HOT & SPICY GARLIC DILL PICKLES

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Nothing screams summer more than pickling and canning fresh fruits and veggies from the garden or the farmers market. It's fun too, and comes along with a nice sense of accomplishment looking at all the pretty jars of preserved goods when you're done. Since these pickles are not processed to be shelf stable, they're so very easy, and fast to make. When you're done, and the jars have cooled they go right in the fridge. Easy, no fuss!

First things first, go to your garden, farmers market, farm stand, whatever, and get some pickling cucumbers. I like Kirby's but you can use others, just keep them on the smaller side. By the way, you can make these year round using Persian cucumbers or any other smaller variety. You can also cut them into rounds/chips if spears aren't your thing. You'll need 3 pint-sized canning jars with lids. 

Hot & Spicy Garlic Dill Pickles

10 or 11 pickling cucumbers (I like Kirby's, but you know that already)

3 pint-sized canning jars with lids

1 ½ cups cider vinegar

1 ½ cups water

2 tablespoons pickling salt

9 garlic cloves, lightly smashed (3 per jar)

1 bunch of fresh dill (divide between the jars)

1 teaspoon peppercorns per jar (mixed colors)

4 to 5 whole allspice per jar

6 to 9 hot chili peppers, like Fresno or Thai, 2 to 3 per jar (2 if they're big, 3 if they're small, you get the idea)

• Wash, dry and cut the cucumbers into spears

• Rinse and dry dill

• Wash and dry chilis, making a slit down the side of each one

• Peel and lightly smash the garlic cloves

Tightly pack the cucumber spears into the jars with dill, garlic and chilis. Top with peppercorns and allspice. In a sauce pan, combine the cider vinegar, water and pickling salt, stirring to dissolve the salt. Bring to a boil. Yes, your house is going to smell like vinegar for awhile but it's worth it. Take the brine off the heat and carefully pour into the jars, filling nearly to the rim. Let the jars cool on the counter while you gaze admiringly at your handiwork. Once they're cool, pop them in the refrigerator and try to forget about them for a couple weeks because it takes some time for the flavors to get into the pickles. Also, the heat from the peppers builds over time, and that's a good thing. Pat yourself on the back, you just made some hot and spicy pickles!

DREAMY, DREAMY ICE CREAM. THANKS LEE BAILEY!

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Lee Bailey's Country Desserts is one of my very favorite dessert cookbooks of all time. It's not just that the recipes are great, which they are, it was the way he wrote, the stories and advice he shared in all his books. Friendly, approachable and real. So you're pie crust isn't picture perfect, eh, it happens, it's still going to be delicious. Besides, it seems to me that often times when something looks just so beautiful and perfect, the taste ends up being disappointing. Am I alone here? Maybe it's just me. 

I've had this book for years and have looked repeatedly at the enticing photos of scoops of ice cream, ices and sherbets in pretty bowls and glasses but for some insane reason I had never made any of them. Now I've made two and I will continue making these two over and over again because they're THAT good and THAT easy. I have big plans to make some of the other ice cream recipes as well. I'm sharing these two because, well, it's nice to share and also because the book is, like all of Lee Bailey's cookbooks (I think, sadly), out of print. You can track them down used online, or if you're lucky, in a used bookstore. I found his Soup Meals cookbook by chance like that. Now, without further ramblings ...

Chocolate Nougat Ice Cream. If you love chocolate, make this now, if you don't love chocolate, make it anyway, might change your mind. The ice cream base smells and tastes so good I could actually eat it like soup. It's true, but it's even better as ice cream, so do that.

I used Valrhona Chocolate, 85% cacao, because I had the perfect amount on hand. I will be experimenting with other percentages of cacao because that's the perfect excuse to keep making this, research, all in the name of research. Little Tip: I chilled the base overnight in the fridge for both these ice cream recipes. It's so much easier than waiting, just go to bed, in the morning it'll be ready to churn.

Churned and ready for the freezer. Goes in light in color but darkens as it goes from a soft serve consistency to scoopable ice cream. 

Espresso Ice Cream. This is so smooth and creamy, a real coffee lovers dream. Plus, the base is even faster to whip up than the chocolate.  

There you have it. Two perfect, easy ice cream recipes to get you through the rest of summer and beyond ... because ice cream should be made and eaten often. Words to live by.

Who doesn't love some shrimp ...

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Okay, maybe there are some out there that don't care much for shrimp but I'm not one of them. They're just good, fast cooking and it seems like you did something fancy when really, you didn't. I made this the other night, my take on a shrimp scampi pasta. You'll need about a half pound of cleaned and peeled—except for the tail—shrimp and roughly a half pound of pasta, I like linguine, you may like something else, it's all good.

Here's a quick run down of what you'll need to have around in order to whip this up:

Half pound of cleaned, peeled shrimp

Half pound of dried pasta

Couple of garlic cloves, smashed

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Dry Vermouth, or White Wine (not a sweet one)

Capers, about a spoonful + or - depending on your love of capers

1 lemon, zest and juice

Butter, about 1 ½ tsp to 1 tablespoon

Fresh parsley, roughly chopped, to finish

Put a large pot of well salted water on to boil for the pasta while you make the shrimp and sauce. Reserve a little of the pasta water to use if the finished sauce needs to be a little saucier: 

In a skillet/saute pan over medium heat add some olive oil, about 2 teaspoons along with the butter. Once the butter is melted add the garlic and stir. You should be smelling some garlicky goodness, give it about 2 minutes. Add the shrimp, salt and pepper them. Cook these guys, turning occasionally, until they are just opaque. Add some dry vermouth, about a ¼ cup but go ahead and just eyeball it, be crazy. Pour in the lemon juice. Add the capers, lemon zest and the just al dente cooked pasta and toss it all together to coat those noodles. Finish with a sprinkling of fresh parsley. Told you it was quick and easy, but it looks kind of impressive right? You can also easily double this for more people or more for a few or just you, no judging here.

Need more sautéed shrimp in your life? Here's something else you can do. I stretched out some homemade pizza dough—we'll get into that another time—you can also use store bought. A little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil smeared around, sprinkle of salt and pepper, then I spread a thin layer of pesto. Top that with some sautéed leeks, love leeks, and toss around some mozzarella cheese, fontina would be great too. That goes onto a screaming hot pizza stone in a 525° oven, hotter if your oven will do that. The greens you see are sautéed broccoli leaves—lots of sautéing going on here—which are truly great but you can use anything you want, it's pizza. When the pizza comes out of the oven top it with more cheese of course, this time fresh mozzarella, the greens or whatever you're using, shrimp and a final dusting of grated Pecorino Romano. Let's eat already!

We all scream for strawberry basil ice cream

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I bought a lot of strawberries at the farmers market with no real plan in mind. Ate a bunch just by themselves, mixed some with basil then figured I'd use the rest for ice cream. Instead of regular old strawberry ice cream, not that there's anything at all wrong with that, why not strawberry basil ice cream? Exactly, why not! So I pulled out my copy of Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream and used that recipe for Strawberry Ice Cream with the addition of basil. Let me show you how I did it.

First off, I used a potato masher to crush the strawberries in a bowl, it just seems easier to me and I've done it before, works every time. I don't always have whole milk on hand so I used 1 cup 2% milk along with the 2 cups of heavy cream. I cooked the cream, milk, remaining tablespoon of sugar and pinch of kosher salt over medium heat as the recipe states, whisking and removing from the heat just before it comes to a boil. At this point I stirred in about a ¼ cup of sliced basil leaves and let the whole mixture just steep on the counter until it was cool enough to transfer to the refrigerator. I let the basil infuse over night and that gave the base a really nice subtle basil flavor. 

The next day when I was ready to make the ice cream both the cream base and crushed strawberries were well chilled after a night in the fridge. Perfect conditions for making ice cream. Before adding the cream base to the strawberries you need to strain out the basil. Once the base is strained add it to the strawberries, stirring to combine and you're ready to get churning.

For churning, follow the directions for whatever ice cream maker you have. Don't be tempted to over churn, I've made butter ice cream a few times, not good. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer safe container and cover tightly. It'll take, like the recipe says, at least 4 hours to firm up. Maybe my freezer is set to arctic blast, I should probably check that, but the ice cream gets rock hard so you're going to want to set it out for a while and let it soften a bit before you try scooping it. So get out there, get some strawberries, some basil, make some ice cream. It's really easy and you won't be sorry when you're sitting there with a bowl of creamy, refreshing strawberry basil ice cream.