Unsuitable Strawberry Ice Cream

Recently, I was gifted with a quart of strawberries deemed "unsuitable for eating."  My mother-in-law had received these from someone else, and re-gifted them to me.  I didn't mind, understanding that she knew I'd give them a good home, er, recipe.  The last time she'd stopped over, a friend and I had been making strawberry jam.  While I was a little jammed-out, I was happy to think of another creative use for strawberries.  There was nothing wrong with them - they were just a little ugly and misshapen.  Easy enough to chop them up and cook them into something.  I'd had a lot of recent experience slaughtering strawberries.

This time around, I decided to make ice cream.  I was inspired by two of my very favorite ice cream flavors in the world - Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk and Backyard Mint from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.  I highly, highly recommend her cookbook.  I combined these two recipes to make a hybrid that you could call Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Backyard Mint.

I will not go into all the details of the recipe here.  You can find Jeni's ice cream base at this link.  I used some buttermilk in place of cream - it gives the ice cream a tangy almost cheesecake-y taste.  I steeped torn up mint leaves in the base overnight.  Meanwhile, I roasted the strawberries (combined with some sugar) and blended into a puree, which I cooled and refrigerated overnight.  One really great tip from the Jeni's cookbook is to never add actual whole or chopped strawberries - they are too full of water and become icy chunks in your ice cream.  The puree adds a beautiful flavor and slight pink color while maintaining a smooth texture.  On Day 2, I strained out the mint leaves, stirred in the puree, and let it all freeze in our ice cream maker.  It is delicious.  One mistake  I made was to not include quite enough heavy cream - I think the ice cream needed a little more fat (it came out slightly icy).  But the flavor was really, really delicious.  I will definitely make this again, as I am always on the lookout for ways to use fresh mint! (although I think the June strawberry onslaught in Ohio is sadly just about over)

Also, if you are in Ohio, or if you are so serious about good ice cream that you'll have it shipped to you - I cannot recommend Jeni's enough!  And for home ice cream artist, the book is a must! (this is not a paid endorsement, I swear)

First salad of the season! (or, how to make tofu croutons)

I think it is fair to assume that all of humanity can be divided into two groups - those who have an interest in something called "tofu croutons," and those who do not.  So I thought I'd be real upfront for those of you who don't, just so you know that buried within this post is information about this thing I've decided to call tofu croutons.  Don't shoot the messenger, carnivores.  You were warned.

The other night for dinner I decided to harvest some of the mesclun mix that is ready to eat.  I'd just bought some gorgeous looking strawberries and decided to incorporate the two into a salad.  Balsamic vinegar is a natural accompaniment to both salad and strawberries, so I mixed up a makeshift "balsamic vinaigrette" out of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, a little lemon juice, salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

I really would have loved to add some fresh basil, but as you can see in the picture, that plant is not quite ready for consumption!  So instead I settled for a little mint.

The salad was pretty, but nutritionally was not offering much as a dinner.  Enter the tofu croutons! To turn my block of extra firm tofu into crispy croutons, I followed the following steps (note that from start to finish this is a solid hour-and-a-half, so plan accordingly):

• Open and drain a package of Extra Firm Tofu
• Place between two plates with a heavy object on top (I used our juicer, since it was sitting on the counter anyway).  Leave for about 30 minutes -- this will press out any extra liquid and allow the tofu to better absorb the marinade.
• Cut tofu into chunks (mine were about 3/4 inch cubes). 
• Toss the tofu in either your own or store-bought balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  Allow to sit in a shallow pan or baking dish for another 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Spray a baking sheet with some type of non-stick cooking spray (I used olive oil spray)
• Scatter tofu pieces on the sheet, and bake for 20 minutes on middle or upper rack.
• After twenty minutes, check for crispness.  At this point, the "croutons" are cooked, but mine were still soft so I returned to the oven for another 20 minutes.  I like them very crisp on the outside.  You may want to set your timer in 5- or 10-minute intervals to be on the safe side.
• When they meet your established level of crispy-ness, remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.  Enjoy as a snack, on a salad, or in a stir fry.  I've also added them to soup.

I've experimented with many flavors on these little guys.  Another favorite thing is to do an Asian-influenced marinade (soy sauce, ginger, rice wine vinegar) and I toss in with stir-fry vegetables.  

When in doubt, Google "tofu marinade" for inspiration!

More mint.

Here is my second-favorite thing to do with fresh mint.  Pick a few sprigs and wash them off.  Then crumple them up in your hand ("crumple" being a rather technical term, I know) to release the flavors.  Place these mint sprigs in a pitcher of water with 5-6 tea bags (I prefer to do this with plain old black tea but you can use whatever you have, or whatever you like).  Fill the pitcher with water and place it outside on a hot day.  In a few hours you will have Mint-Infused Sun Tea.

Now, of course, Sun Tea is just a romantic idea that we all love to make in the summer... but really, you could accomplish the same thing in a much shorter time with a kettle of hot water.  But isn't there a certain joy of anticipation that comes along with waiting an entire afternoon for a pitcher of tea that you will then need to either refrigerate or cool down with ice cubes to make it drinkable for summer weather?

Mint.

I use mint for exactly three things (mojitos, iced tea, and tabbouleh - look for more on the others in the future), but these three things are important enough, and tasty enough, to merit always keeping a pot of mint growing.  The type that we grow is just good, old-fashioned "spearmint."

Don't, under any circumstance, plant mint in a garden bed!  Left unchecked, it will take over the whole garden, your yard, and possibly even your house.  It is easy to grow but incredibly hard to control.  We learned this the hard way when living at our old house.  We planted some in the small garden bed that we had, and by the time we moved, the garden bed had turned into a mint pasture.   So now, I keep it in a pot.  And recently I used it to make one of my very favorite hot-weather adult beverages, a mojito.

You can grow it in a pot...

...in a pot, you can grow a lot! (eh, not sure I can really pull off Seuss...)

L to R: Beefsteak tomatoes, Sungold tomatoes, Basil, Mint, Catnip

Not everyone has or wants the space to grow an entire produce section in their backyard.  And those of us who do occasionally buy too many plants and need somewhere else to put them.  Enter - the flower pot!

While I am not sure that you can grow any plant in a pot, my experience has been that certain crops are super-easy to grow in containers.  Namely - tomatoes, basil, catnip, and mint (more about them individually at a later date).  The only thing about container growing that is slightly higher-maintenance is that you have to be very mindful of watering them.  At the time of watering, anything extra will drain through the holes of your pot.  The positive is that it's pretty hard to over-water a plant in a pot; the negative is that they can grow thirsty pretty quickly.