweet chili sauce

12 oz. fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

1 cup alfalfa or bean sprouts

2 cups shredded carrots

2 cups cilantro leaves

¼ cup chopped peanuts

1.      Preheat oven to 500 degrees F and arrange the oven rack at the lowest position.

2.      First, make the peanut sauce.  To the bowl of a food processor or blender, add the garlic and ginger.

3.      Soy sauce.

4.      Sesame oil.

5.      And the fish sauce, which is quite salty and stinky.

6.      Next, add the peanut butter.

7.      And the water. Blend as you are pouring in.

8.      Check the consistency, give it a taste, and add a little more of whatever it needs! Add more warm water if it needs thinning.

9.      Add chili paste.

10.   Next, sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt and pepper, and grill them on both sides until done. Remove from the grill and slice thin.  (You can sauté in a skillet if you prefer.)

11.   To assemble the pizza, roll out the dough and place onto a baking pan drizzled with olive oil. Spread 4 Tablespoons sweet chili sauce all over the dough.

12.   Lay on the mozzarella slices, then the chicken slices.

13.   Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbly.

14.   Throw on as many sprouts as you’d like.

15.   Next, add the shredded carrots and cilantro leaves.

16.   Drizzle with peanut sauce all over the top of the pizza.

17.   End with a sprinkling of chopped peanuts.

Pizza Dough Ingredients
1 scant teaspoon active dry yeast
3/4 cup WARM water
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons olive oil

Pizza Dough Directions
Combo yeast and warm water, let stand for 10 minutes. Add flour to a bowl- use an electric mixer with paddle attachment if you have one, if not, by hand or with a hand mixer is fine. Sprinkle in salt and turn mixer on low. Pour in olive oil slowly and then add the yeast/water mixture. Stop mixing with everything blends together. Transfer to another bowl, coated with olive oil to keep the dough from sticking. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for an hour before using. Dough can be placed in the fridge for several days before using. Recipe can be doubled or tripled depending on the quantity you need.

Variations:

Save extra peanut sauce for another use.  Stir it into Asian chicken salad, use as a dipping sauce for chicken strips, and so on.

You can use store-bought peanut/satay sauce to save a few steps.