what I have been eating

[ilanarama]

For whatistigerbalm, who wanted to know about bread pudding, and anyone else who is into the OM NOM NOM NOM.

Yesterday I made chai ice cream according to this recipe, which is basically this recipe from SimplyRecipes with less sugar (which seemed just right to me). I used a combination of Republic of Tea's Irish Breakfast and plain old Lipton's decaf for the tea. Pretty tasty, although the spices were too subtle for my taste. Next time I make it I'm going to double the spices, plus add some ginger, because really, chai without ginger? Also I think it's actually too rich, with the 2:1 cream/milk ratio. I think I might try the 1:1 that was in this honey vanilla ice cream that was the first I made with my ice cream maker (in which incidentally I also reduced the sugar a little, based on the comments).

I was going to just have the ice cream for dessert last night, but I was craving something more carbo-y, so I decided to make bread pudding, too, and have it a la mode. We have an awesome local artisan bakery and I buy their bread unsliced; whenever I get to the weird ends of the loaves I stick them in the freezer for bread pudding. Which I love. (In fact the only thing I didn't like about Connie Willis's Bellwether, which I recently read and loved immensely, was that the heroine didn't like bread pudding! Hmmpht.)

Bread pudding is like French toast (which I also love), only desserty instead of breakfasty. (Although, um, I had some leftover bread pudding for breakfast, with a dollop of yogurt and maple syrup, which considering that I go for the full-fat Greek honey yogurt, probably not all that different, nutritionally, from my dessert portion with ice cream.) The recipe I use is based on this bread pudding recipe from SimplyRecipes (which has a photo that makes me drool) which I modified to make 2 large servings (or if you're going to put ice cream on it, 3 small ones; or you can be a BIG PIG and eat it all yourself, not that I have done that...more than once or twice) as follows:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 6" or so diameter casserole (I use a Corningware French White 24-oz dish) with butter and fill it about 3/4 full of old bread pieces (I use a mix of whatever I've got, usually pain Campagne, sesame semolina, and multigrain). Add milk to about the halfway line, let it sit for a little, and then stir around the bread so all of it gets a chance to sop up some of the milk. Add raisins or other dried fruit (I used dried cherries last night).

Beat an egg. If I'm going to make the bourbon sauce (which I usually do, but didn't last night because chai ice cream) save out a spoonful of beaten egg before adding: 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, a little vanilla, a little allspice, a little cinnamon. Pour this into the bread and milk and mix it around. Bake for 40-60 minutes, and yes, that's more than what is specified in the original, but that's what it seems to take.

Bourbon sauce: Melt 1 oz butter in a small saucepan. Add 1/8 cup sugar and the reserved bit of egg, whisking to blend well. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. Add 1 oz bourbon, blend well, remove from heat. This only makes a small amount of sauce, but it's enough for 2 servings because it's so damn tasty and bourbon-y that you don't want to overwhelm the bread pudding with it, right? Well, okay, you can double it if you want. I'll pick you up off the floor in the morning.

I swear I don't just eat desserts. Today was a chilly, rainy morning, so I made kitchen-sink soup for lunch, this version consisting of onion, garlic, potatoes, lentils, the last of the scaly urchin mushrooms we collected on Saturday, and various spices: cumin, sage, thyme, and a whole lot of black pepper. I blenderized about a quarter of it and mixed it all up and had it for lunch along with a small glass of port, because there is something about lentil soup and port, and besides, I needed it for medicinal purposes (aka That Time of Month). Seriously awesome.

Hey, guess what? It's almost time for dinner!

Comments

[traveller42.livejournal.com]

I'm going for an 8 mile run. It will help with the calories I absorbed from this post. ;^>

[ilanarama]

Hee! Good thing I didn't post photos, then - you'd have needed 12.

[the_antichris]

I make bread pudding on purpose to have leftovers for breakfast. The other week I made bread to leave to go stale on purpose to make bread pudding and have it for breakfast, which was a bit unnecessarily recursive, but pudding for breakfast is just that good.

[ilanarama]

Hee! Too hot here to make bread, for the most part, and I am lazy and love our local bakery. And I actually have saved a bit of the bread pudding for tomorrow's breakfast, because you are right: just that good.

[whatistigerbalm]

Question of practicality: do you have experience (successful, at that :)) of making ice-cream without an ice-cream maker that you can tell more about, or should I buy an ice-cream maker and spare myself from failure?

[ilanarama]

No, sorry. I have a KitchenAid stand mixer, and a couple of months ago I bought the ice cream attachment, which is essentially a paddle which goes on the mixer head and a bowl with double walls and some freezy stuff between that gets pre-chilled in the freezer. It's about $60, but of course you have to have the mixer already. I have made 4 batches of which 3 were excellent - I think I know the problem with the not-so-good batch, which was not sufficiently chilling the batter before putting it into the bowl.

I have seen various inexpensive ice cream makers on e.g. Amazon but don't know much about them - I only did a tiny bit of research before deciding, hey, I already have the mixer so why not just get the accessories.

[whatistigerbalm]

I am sorely tempted by the idea of homemade ice-cream. I think I'll see if the food processor we have (Kenwood, I believe) has similar accessories too. If not, I might do a little research on standalone machines. Ah so tempted, so tempted. It won't help my weight but... ahhhhhh.

[ilanarama]

Actually, I think that by making my own cookies and ice cream and other treats, I am less likely to overindulge because I know exactly how much butter, cream, sugar, etc goes into them. Something about making a custard ice cream base with SIX EGG YOLKS OMG makes me really conscious of just how rich this stuff is, so I tend to be really good about scooping out small servings rather than stuffing my face.

...um, maybe you didn't want encouragement. :-)

I bought peaches today at the farmer's market and am contemplating making peach gelato!

[purna]

Oh, that makes me hungry. I love bread pudding, although I've never tried to make it.

I love Connie Willis as well, but I sensed more than a few of the author's pet peeves written into Bellweather. It was charming otherwise, but that sort of thing always weirds me out. Her Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog are at the top of my list of favorite books.

[ilanarama]

Bread pudding is EZ! Mmmm make it!

I actually adored Bellwether because a lot of aspects seemed tailored to MY pet peeves (and loves) - science, trivia, Boulder CO (where I used to live), the whole structure of the book with the recurring cut-off phone calls, and so on. Our library has very few of her books, although they do have To Say Nothing of the Dog which I also loved - I got this one as an audiobook from the electronic service they subscribe to - but I have Firewatch requested on interlibrary loan and hope to get it soon!