Getting Greens Into Her Diet.

Greens?

That looks like ice cream to me.

But it’s GREEN ice cream.

Basil ice cream!

That counts as a vegetable serving, right?

Yes it does, shut up. And make it. And then feed it to your toddler who won’t eat her vegetables.

(Even if you don’t count basil ice cream as a vegetable serving, you should still make it, because David Lebovitz made it and he is an ice cream genius and this ice cream is delicious. Come on, if a toddler will eat it, you know it has to be good. OK, so maybe this toddler eats ants off the floor, perhaps disqualifying her from becoming the next Gael Greene protégée, but who knows, some people think ants are delicacies, and maybe David Lebovitz should figure out a way to make ice cream out of them so I can feed it to my toddler and she can get a little more protein along with her greens.)

Basil Ice Cream

From The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz

• 1 cup packed basil leaves
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• Pinch of salt
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1 lemon, preferably organic

Using a food processor or blender, grind the basil leaves, sugar, and one cup of the cream until the leaves are ground as finely as possible. Pour half of the mixture into a large bowl and add the remaining cup of cream. Place a fine-mesh sieve on top of the bowl.

Warm the milk, salt and the rest of the basil mixture in a medium saucepan. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warmed basil mixture into the eggs, whisking continuously. Then scrape the combined egg and basil mixture back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens into a custard and coats the back of the spatula. Pour the custard through the sieve and stir it into the cream. Zest the lemon directly into the custard, and stir the custard over an ice bath until cool.

Chill the mixture in the refrigerator (this usually takes a few hours), then freeze according to your ice maker’s instructions.

Alice Sucks at Jenga

Just a little glimpse into what Alice and I are doing these days when we're stuck inside the house waiting for springtime...

Baby Got Crabs

No, not every post from here on out is going to be a ridiculous picture of my infant participating in a questionable epicurean activity.

But most of them will be.

Just kidding...I suppose Fancy Toast will eventually get back to being a food blog.

Unless you don’t want it to.

In any case, I made some crab cakes the other day, and who really cares about that, not me and probably not you, but what I DO care about and what you SHOULD care about is the aioli dipping sauce, which I would eat by spoonfuls IF I had some left and IF it wasn’t mostly mayonnaise.

Saffron-Orange Aioli Dipping Sauce

I found the recipe on Epicurious earlier this spring when I was looking for a way to fancy up some grilled asparagus. Afterwards, we had so much aioli left over that we started putting it on salads, potatoes, and everything that could be enhanced by a drizzle of flavorful liquid fat. For the crab cakes, I added orange juice and grated orange zest to give the aioli a little more zang-a-lang.

You may or may not be delighted to know that this is really a fake aioli because you are using store-bought mayonnaise instead of whisking eggs and olive oil together yourself. But honestly, how many of you have actually made a successful aioli from scratch? If you have, please to send me the recipe so that I may try again?

Deliciously Fake Saffron-Orange Aioli
From Epicurious.com, adapted by Fancy Toast
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/8 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon honey
Large pinch of saffron threads
1 cup mayonnaise
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon grated orange zest

Whisk vinegar, orange juice, honey, and saffron threads in heavy small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to boil. Remove from heat. Cool completely.
Alternatively and more easily, heat in a microwave.

Mix mayonnaise, garlic, and orange zest in medium bowl to blend. Mix in cooled vinegar mixture. Season aioli to taste with salt and pepper.

Drizzle over crab cakes, grilled vegetables, salads, napping babies, etc.

Suck it, Anne Geddes.

OK so here’s Alice! I’m so sorry it took me so long to get a post up. I had planned to announce her birth right away by posting a photo of her giggling in the Dutch oven, all Anne Geddes style.

Well you may or may not know that two-week old babies don’t giggle, and they don’t like being put in pots, even when you promise them a big slab of ribs afterwards.

So that first photo shoot failed miserably, and had I posted photos of a wretched newborn punching herself in the face with fists clenched in sheer terror and betrayal, I would have gotten more hate mail from that one post than the Tyler Florence post and the parrot-eating post combined. And no one is emotionally stable enough to get hate mail for their baby’s birth announcement, so I put that project on hold until she seemed old enough to enjoy sitting in a soup pot, and also old enough to understand me when I told her if she was good, she would get a beer with her ribs.

Pregnant Lady’s Still Gotta Get Her Booze On

Well if I can’t drink anymore, I’m going to have to supplement my daily alcoholic beverage(s) with something just as delicious…

Hmmmmm….after much thought, I still have not discovered an adequate replacement for the libations that once brought so much joy into my life. I guess my only option is to add alcohol to my cooking instead of consuming it in liquid form.

This grilled pork with apricot-brandy glaze (recipe below) does just the trick. The small amount of hooch in the glaze is still enough to keep hair on my chest, but not enough to cause the little Nugget to be born with the IQ of a toad.

For those like me who are also suffering from an insufficient alcoholic intake, may I suggest some additional substitutions:
Beer can chicken (beer turns into steam; steam keeps chicken moist while grilling)
Tiramisu (just a wee bit of rum in the syrup!)
Beer sponge baths (no explanation needed)

By the way, I apologize for the long break in Fancy Toast posts. I soon hope to be posting more regularly! The constant nausea of the first trimester has passed, and I can finally look at photographs of food and be hungry instead of queasy. Now when I want to feel queasy I just look at photographs of myself in seventh grade when my perm was halfway growed-out and the top half of my hair was straight and the bottom half of my hair was a holy mess of floppy squiggles.


Pork Chops with Apricot-Brandy Glaze
~ adapted from Grilling by Chuck Williams and Denis Kelly

This is my standby grilled pork recipe. Delicious. Never fails to yield juicy, slightly spicy pork chops with the perfect amount of sweetness from the caramelized glaze.

Ingredients:
8 pork chops, at least 1-inch thick (I prefer bone-in for the juiciness)

Spice Rub:
1 tablespoon sweet paprika (I used a combination of sweet and smoked)
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1.5 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

For the apricot-brandy glaze:
½ cup apricot jam
2 tablespoons brandy or apricot brandy
1 tablespoon dry mustard
juice of 1 lemon

Directions:
Mix all ingredients of spice rub together in a bowl.
Rub generously on both sides of each pork chop.

To make the glaze, heat the jam in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir in the brandy, mustard, and lemon juice. Remove from heat and set aside. When ready to use, reheat while whisking contantly.

Grill the pork chops over medium-high heat, turning once, about 3-4 minutes per side. Move the chops to an unheated part of the grill and brush the glaze onto both sides. Cover the grill and cook for 2-4 minutes. Pork chops should be just faintly pink inside. Try your hardest not to overcook them, as they become dry in just a few too many seconds over the coals. (My husband never grills without his trusty digital thermometer. He lets the pork chops come to 150 degrees Fahrenheit and then he lets them rest for a few minutes under tin foil.)

Death by Granola Bar (Potentially)

While driving to work, hunger strikes.
What should I eat?
Oh yes….there is a homemade granola bar in my lunchbag.
I can totally reach my lunchbag, which is in the backseat.
I lied.
I can’t reach it.
Stretch…..stretch a little further….was that a red light I just ran?
Ah, now I have the lunchbag.
Oh no, the zipper is stuck.
Need both hands.
Look, a curve in the road ahead. This will work out rather well, considering my car’s alignment is off and we will naturally follow the road if I remove my hands from the wheel.
Take hands off wheel, fix zipper, oh no, curve is curvier than I expected.
Wheeeeeeeeee, hey, now I’m in the other lane, surprise! Good thing there weren’t any cars next to me, and now I have my granola bar and I am happy and not dead and not hungry.


Homemade Granola Bars
My new favorite snack (besides eating store-bought icing from the tub). Every bite tastes delightfully different, depending on the particular combination of the various little goodies in each piece.
This is a huge double batch, so it makes enough for two people to have at least one granola bar every day for two weeks. (I suppose I could have done the math for you but then if I was wrong you would get mad at me because your recipe didn’t make enough granola bars but this way I can just say oh you must have eaten them too fast you are such a pig)

Ingredients:
3 cups rolled oats (old-fashioned or instant)
1 ½ cups pecans, chopped
¼ cup flax seeds
½ cup sesame seeds

2 generous cups puffed brown rice cereal
2 cups dried fruit, chopped (I used apricots, cranberries, cherries and raisins)

1 cup honey or brown rice syrup
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup pomegranate molasses or 2 tablespoons butter (optional)
¼ cup brown sugar (optional)
2 teaspoons vanilla


Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Spread first 4 ingredients on 2 baking pans and toast for about 15 minutes, or until you can smell the aromas from the toasted nuts.
When oat mixture is toasted, mix in the fruits and the rice cereal.

Meanwhile, heat the honey (or brown rice syrup), salt, sugar (if using), molasses (if using), and butter (if using) in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until ingredients are well combined. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Add the mixture to the oats and mix well.

Spread the mixture evenly into 2 greased/buttered pans. How thick? Your choice.
Press firmly so that everything sticks together.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until the granola turns golden.

When you take the granola out of the oven, only let it cool a little bit before you slice into bars. Wait until the bars are completely cool before you remove them from the pan.

Wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap and store in an airtight container. Mine have lasted 2 weeks, so yours might last longer if you don’t eat them all first.