Mascarpone Ice Cream with Peaches

Sometimes you just know. You see a recipe and you don’t even have to think about it or wonder how it will taste or worry about the technique because you know it will be great. You can already imagine the flavor, and it’s very, very good. That was what happened when I saw this dessert in July’s Food and Wine. Yes, ice cream made with mascarpone and served with peaches floating in a white wine-honey syrup scented with rosemary required no thinking. This was also a good choice for dessert because local peaches are still available, and rosemary is one of the few items in my yard that hasn’t succumbed to the searing, persistent heat this summer. The garlic chives are limply hanging on, the lemongrass is ok but requires a lot of water, and there are still a few green leaves on the sage. The basil isn’t entirely happy, but it’s surviving in containers which are watered daily. Everything else is long dead, but the rosemary doesn’t mind this weather at all, and I was happy to find another use for it.

The ice cream was made with a pretty standard custard including four egg yolks and whole milk. After the custard was cooked and poured into a bowl to cool, mascarpone was whisked into it, and then it was churned in an ice cream maker. For the syrup, white wine, honey, water, and sugar were combined in a saucepan and boiled until reduced by half. Rosemary was added and allowed to steep, and I veered from the recipe at this point. Rather than pouring the syrup over peaches and baking them, I simply sliced the peaches and let them sit in the warm syrup while it steeped with the rosemary. I wanted to keep the peaches a little firmer and closer to their fresh state. They were so fragrant and juicy, I didn’t feel the need to bake them to intensify the flavor.

A big scoop of the ice cream was topped with peach slices and a few spoons of syrup. The interesting thing about the ice cream is that there is no vanilla. The flavor comes entirely from the mascarpone. It was a nice change from the familiar taste of vanilla, and it was as good as expected with the peaches and syrup.

Wine-Poached Chicken with Charmoula

Does anyone remember Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook? It was published in 1997, and I’m not sure how popular it was. I got a copy when it first appeared and cooked from it frequently. I remember trying the vegetable handrolls, the hot and sour broth with shredded chicken, the apricot-glazed chicken, the warm wheatberry salad, and the sage egg-white frittata, and all were delicious. Also, the open-faced seared tuna burger with wasabi mayonnaise became a much-repeated favorite of ours. Then, for some reason, the book sat untouched for years. Last week, I wanted to plan some light meals with fresh flavors for the weekend, and I finally opened this book again. It’s divided into seasons, and 13 entire menus are presented for each. What I chose was actually from the spring section, but I think it worked fine as a summer meal. The complete menu was: wine-poached chicken with charmoula and couscous, chopped salad with tarragon vinaigrette, and Moroccan pudding, but I only made the chicken, charmoula, and couscous. This was my first time making charmoula which is a Moroccan sauce or marinade used on fish or meat. It’s spicy, packed with fresh herbs, and was just the kind of thing I wanted for dinner.

This particular recipe for charmoula, as I’m sure there are infinite variations, was very simple. Garlic was minced, parsley and cilantro leaves were finely chopped, and all of that was mixed with cumin, paprika, cayenne, lemon juice, olive oil, tomato juice, and salt and pepper. That was easily prepared in the time it took for chicken breasts to poach in white wine with black peppercorns and cilantro sprigs. The couscous recipe in the book included only turmeric as an added ingredient, but I chose to stir in some baby spinach leaves and sauteed, sliced garlic as well. Since experiencing the best couscous ever earlier this year, I had to mimic it with the sauteed garlic. This time, I used a scant bit of olive oil for sauteing rather than half a stick of butter and used whole wheat couscous, but it still had great flavor.

I always like what happens in a sauce when tomato juice is combined with lemon, and the charmoula offered that zing along with bold spice and fresh herbs. The raw garlic mixed into the other flavors well and didn’t dominate as it so often does. I was perfectly happy with the poached chicken and its simplicity, but Kurt informed me that while it was fine, he prefers the texture of grilled chicken. He'd never mentioned that before. Coming to think of it, he may be becoming pickier about food than I am. We did both agree the sauce was excellent and would love to try it with grilled fish next.

Banana Strawberry Granola

A couple of weeks ago, I read a NY Times article about some addictive, crack-like granola, and that was the point at which I decided I had to make some homemade granola of my own. The recipe involved olive oil, and a sweet and salty contrast in the ingredients apparently made it irresistible. I also saw a homemade granola recipe on The Cosmic Cowgirl’s site a few months ago. Both The Cosmic Cowgirl’s and the NY Times recipes included pepitas which sounded great to me. Then, I recalled that Ruhlman had presented a slightly unusual granola recipe back in June. Pureed bananas and strawberries were mixed into the oats and nuts, and I had to try that. I actually consume a lot of cold cereal and granola for breakfasts, and I don’t know why I had never before made my own. I’ll definitely whip up a batch with pepitas as soon as I run out of this granola. It’s incredibly easy to make, you can tailor it to suite your taste or mood, and you can control the quantity of sugar.

With Ruhlman’s recipe, less oil is used because the pureed fruit and water add moisture that helps mix the spices throughout the oats and nuts. Then, most of the ingredients are up to you. You need to use the correct amount of oats, roughly the specified amount of nuts, but nuts of your choosing, then the spices and dried fruit are entirely your choice. I, however, followed almost exactly the quantities and ingredients suggested. I went with two bananas which were blended with strawberries, brown sugar, honey, canola oil, water, cinnamon, of which I added extra, and nutmeg. That was stirred into a mixture of oats, wheat bran, flax seed, walnuts, and sliced almonds. This was baked for an hour and was stirred every 15 minutes. Once it was removed from the oven and cooled, I added dried cranberries.

With homemade granola, you're able to choose the ingredients, but would the taste of be that much different? Yes, of course, homemade is far better. It’s perfectly fresh and the flavors are much more vibrant than something that has been sitting in a bin or box for however many days or weeks. It was worth making this just for the aroma from the oven while it baked. I usually take my granola with some plain soy milk, but it’s even better with thick Greek yogurt. Try one of these recipes or invent a new one, and let me know your favorite nut, spice, and fruit combination.