UnRecipe: Still Clinging to Summer (Fruit)

Autumn never fails to catch me by surprise every year. Even though we're in the thick of it, Thanksgiving is upon us, I'm still like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix going: Whoa... It still feels like only yesterday, we were sweating through the last weeks of summer, noticing the early notes of fall starting to change the colors of leaves, and like a sledgehammer on the noggin' -- you're frantically trying to get the heater to work and desperate to find those sweaters you hid away when summer hit. I'm sure I'm not the only one -- even our food seems to be in an odd, out-of-sorts middle ground, as we had some long-lingering stone fruit and leftover berry jam from the sweltering days of July. I found myself looking in the fridge and freezer, realizing the last bites of summer were still staring at me, right in the face.

Preserved summer - blueberry ice cream on a cold autumn day - Photo by Wasabi Prime

OMG a Recipe: Mixing Things Up at the Hobbit Ultralounge

It's a oft-said saying that Nature abhors a vacuum, and that's true for many things, even with food and drink. If you stick with a narrow menu of items, even if they're your favorite things to eat or drink, you're missing out on a world of possibilities. I'm the most guilty of this vacuum, settling into Hobbit-like comfort zones and not always being on top of the latest and greatest things, most notably with beverages of the adult persuasion. But laziness – begone! I've been fortunate enough to take my drinking palate out on the town of late and reminding myself that one should never settle for a simple vodka soda... ever. It's long overdue I mixed things up again.

Feeling inspired by summer and blueberry cocktails - Photo by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Berries Gone Wild

The end of summer signals one significant thing -- load up on Vitamin D pills, because the sun is disappearing for months and you don't want to get rickets. Oh yeah... and there's lots of berries in season!

Berry gory looking dessert you've got there - Photo by Wasabi Prime

While an alarmingly gory color and texture, this is blackberry jam spooned over some Greek yogurt, and not some disturbing dessert that one of the vampires from True Blood might eat. And contrary to the name, the berry is not black at all, but, duh, like that's a surprise. It's wickedly magenta-hued, especially when you start cooking the berries down for jam, which is what I did recently. The nice thing about blackberries is that they are free, minus a little bit of manual labor. I was off the hook, as Mr. Wasabi's family was in town and while I was out, they spent an afternoon picking blackberries from a wall of scruff that's growing down our street on an empty lot. It's probably private property or city-owned, but everyone heads there, as it's got full-sun, the berries ripen there pretty fast, and no one's called the Duvall Five-0 about our renegade gang of berry pickers. Yet. Having three people picking berries at once means you end up with several pounds of the stuff. They weren't super-sweet, but they were super-free and even tart berries can make for good jam.

We be jammin' at Wasabi's - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So I jammed-out for a morning, washing the berries and just throwing them into a large pot to cook down. I like keeping it a little chunky, so I don't totally cook them into a smooth pulp, plus I keep the seeds in, so it's quite a textural wonderland. Just remember to floss. Because they were tart, I added sugar, maybe a cup's worth to several pounds' worth of berries; not to make it candy-sweet, but something to take the edge off that sourness. I didn't have a primary goal in mind for the jam, I just knew if I didn't cook them down, blackberries are so delicate and moisture-prone, they would mold wicked-fast. Lately, we've been using it on yogurt and ice cream. At the moment, I have a batch of peanut butter custard chilling out, awaiting the final churn to make it into ice cream, and I'm going to mix ribbons of the last bits of jam in the final stage, right before it freezes. While I've never been a fan of PB and J sandwiches (I was more of a PB and honey sandwich kind of girl), I think as an ice cream, it will be quite a treat. Unfortunately the finished product wasn't ready at the time of this post, but stay tuned, I'm sure I'll post pictures of the peanut butter and jelly ice cream on Twittter, Flickr and/or Facebook. (Post Script - since this post was written/published, the ice cream has been made and nearly gobbled up! Will likely do a post later, but here's a peek, if you want to see an early photo, on my Flickr page.)

Farmers market Smurfberry ice cream - Photos by Wasabi Prime

A berry ice cream I made a little while ago and did take photos of, was a boysenberry and blueberry ice cream. This was supposed to be a vanilla ice cream with ribbons of boysenberry-blueberry jam mixed in. But I got overeager and churned the jam with the ice cream and wound up with Smurf Ice Cream. Lesson learned; drizzle the jam in after the ice cream is churned, layering and swirling the jam with the churned ice cream. Got it. Much thanks to Alexandra Hedin for the tip; she's always got the good kitchen advice! The color was a very intense purple-blue, but the ice cream was good. It just looked a little unreal and I think your brain kept sending signals to the tastebuds to expect bubblegum grape flavor. I had picked up several containers of enormous blueberries and a basket of ridiculously large, plump boysenberries at the farmers market and was so excited to use them. So excited, I made an ice cream that looked like I ground up Smurfs to make it. Have a Smurfy day yourself, you annoying little blue buggers.

Do you know the Muffin Man? Would you like to? - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I saved enough of the blueberries to make my favorite blueberry pecan muffins. This is a bit of a nostalgic recipe for me, as it was featured on one of my earlier posts. It wasn't my recipe, it was originally from one of my favorite blogs, Omnomicon, who offered it up as one of the best blueberry muffin recipes EVER. And I have to admit, it's pretty dang good. Crunchy pecans with big bites of blueberry, all mixed in with a really moist, dense cake. Granted, my first attempt at it was a fail, as I fooled with the recipe, using whole wheat flour and yogurt instead of buttermilk. Don't mess with baking recipes, they bite you in the derriere. I made it again, they came out great, and since then, this has been one of my favorite "company" recipes, when people are visiting and it's more than just Mr. Wasabi and I to eat these dangerously delicious things. I think they bake up especially well in the giant Texas-sized muffin tins, since the larger size is in better proportion to the big berries and chunky pecans. They also photograph nicely. But then you wind up with muffins the size of small cakes, and you feel twice as guilty for eating a whole one all by yourself. Well, maybe not that guilty...

Berries for all... even a stalking Indy - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So, that was our berry season in a nutshell. It's nice to enjoy fruits in the height of their season, you take full advantage of their freshness and kind of wear yourself out from the experience until the next year, which is sort of the point. It keeps you from being tempted to buy blueberries in the middle of winter, which probably came from some other continent. Until next year then, berries...So long and thanks for all the antioxidants.

OMG a Recipe: the Fast, the Furious and the Frozen

When the Prime has a food-related bee in her bonnet, she goes Wasabi-Wild. I had made ice cream before, but a somewhat faulty ice cream churner paddle had prevented me from making more homemade delights. Finding out the paddle's defective crack wasn't enough to keep us from making frozen dessert goodness was the green light for my Fast and Furious Ice Cream Madness.

Peanut buttery vegan goodness with critter-friendly ice cream! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I know making ice cream isn't difficult. It's downright easy, it just requires a bit of time and patience in between steps. But once you get into the groove and get used to the time needed to make frozen delights, it easily becomes an obsession towabds trying new flavorc and combinations every week. It started out with beer ice cream for me. I was developing a beer-flavored ice cream recipe, and I had a basic frozen custard recipe, which consists of: 3 cups half and half or cream, 1 cup of sugar and three eggs. That's pretty much it. Vanilla extract is optional, depending on the flavoring, and the sky's the limit for adding new ingredients to modify it. You have to heat up the custard to about 170 degrees to make sure the eggs are cooked but not scrambled, and you strain the mixture to get rid of any eggy bits, but once you add whatever extra flavoring or fruit of your choice and let it cool, it goes straight into the ice cream maker and then into a container to finish off in the freezer.

Coffee you can eat with a spoon - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I started out with a reduction of a Scotch Ale for the beer ice cream, then made a coffee-flavored ice cream with leftover coffee. I moved into frozen yogurt territory, mixing frozen berries with yogurt and milk -- that actually froze up so hard, the paddle couldn't turn, so it took some elbow grease to scrape it out. An excess of buttermilk and fresh blueberries led me to try a blueberry/buttermilk combination which ended up being like a berry cheesecake ice cream (yes, please!), and I even dared to tread into the vegan domain of soy ice cream for some visiting friends who are lactose intolerant. I was happy to say that the soy milk set up just fine, no weird separations or especially large ice crystals. I made a peanut butter soy ice cream, using the peanut butter as the fat content that the eggs would have normally supplied for the custard. For the base vegan custard, I went with the basic recipe from Post Punk Kitchen. The resulting dessert ended up being a favorite, as scoops of the peanut butter ice cream, drizzled with a bit of chocolate sauce and plain peanuts, with a dash of salt to kick up the savory, was a home-run dessert hit.

Like a berry cheesecake, but frozen - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I'm enjoying how flexible the base recipe is, whether it's dairy or vegan-ized. I'm already thinking of new flavor combinations to try with different ingredients like lavender, ginger, honey, mint, and maybe... just maybe... I'll creep into the realm of savory ice creams. Blame it on Iron Chef, but like I said, when this Wasabi has a bee in her bonnet -- look out!

Weapons of Brain Freeze destruction! - Photos by Wasabi Prime

FoodFail: Crater Blueberry Muffins

I saw this on a license plate frame today: "I used to be schizo, but we're OK now." That's a good description for how things are while I move the Old Wasabi at Vox to the New Wasabi here at Blogspot. I promise the recent confusion will subside, and I thank everyone for being patient with the changeover. To alleviate some of this self-imposed busybody-ness, I decided to bake blueberry muffins, as baking can sometimes be a calming thing. Everything leading up to the baking part went smoothly, but I was telling fellow blogger, Ms. Picket Fence, that I wished I lived near or around Crater Lake, Oregon, because then I could have called these Crater Muffins. Let's not ruin the post quite yet and just gaze for a moment at this serene tableaux of ingredients, shall we?

Still life with muffin ingredients, prior to "the Crater Incident" - photo by Wasabi Prime

Per some earlier Tweets this week, I was inspired to do something with blueberries. They're in season and incredibly well-priced right now. I decided to go with the blueberry muffin recipe I found on the charmingly funny blog, Omnomicon. The recipe was originally from Food Happens, and Omnomicon's Aleta had given it a foodie thumb's up. Bless her heart, she wisely advised to lighten up on the pecan and brown sugar topping, as that tends to cause the center of the muffins to collapse a bit while baking. I made sure to heed that bit of advice.

Food pr0n alert!! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

However, I'll be the first to admit that I made a substitution mistake, replacing the buttermilk part of the recipe with Greek yogurt. The recipe said yogurt could be used as a swap, but I think the thicker Greek-style yogurt made the batter more concentrated. I don't know what kind of mad science took place during the baking process, but it wasn't the kind of mad science that creates sexy Kelly LeBrocks from Barbie dolls. No, this crazy mad science created Crater Muffins that, instead of rising into fluffy mounds of goodness, they made a vertical dash for their neighbor and I wound up with sunken-in, crazy Siamese Twin pastries. But you know what? They were still damned tasty.

Pecan and brown sugar topping. It looked better before it went into the oven - photo by Wasabi Prime

While not pleasing in an aesthetic sort of way, the finished muffins were still pleasing in an om-nom-nommic sort of way. I had no trouble eating a couple, and in an act of nutritional defiance, called it dinner. This was probably the least offensive photo I could take of the finished muffins. I placed a little coffee mug with the Finnish cartoon characters, Moomin, as a crutch of happiness to lighten the gravity-stricken baked goods.

Moomins make everything better - photo by Wasabi Prime

Overall, I can't be that discouraged over the result, especially since I knowingly put the batter in harm's way with an untested substitution. I also swapped regular flour with whole wheat, hence the darker color, but I think the Greek yogurt 'twas what done this batter in. Live and learn. I'm still pleased with the photos and weather permitting, may try this recipe again, minus ingredient swaps, before the blueberry harvest peters-out.

I believe it's time for an ingredient montage! - photo by Wasabi Prime

* Post Script * Another big THANK YOU to Tastespotting for posting a photo of the blueberries from this post! As Leo Sayer would say, you make me feel like dancing!

* Post-Post Script - Big blueberry thanks to Photograzing at Serious Eats for posting the 'money shot' of blueberries getting mixed in batter. HOT!

* Post-Post-Post Script - Thanks to Foodie View for posting the pr0n-tastic blueberry mix photo!