Chocolate Raspberry Ice Box Cake

September has taken this household by storm. Between sports practices, PTA meetings and events, Bible study and school (I was subbing on the first day of school, go figure), it's been a crazy month. This is my way of apologizing for not posting this sooner.

Remember how I was going to experiment with ice box cakes this summer? And remember how I've only posted one so far? Yeah, that's exactly how it goes with my summer plans. I was also going to knock out a couple more chapters in my novel, and that didn't happen, either. And have the kids to a little bit of school work (at least some reading) every day, too. Never happened.

Anyway, I did manage to make another ice box cake. This flavor combination was at my older son's request. He really likes the chocolate-berry flavor combination. The marshmallow topping in the whipped cream may sound a little random, and that's because it is. I'm STILL trying to use that stuff up (FYI, it can be used for fluffernutter sandwiches in a pinch)! Anyway, if you don't happen to have it on hand, you could probably skip it and just add a little powdered sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla to flavor the whipped cream before folding in the raspberries.

But this is what we ended up with, and it tasted really yummy!

Here are the ingredients (most of them, anyway - I just realized that I didn't get the fresh raspberries in there):

I used seedless raspberry jam, because I thought there would be plenty of seeds with the fresh raspberries. The cookie thins were really good, but if you can't find them, you could probably use the Nabisco Chocolate wafers. Also, if you smash a few of the raspberries before folding them into the whipped cream, it makes the cream a little easier to smooth out.

We really enjoyed this cake! We served it with a few extra fresh raspberries scattered over the top and a drizzle of chocolate sauce, just for effect. :-) Let me know what you think!



Chocolate Raspberry Ice Box Cake

2 cups whipping cream
6 Tbsp Marshmallow topping
1/8 cup of seedless raspberry jam
1 pint fresh raspberries, rinsed
2 - 4 oz packages of Mrs. Thinster's Cookie Thins (Brownie Batter)

Make sure the whipping cream is really cold. You can also put your bowl and whisk (or whisk or beaters of your mixer) into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. Pour cream into bowl and whip with mixer until it holds its shape (about 1-2 minutes). Add marshmallow topping and raspberry jam to whipped cream. Whip again until topping and jam are incorporated, about 30 seconds.

Add 1 cup raspberries to whipped cream, fold the berries to incorporate.

Spread 1/4 cup of cream onto serving platter. Place a single layer of cookies on top of the cream.

Spread about a cup of whipped cream on top of cookies, but leaving a border so you can still see edges of cookies. Top with more cookies. You can put broken cookies in the middle, since you won't see those anyway.

Continue with the layering, ending with whipped cream. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours (and up to 24). Use extra raspberries for garnish and top it off with an extra cookie.
 

This serves about 6, but you could easily double the ingredients, using more cookies for each layer.

What I did on my summer vacation: Indiana Road Trip!

It's hard to believe that summer is already coming to a close and the kids are back in school! I'm not sure if any of their teachers will assign them a "What I did this summer" essay, but you never know. To commiserate with their going back to school, I am going to share with you our summer trip. Enjoy.

Not to brag or anything, but our big family trip this summer was a road trip to Indiana. Yep. I know you are all super jealous. I have to admit, though, I love taking road trips with the kids. They are awesome travelers, and no one really gets car sick anymore (we hedge our bets with Dramamine for E). Plus, I love road food. Seriously. Planning the snacks, mapping out (literally) food places to stop at along the way, those are the things that I like when it comes to road-tripping. I am all about the journey. Unfortunately, my husband is more about the "let's just get there as quickly as possible" kind of road-tripper. We manage to peacefully coexist, as long as we plan the route ahead of time. :-)

So, "Why Indiana?" you might be asking yourself. And that is a great question, since Indiana, unless you have friends/family there, seems like an unlikely destination state.  Here's how it went down:
my son has a good friend, with whom he plays soccer. This friend's dad used to play soccer for Indiana University and still has connections to the IU soccer staff. So, he asked us if our son would like to go to the IU soccer camp this summer, and he (our son) said "Heck yeah!" That is not exactly what he said, but he was excited. The camp was 5 days, so one of us could take him, but it's a long enough drive that it wouldn't be worth it to go out and back then out and back again to pick him up, so as long as one person was driving him out and staying, we figured all of us could go. And that, my friends, is how we ended up going to Indiana for our summer trip.

This is M, on the day we dropped him off at camp.

Now, my husband also went to Indiana University, but at a different time than our friend, but he was excited to take a look at the campus and see how things have changed. A lot, apparently, because my main task when we actually got to Bloomington was to make sure we didn't get into a wreck, since Jonathan kept looking this way and that, saying, "Wow! I can't believe how much everything has changed!" and "See that [bar/restaurant/store]? When I was in school, it was half that size [or in a different location, or in the basement]." It was fun to see him get excited about being back, though.

Of course, we spent some time hanging around the IU campus and shopping in the book store. Hence, this photo:




 The kid has never met a hat he didn't like. I think it should be used on their next catalog cover, personally. :-)

Also, as a middle-aged woman trying to buy a t-shirt in a college book store, let me just tell you how depressing it was. Most designs were cut for young, thin girls who don't have boobs or hips, or a waist. I ended up in the "unisex" section hoping to find something that worked. I never did find anything but a sweatshirt. You can hardly go wrong with that, I guess.

A lot of my friends teased me that my Facebook posts all centered around food, but I was really just posting our meals, of which we eat three each day, but apparently it was a lot. :-)


 Anyway, we dropped our oldest son off on campus, got his room organized, then took off, because he was going to start a training session almost right away. It was a pretty serious camp.

The night before, we went to a place called Nick's, which is as divey a place as you can get, and I've been to dives. Again, we went more for nostalgia than actual decent food, but their fries were really good. :-)

Because my husband went to IU, there was a lot of nostalgia eating (see above photo). Our next stop on the nostalgia tour was Mother Bear's, a pizza place. Apparently, they moved their location, but the pizza was as good as Jonathan remembered. For some reason, I didn't get a picture of the pizza (we probably ate it too fast), but I did get a pic of my youngest goofing off (imagine that).

Our next full day was spent hiking over in Brown County, adjacent to Bloomington.  It is a beautiful area, and I could just imagine how gorgeous it is in the fall, with all the leaves changing colors. We did an easy hike though Brown County State Park, which was about a 45 minute drive from Bloomington. They have a number of different trails, but we took one of the easier ones, since it was quite hot out.

I wanted to keep going to the end of the trail, but when part of the trail crossed over the road that led back to our car, the boys decided they had had enough. Babies.

 After our hike, though, we were all pretty hungry and hot, so we drove a little further over to Columbus, IN, a pretty little town with a lot of cute shops and restaurants along its main street. We had lunch at Zaharakos, an authentic soda fountain that's been in operation since 1909. They make their own ice cream right there in the basement, as well as their own syrups for fresh-made sodas. This place was really cool!

There are the counter servers, making our sodas that we had with lunch. The main event, though, is the ice cream. I had a chocolate malt, Elliot just got ice cream in a waffle cone (that they made fresh while we were watching, NBD), and Jonathan had a sundae. All of the ice creams were outstanding, although I had a taste of the butter pecan, which was amazing!! We also really liked the dreamsicle and the cookies and cream.






We liked it so much, we stopped there a second time on our way home so that M would have a chance to experience it.

 The next day we spent walking around Bloomington, which has a really lovely town square. We discovered WonderLab, a really neat science museum for kids. They had a bubble room (yes, dedicated to all types of bubble creation), including this big contraption that made huge bubbles!

They also had a bed of nails and cool climbing structure that E loved.

While we were walking around downtown, we also discovered Square Donuts, just a block away from the hotel.  Holy cow! Were they good! Even though there was breakfast included in our hotel price, it was totally worth going to Square Donuts for breakfast one of those days!















Also near our hotel in the downtown area of Bloomington was Bub's Burgers. Our first time there we had ice cream, but we eventually ate there.They have this thing called the Big Ugly, a burger challenge. We did not get that. Instead, we got the sweet potato waffle fries (with marshmallow creme, natch), which were really good!

I also got the portobello mushroom burger. So good! I was so excited to eat it, I forgot to take a picture until it was half gone! So, this really doesn't do it justice. The mushroom cap was so flavorful and juicy, though. I highly recommend it if you go to Bub's.













Sweet Grass Restaurant  was another place we tried out. We were really happy with the salads. At this point, our bodies were rebelling against all things fried, grilled and fatty, so we stuck with salads. Really delish!

We also spent a full day in Indianapolis, about an hour from Bloomington. Personally, I thought at trip to the Indianapolis Speedway would be waste (I am not a race car gal), but I found it really interesting. We didn't spring for the full tour, opting to just walk around the museum part, but it was still fun.

Next, we spent some time at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Can we say Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Hot Wheels? Mommy totally wins an award for this one!

There was also this really cool exhibit sponsored by National Geographic about ancient cultures and archaeology. They had actual artifacts from 1200 B.C. Egypt (and older) on display! Really amazing for a kids' museum, if you ask me. Here's E pretending to dive into submerged ruins to discover pirate's booty.

Back in Bloomington, we spent another day wandering around the town. We discovered that near the Chocolate Moose, food trucks set up shop every Friday. Although it was pretty hot outside, we still enjoyed the arepas from Juancho's Munchies, and the BBQ from Great White Smoke. Of course, E got ice cream (at this point, we have given up all parental guidelines for what constitutes "healthy" and "meals").

I have to admit, I didn't have huge hopes for our road trip, but was pleasantly surprised by Bloomington, Indiana. Nice people, really good food, and fun things to do. If you find yourself going through there (or making a special trip) you will find yourself well fed and definitely not bored!  Hope you had a fun summer, too!

Summer's Bounty: No recipe recipes

I am totally digging our garden (ha! look at that pun!). But honestly, it's been great, with kale, fresh basil and summer squash. We had peas earlier, and we're still waiting on tomatoes and watermelon to ripen.

So tonight, I am going to let you loose without a recipe. You can do this. I know you can.

First, get some summer squash or zucchini, tomatoes and onion. Slice them all really thin. The amounts depend on how much you want to make. I made this vegetable gratin (that's the fancy word for baked vegetables) for dinner for three of us, so I had two tomatoes, one onion and about 3 squash (I actually cut up 4, but didn't use some of it, so I'm estimating here).

 

Then, you pour some olive oil in the bottom of the baking pan you are using. I suggest one that is fairly shallow (wider with narrow-ish sides) and thinly slice garlic over the oil:

 

 Then, layer the veggies thusly and sprinkle salt and pepper over everything. I also sprinkled dried thyme. Feel free to add whatever herbs you like. Fresh rosemary would be good. Or basil.

 

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes, then take the pan out and grate fresh parmesan over all of it. Return to the oven for another 5-6 minutes, until all of the veggies are softened. Pull it out and you will have something that looks like this:

Sorry for the poor photo quality. I was using my phone instead of my camera, because the camera's battery needed to be recharged. But you get the idea.

It was really good! I served it with flatbread and a watermelon salad (watermelon, diced red onion, basil, crumbled feta cheese, salt, pepper, olive oil):

It's summer, so take advantage of all the fresh veggies that are available! Enjoy!

Coffee Cream Ice Box Cake

I get a bunch of food magazines, which I love to read and get inspiration from. This month, one of the magazines featured ice box cakes created by famous (at least to foodies) pastry chefs. There were some really interesting ideas, so I decided that my project this summer is going to experiment with ice box cakes. They are perfect for summer, because you don't have to turn on the oven (which I hate to do when it's hot outside - just makes the air conditioner work harder), are super easy (can you whip some cream and stack cookies together?), and taste so yummy (what's better than whipped cream and cookies?)!

 It seemed like the combinations could be endless, and I was a little overwhelmed at first trying to figure out what to make first. However, I had made some coffee syrup a little while back and had wanted to use that in some way. Cruising the cookie aisle at the grocery store, I saw a package of Bischoff cookies (biscuits?) and it's tag line was something like "coffee's favorite cookie." Ding! Ding! Ding! We had a winner! So I grabbed a couple of packages of them, some whipping cream, and some creme fraiche.  Originally, I had wanted to use mascarpone cheese, thinking I needed a little tang to cut through some of the richness and sweetness, but I couldn't find it, so I used creme fraiche, which worked well. If you can't find either of those, I think a 50/50 mixture of cream cheese and sour cream would also work.

So give this a try - it really is simple!

Coffee Cream Ice Box Cake

2 packages Bischoff cookies (you won't need all of these, but some of the cookies might be broken, so it's best to have a back up package)
3 tbsp. coffee syrup (see recipe below) , more or less depending on how strong you want the coffee taste to come out
3 cups whipping cream
3 tbsp powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract (or scrape the seeds of half a vanilla bean and add)
1 8 oz container of creme fraiche (or mascarpone cheese)
raspberries or sliced almond for garnish (optional)


First, you need to whip the cream. To help matters along, I usually put my bowl and beater in the fridge for a while (20-30 minutes, or even a couple of hours if I think of it early enough). Pour the whipping cream in the mixing bowl, add the powdered sugar and vanilla and whip until thick and fluffy (with my Kitchen Aid mixer on high it takes about 3 minutes). Measure out 1.5 cups of the whipped cream and set aside.

To the remaining whipped cream in the mixing bowl, add the 3 tbsp of coffee syrup and creme fraiche. Whip together until incorporated. It should look something like this:

Take about 3 tablespoons of the coffee cream and thinly spread it (I used and offset spatula) on whatever serving platter you are going to use for the cake. Then, pour a little bit of the coffee syrup mixture into a shallow bowl or plate with sides.

Dip eight cookies into the coffee syrup, then arrange on top of the coffee cream like this:

Spread about a cup of coffee cream on top of the cookies. You want to have a fairly thick layer of cream -- about a quarter inch or so. Dip eight more cookies and layer those in the same way on top of the cream. Continue layering cookies and cream until you have 4 layers, ending with cream on top. Use the remaining cream to frost the sides. Alternatively, you can make an extra layer of cookies and cream, and leave the sides of the cake open, showing some of the cookies.

This is what mine looked like at the end:

Refrigerate the completed cake for at least 8 hours, overnight is best. I even had the cake in the fridge for 3 days and it was still delicious!

To serve, I used the vanilla whipped cream (remember setting that aside at the beginning of the recipe?) and piped along the bottom edge and on the top, using some fresh raspberries for decoration. You could also decorate with chocolate (sprinkle chocolate shavings or sift cocoa powder on top).

I served this at a PTA meeting and it was a big hit! Next time you want to make something sweet, but don't want to turn the oven on, this is definitely a good one to try. You will be the hit of the potluck! Serves 8-10.

To make the coffee syrup:  Simmer 2 cups strong coffee with 1.5 cups sugar in a small saucepan until reduced by about half and syrupy -- it took about an hour at a simmer for it to cook down to the right consistency. You'll end up with about 1 and 3/4 cups syrup and you won't use all of this for this recipe.

Who Needs Birthday Cake?

My oldest son is now a teenager. Wow! I'm not sure what I was expecting, some sort of sudden onset of moodiness and emotions, but he's still pretty normal, so I'm counting my blessings for now.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he's going to be in high school soon, doing all the high-school-y things that kids do. I'm not really ready for that...

The thing about Max is that he's never been much of a cake guy. He likes cake, kind of, but doesn't really like frosting (I know, sacrilege!). He gets my creative juices flowing, though, to figure out something fun to celebrate his birthday, but with something that's not cake.

In the past, I've made a cookie cake (cookies stacked in layers with whipped cream, sort of like an ice box cake), ice cream cake (this one I made for Elliot, but I made one for Max with chocolate cake, peanut butter ice cream, and Reese's peanut butter cups chopped and scattered on top), and had root beer floats. This year, we had three different celebrations (family, then a sleepover with friends, then a larger neighborhood families party), so my challenge was particularly difficult. Luckily, Max had an idea of what he wanted, so I just had to figure out the execution.

For our family night, we had molten lava cakes with strawberry filling. Basically, I made a generic molten lava cake but added a teaspoon of strawberry sundae topping to the middle of the cake (1/4 cup of batter in the ramekin, then teaspoon of topping, then another 1/4-1/3 cup of batter on top). I love lava cakes, because you can prepare them ahead of time (like, hours) and put the ramekins in the fridge until you are ready to bake. And people love individual dessert. :-) Served it with vanilla bean ice cream, whipped cream and more strawberry sauce on top. Although I prefer the traditional molten lava cake, Max seemed to really like it, so I'll call it a win!

The next night, we went a little bit over the top. I made a skillet brownie (the linked recipe is the one I used, cutting the chocolate chips in half and adding 1/2 cup peanut butter chips),  then topped it off with vanilla ice cream, homemade chocolate and peanut butter sauces, whipped cream (natch!), chopped peanuts and chopped dark chocolate. Oh my word! That was GOOD!

Finally, for the larger party (about 10 kids and 11 adults), we did a sundae bar with different ice creams, fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries), cookies, chocolate chips, nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream and lots of different sauces. It was a lot of fun, and the kids really enjoyed it! Unfortunately, I apparently didn't take a picture of the sundae spread, although I swear I did. The sundae bar was pretty easy, since it kind of built from the previous festivities. For Max's sleepover, we did a pancake bar, where I made pancakes and we had different syrups and fruits to put on top. We had stuff left over, so pretty much everything was already prepped for the ice cream sundaes (I did cheat and used canned whipped topping, because it's easy and fun - the kids could put their own on). :-)

What are your alternatives to birthday cake? I would love to hear about your ideas!

Sunny Summer Lemon Bars

I don't know what it is, maybe the color, maybe the refreshing taste of citrus, but lemons always equal summer to me. I use a ton of them, from slices in my water or iced tea, to squeezing over salad for a refreshing alternative to dressing, I buy them by the bagful when the weather starts to heat up.

One of my favorite summer treats are lemon bars. The creamy, tart filling with the rich, buttery crust is irresistible! So when I saw a recipe posted on the New York Times website, I had to give it a try. This particular recipe is a little different from the one I normally make, in that it uses egg yolks in addition to regular eggs and olive oil as the surprise ingredient. They were also sprinkled with a touch of sea salt. The technique was also different, because it called for cooking the filling, essentially making a curd, before you poured it over the crust and baked for a little bit longer.

As you might be able to tell from the photo, this version has a much deeper yellow color, thanks to the egg yolks. It also called for adding lemon zest to the crust as well as the filling. I found, however, that you really couldn't taste the lemon in the crust, since the filling had such a strong lemon flavor. If my family's reaction was any indication, you can save your olive oil for salad dressing (or maybe these little cakes), because only one out of three preferred this kind of bar. It was good, but overly rich -- too rich for something lemony, in my opinion.


Just for comparison, I made the version from my Cook's Illustrated cookbook (an excellent book, by the way - it's a great, basic cookbook). The sacrifices I make for you people! LOL! This recipe was more traditional (at least for the lemon bars I've been exposed to) in that you whisk all the filling ingredients together and pour directly onto the hot crust, then bake (be careful transferring the pan back into the oven!) until the filling is set. Martha Stewart has a recipe that's very similar (just cut the sugar back a little and add lemon zest from one lemon to the filling). I preferred this version. I thought it was a cleaner citrus taste and the crust was lighter (flakier?).

If you love lemon bars as much as I do, maybe you would like to try these, too. Let me know what you think!

Of Soccer Losses and Seafood

So this weekend, we had to drive a gazillion miles away to my son's soccer game (thank you , travel soccer schedulers), to the western shore of Chesapeake Bay.  Not to complain or anything, but neither team was even from that area (the other team had to drive an hour to get there as well). How does that make sense? To top it off, the boys lost their game, although they did rally in the second half and ended strong. The bright side is that they lost less badly this time than they did the last time they played this same team, so there's that. I'm a "glass-half-full" kind of gal. ;-)

The upside of the game's location was that it was near some of the best seafood ever, so all was not lost. Wanting to make lemonade out of lemons, we asked if anyone knew of a good seafood place we could hit for lunch on the way home. One of the parents knew of a place in Deale, Maryland and gave us directions. Luckily, we had GPS, because the directions he gave us were less than accurate. Skipper's Pier was kind of out of the way (about 8 miles off of the route we needed to take home), but it was worth it! Right on the water, it was a beautiful day to enjoy fresh seafood and watch boats coming in and out of the docks.

The staff was friendly, and they were able to seat us right away, even if it was inside (there was a 30 minute wait for an outdoor table and we were too hungry for that). We started out with an order of fried pickles that came out piping hot (of course I burned my tongue!) and I had a lovely, if strong, cocktail called a Cape Cod Crush (basically a Cape Cod in a mason jar with lots of ice).

For entrees, my husband and older son went with crab cakes, my youngest ordered a huge seafood platter (enough for two, really) and I got the fish tacos.

It was all delicious. The crab cakes were packed with a ton of crab meat and very little filler, cooked perfectly. I loved my fish tacos, even if they were made with tilapia, rather than a local fish. And Elliot's seafood platter was amazing!! Fried oysters, shrimp, mini-crab cakes and tilapia with french fries, coleslaw, cocktail sauce and remoulade. Like I said, it was enough for two. Had I known, I totally would have shared it with him!

All-in-all, it was a nice afternoon, with gorgeous weather and tasty food, so we'll still put the day in the "win" column. Tell me what your favorite seafood place is!