Tag: food/dining

Fun with booze and farmer’s market

I’m running out of “drunken cherries” for my chocolate ice cream with drunken cherries. My ‘drunken cherries’ are cherries that have been soaking in sugar and vodka for 3 months. The purpose of which is to make a cherry liquor. Depending on how it turns out, because the two batches I made several months ago tasted different. One tasted more like a cherry sugar syrup, the other like a upscale NyQuil. I blame the bottle and not so tight cap (and spill) and the off season supermarket cherries.
Anyway, this time around cherries from the farmers market! And Stoli! I have two new batches waiting to sit around for 3 months. I hope to make a small 3rd batch, using the farmer’s market cherries, the organic vodka I got from Bloomingdale Liquors sometime back, and maybe some Florida Crystals, depending on how much those crystals cost.
The basic recipe, should you want to make some is:

1/2 pound of Bing cherries, unblemished and stems removed
1/2 pound of sugar
2 cups of vodka
Place cherries in quart (?) sized jar, pour sugar on cherries, pour in vodka. Cover, seal, whatever, and label. Leave on top of refrigerator for 3 months without touching or shaking or messing with.

If there are strawberries still available I will play with the idea of making a strawberry liquor. I have a blueberry liquor that I have yet to strain, and decide if it worth trying to make again when blueberries come into season.

BFM on NPR’s Morning Edition

This morning I awoke to the sound of thunder and went back to sleep. Then the clock radio clicked on, and I tried fighting not going back to sleep, and then a story caught my groggy attention. Listen to local resident and NPR reporter, Neda Ulaby’s report about our dear Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market. You’ll hear the voices of other locals Ted Mcginn, Robin Schuster, and Scott Roberts.
It is amazing how the area (though not in the TC I’m claiming it) got this wonderful market. It’s got kids and dogs and so far so good with that. I’ve said it before the market has a great atmosphere, that I haven’t experienced at some of the other DC markets. Dupont has a lot of great stuff, but OMG is it crowded. I ran into one in Georgetown it was rinky-dink, but then again it was closing down when I showed up. and the farmer’s market (this was a while ago so it may have changed) near the Department of Ag, felt lacking. And Penn Quarter’s farmers market, where I’m heading to after work, is good, but not the same.
I’m still loving the strawberries that are in season. I still have some waiting for turning into a strawberry spread, loosely based on Copper Pot‘s recipe seen on Fox 5. I halved all the ingredients, including the time but except the vanilla, and use the spread to make strawberry ice cream. The jellies Stefano Frigerio (Mr. Copper Pot) sells is firmer, more jell-y. Didn’t see him last week at BFM, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for him this weekend as his pasta sauces are wonderful.

Using Duck Eggs To Make Super Rich Chocolate Ice Cream

I blogged about how the duck eggs made my chocolate ice cream so rich it was like a brownie that melted in my mouth. Here’s the recipe:
Adapted from David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”

Chocolate Ice Cream

2 cups of heavy cream*
3-5 Tbls of cocoa powder**
5 ounces of 100% Cocao/ bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup of milk***
3/4 cups of sugar
1/4 tsp of salt****
4 Mallard Duck egg yolks
1 chicken egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Warm 1 cup of cream in small pot with 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder. Try to eliminate or avoid clumps. Get it too a boil then bring down heat to a simmer for 30 seconds, while whisking. Remove from stove and add chocolate. Here is where I had problems where the mix refused to get smooth, separating into solid and oil, so I added more cocoa powder and cream, watered down with milk. Stir with spoon to get smooth. Transfer to a big heatproof bowl.
In that same pot heat milk, sugar and salt. In another bowl whisk the egg yolks. Slowly add heated milk mix to eggs. Start with a few tablespoons of milk and whisk, then move up to 1/4 cup of milk and whisk. Then take milk egg mix and pour back into pot. Slowly heat while stirring to make a custard. When it coats the back of the spoon, remove from heat and keep stirring.
Place a mesh strainer over the bowl with the chocolate and pour custard into bowl through the mesh. The mesh will capture big clumps of custard. Add vanilla. Take bowl and put in ice bath, or in my case set on top of ice pak. When decently cooled, place in fridge.
After about 12 hours has past, put in ice cream maker and churn.

* The first cup I used cream, the cream used later was more like half and half.
** original recipe called for 3, I added more later.
*** original recipe called for whole milk, I used 2%.
**** original recipe called for a pinch, I add more to keep my ice creams from being too hard and solid. Booze is better at this, but salt is more child friendly.