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Posts Tagged ‘Maggie’s Kitchen’

Maggie’s Kitchen #19

Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , on September 25, 2026| 1 Comment »

Most of my own recipes were developed in the ’90s and Oughts, when I was typically cooking for 2-3 people, which means now that I live alone they are usually good for two meals, one fresh and one as leftovers. But I’m also trying to adapt some other recipes to one or two servings, and simplifying them while I’m at it because even though I love cooking for those I love, cooking for just myself sometimes seems like a chore.  Furthermore, I now have a lot more eggs on hand because Grace is no longer here to eat them, and with the price of meat going up so much it makes sense to use eggs instead wherever possible.  Just recently, I came up with this recipe on the fly to use my own eggs and tomatoes, and it turned out so good I wanted to share it; it’s enough for two (one with leftovers).

Quick Egg Curry

2 tbsp sesame oil
1 medium onion, sliced into wedges
2 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped
1 cup basmati rice
8 cherry tomatoes (you could substitute a can of Ro-tel tomatoes)
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp hot Indian chili powder
2 cups water
6 small eggs (if using large eggs, 4)

Chop onions and garlic and sauté in sesame oil until onions are tender, about 4 minutes; during the process add the curry powder, chili powder, and salt.  During the final minute add the rice and brown it a little with the onions.  Gradually add the water and bring to boil; while waiting for it to boil slice up the tomatoes and add them to the skillet.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until most of the water is absorbed; when you think the rice will be ready in about 4 or 5 minutes, crack each egg into the simmering rice mixture and re-cover.  The eggs will be poached at the same time as the rice is done.  You can microwave the leftovers, but be aware the eggs will cook a bit more so the yolks will be harder, more like a boiled egg, unless you set them aside and warm the rice first.  I still found it surprisingly good the next day even with the more-cooked eggs.

 

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Soup for One

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged , , , on June 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

If you’re anything like me, every so often you’ll run into a recipe that sounds intriguing, and you note it for possible use later. Some years ago, I was in an international grocery store (IIRC I was buying tahini) and I happened to notice this recipe on another container., so I took a picture with my cell phone to save it.  Now, West African cooking may sound exotic to many of y’all, but Louisiana creole cuisine is largely a fusion of French, West African, and Caribbean elements, so I thought it might be something I’d like.  Alas, in her final years Grace did not have an adventurous palate; she was not at all interested in trying new dishes, but instead wanted her favorites.  So this photo sat in a folder of my phone until recently, when I decided I wanted to make some new kind of soup and remembered this recipe.  As I looked at it some instructions struck me as odd, which I assume may be due to differences in how ranges are calibrated or that sort of thing.  So I not only cut the recipe in half, but adjusted it in other ways as I thought best, and I found the finished product quite tasty.  So here’s my modified version; it made enough for me to have a large bowl that night (which I ate with crackers) with a large mug left over (which I had with a sandwich a few nights later).  If you double it, the amount would be sufficient for three dinner-size bowls.

1 boneless chicken breast, about 12-16 oz
1/2 bell pepper
1/2 medium onion
1 can tomato paste (6 oz)
2 tbsp peanut butter (creamy)
2 1/4 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper

1) Cut chicken into bite-sized cubes; cook in any oil (I used bacon grease) over medium heat in a 2-quart saucepan until no longer pink.  Sprinkle in salt, reduce heat, and set timer for 10 minutes.

2) Cut bell pepper and onion into several pieces each; put them together in a food processor and pulse 6 or 7 times until pureed.  Pour puree over meat, stir well and allow to continue simmering.

3) Dump tomato paste over meat mixture; stir until mixed well and continue simmering.

4) In a bowl, mix peanut butter and red pepper with 1/4 cup water until fairly smooth.  Add to pot and mix well.

5) When timer runs out, add remaining 2 cups of water, increase heat to medium, and mix well; bring to boiling, then reduce heat, cover, and allow to simmer for 15 minutes.

I found the soup pleasantly spicy (not hot; I’d imagine it would be mild enough for people who order 1 or 2 stars of spiciness at restaurants), with a good flavor that really didn’t taste peanutty to me.  The original recipe says beef can be used, but that doesn’t really sound as good to me (plus more expensive these days); I think pork might work well too, though I personally wouldn’t use fish.  Since it was pretty simple, relatively quick (roughly 30 minutes once the chicken was defrosted), and tasty, I’ll definitely make it again.  Bon appétit!

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Dirty Rice

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on March 9, 2026| 5 Comments »

Modern “news” stories about food are rarely anything but stupid, often painfully so.  Take this example from a week ago:

“Boy kibble” is one of the hottest food trends on social media today.  Fitness influencers are cooking up a simple combination of ground beef and rice for a quick, low-calorie hit…Some men on social media admit to eating the meal up to seven times per week as a cheap way to build muscle…The simple and bland boy kibble diet is the newest entrant in the protein craze…
Cooked meat with rice has been a working-class staple in south Louisiana for centuries, where it’s called “dirty rice”.  It’s not “kibble”, it’s not only for “boys”, and it’s only a “trend” because 21st-century Americans are largely herd animals who think meals should be exercises in either orthorexia or box-checking.  My mother used to make it with ground beef, but I’ve seen people prepare it with everything from chicken livers to Italian sausage.  There’s not really any “right” way to make it, though if your version is “bland” I wouldn’t try to feed it to a Louisianan if I were you.  There is, however, a lesson here about how little difference in effort there is between palatable meals and something that could be called “kibble”, so I’m going to share my simple recipe.  I’ve been making it this way for roughly 20 years, since the time my wasband told me he’d have liked it better if it had more gravy.  It’s so simple, in fact, that it doesn’t even need to be broken into steps.  First, cook a cup of rice in two cups of water.  While that’s simmering, make two cups of beef bouillon; if you’re pathologically lazy, I think they have brown gravy mix in envelopes, in which case you can skip the flour in the next step.  Then brown a pound of ground meat in a large skillet over medium heat; you can add chopped onion if you like, but I generally don’t.  I add a tablespoon of Tony Chachere’s to the browning meat, but if you have a Yankee palate and can’t handle spices you could just use a half-teaspoon each of salt & pepper.  When the meat is done, add a quarter cup of flour and stir until it is absorbed (less than a minute), then add the bouillon and stir until it starts to bubble (it won’t take long), then for one minute more.  Turn off the heat, dump the rice into the skillet, and mix well.  Total cooking time (discounting the rice), maybe ten minutes; easy enough for any incel to cook, and good enough that not even a sniffy “lifestyle” journalist will be tempted to compare it to dog food.

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Diary #743

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on September 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Apparently, the weird weather we had at Sunset this year favored tomatoes, because we had quite a few. I’ve made fried green tomatoes 3 times and will probably make more; I also have some green cherry tomatoes that I’ll be using for mincemeat if the apple trees cooperate.  But we had far more ripe cherry tomatoes than we could use for salad (because I don’t eat salad), so I decided to make salsa (which is a staple in this house thanks to Grace).  What you see in the picture below is two pounds of cherry tomatoes; I chopped them up pretty thoroughly in my ninja, then finely chopped half a medium-sized onion, half a bell pepper and four cloves of garlic, and sauteed them for a few minutes in two tablespoons of olive oil.  I mixed that with the tomatoes and added the following: 1 small can (4 oz) of diced, roasted green chiles; two tbsp each of vinegar, cilantro, and chili powder; and 1/2 tsp each of salt, granulated garlic, extra-hot (Indian) chili powder, cayenne, and MSG.  Now, I didn’t just dream up those proportions; I started with half the tomatoes and none of the spices, and Grace and I repeatedly taste-tested the salsa, adding or increasing ingredients as we went, until about two hours later we had something we were both happy with.  It made enough for two pints and a bit left over, and the full jars are in the canner right now as I type this.  I’ll let you know how it comes out, but I think we may have a winner!

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Crumpets

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on July 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I hadn’t made crumpets in a while, and was craving them recently so I made a batch.  Several people on Twitter & BlueSky expressed interest, so I decided to share my recipe.  You can’t make them without crumpet rings; when I got mine they were fairly difficult to find, but I imagine finding them on the internet would be no big deal.  Since crumpets are eaten toasted anyhow, it’s best to make these earlier in the day or even the day before you actually want them.  I’m assuming most of my UK readers who cook already have a recipe, so I’ll just use standard US cooking measurements here.

2 1/4 cups flour
1 packet yeast (I like the quick-rise kind)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp warm water

1)  Mix milk, 1 1/2 cups warm water, salt & sugar in a small saucepan and heat until warm (not hot).  Mix flour and yeast; add liquid and beat with electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then high for 3 minutes.  Cover with a towel and let stand in a warm place for 1 hour.

2)  Mix baking soda into the 2 tbsp warm water; add to the batter and mix well.  I usually just let my stand mixer set up during the wait time so I don’t have to dirty another beater.  Let stand covered in a warm place for 10 minutes; meanwhile, grease crumpets rings, place them on a griddle or large skillet, and preheat over medium heat.

3)  Ladle the batter into each ring, filling about 3/4 of the way up.  Cook for 5-7 minutes or until the tops are mostly dry (the middles will usually be still wet).  Remove rings with kitchen tongs and set aside; flip each crumpet with a spatula and cook for another minute.  Remove to a cooling rack.

TIPS:  Keep your eye on the griddle temperature; I use a cast-iron skillet so I usually need to nudge the heat down after the first batch to avoid burning the bottoms.  Also, since you want to regrease the rings for each batch, I find cooking spray is the fastest & easiest way to go.

SERVING:  Toast the crumpets when you’re ready to eat them; I find it’s best to do them just a notch lower than you would sliced bread (unless you’re one of those barbarians who like your toast burnt, in which case do them several notches lower).  They’re great with butter, clotted cream, jam or marmalade, lemon curd, anything like that.  One of my readers said he likes them with Marmite, which I have not tried but sounds interesting.  This recipe will make roughly a dozen or just under, so put any you’re not going to eat that day in a sealed Tupperware-type container.  Anyway, that’s all there is to it; the thing I love best about them is their texture, much more like a proper waffle or pancake than an English muffin.  Enjoy!

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Diary #690

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , on September 19, 2023| 2 Comments »

Fried green tomatoes came into being as a way to use tomatoes that had not yet fully ripened by the end of summer.  As you can probably guess, this makes them more common in the Upper South, because in the Deep South the growing season is both very warm and continues into early autumn.  I never even heard of them until my twenties, and since I’ve never grown my own tomatoes before I’ve never had enough tomatoes around to experiment.  So it’s only recently that I perfected my recipe, and I’m happy to share it with y’all if you’d like to try it yourself; this is for about 3-4 average size tomatoes (fewer if they’re huge).  First, you want to pick tomatoes that are just starting to turn yellow; deep-green tomatoes not only have some growing left to do, but are too bitter to eat.  Use a very sharp knife and cut slices about 1/4″ (6-7 mm) thick; a lot of recipes call for two or even three times as thick, which makes them too gooshy on the inside.  The frying works best in a deep fryer; shallow pans do not sear the outside as quickly, resulting in a greasier, soggier product.  While the oil is preheating, dip each slice in flour, then beaten egg, then the breadcrumb mixture, turning to coat both sides at each step; I like to coat all the pieces before frying any, so I’m not distracted while frying.  For the breadcrumb mixture, thoroughly combine 1/4 cup (60 ml) of plain breadcrumbs with 1/4 cup (60 ml) cornmeal, 2 tsp (10 ml) sugar, 2 tsp (10 ml) salt, 1 tsp (5 ml) paprika, and 1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) cayenne.  Don’t be surprised at the amount of salt; it and the sugar are there to balance the acidity of the tomatoes, and the fried tomatoes will not be noticeably salty.  Fry the slices in the preheated oil, about four slices at a time (don’t crowd the fryer), for 3-4 minutes; you want to flip them over with a slotted metal spoon about halfway through.  Remove them with the slotted spoon when they’re golden brown; since tomatoes can be eaten raw all you’re really doing is getting the outside nice and crispy.  Drain on paper towels.  I like to serve them with remoulade sauce for dipping; I’m pretty sure you can get it at most large grocery stores even outside of Louisiana, but if not you can make a reasonable fascimile by combining 8 parts mayonaisse with 1 part each ketchup, Dijon mustard, and pickle relish and seasoning the mixture with salt, pepper, tarragon, granulated garlic, and parsley.  Anyway, that’s it; some people like them so much they use all their tomatoes before they get ripe!  But don’t try this with ripe tomatoes; they are too soft and too moist, and the result will be a mess rather than a tasty side-dish or snack.

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What’s Cooking?

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged , , on November 10, 2022| 3 Comments »

I’ve been meaning for some time now to share the recipes I developed to work around Lorelei’s allergies; she’s allergic to both wheat and rice, so the normal gluten-free flour won’t work for her because most of them contain rice flour.  Substitutions are difficult, because gluten gives baked goods their texture; without it, most recipes are unappealing or even nasty.  But with research and experimentation, I was able to come up with some pretty good workarounds, and Lorelei said she doesn’t mind if I share them, so those who need them can have them for the holidays.

One thing these recipes have in common is the use of xanthan gum, which acts as a partial substitute for gluten; I also generally add a little baking soda and use buttermilk instead of milk, to give it extra rising power.  I don’t keep buttermilk around, and you probably don’t either, but that’s OK; you can make it by putting one tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice in a measuring cup, then adding milk to the one-cup line, stirring well and waiting about 5 or 10 minutes.  The first one I tried was cornbread; since I make it nearly every week, I know it well enough that it was pretty easy to figure out the neccesary changes, plus of course only half of the flour used is wheat flour.

Cornbread

Preheat oven to 425o.  Grease the bottom & sides of a 9×9 pan.  Then in a medium mixing bowl, combine:

1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup millet flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

In a separate bowl, beat 2 eggs; add 1 cup buttermilk and 1/4 cup cooking oil.  Mix together, then add liquid mixture to dry mixture and stir just until fully combined.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in 425o oven for 20 minutes.  If unsure, test for doneness by inserting a wooden toothpick near the center.

Next, I tried pie crust, which doesn’t even need to rise; I based it on “Never Fail Pie Crust” from Ceil Dyer’s venerable Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars (an unpretentious treasure which everyone more interested in being a cook than a poseur should own).  I know the recipe by heart, and found its title is not a lie; I have substituted like crazy in this one and as long as the basic form is maintained, it works every time.  Here, the most important factor was flakiness; I found this combination of flours gave me a pretty good simulation of conventional crust:

Pie crust

2 cups millet flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt

In a large mixing bowl, sift all these dry ingredients together; you may want to sift the mixture again to be sure they’re well-mixed.  Then in a separate small bowl, combine

1 beaten egg
1 tbsp vinegar
1/2 cup water

Mix together and set aside.  Then, using a pastry knife (if you don’t have one, get a good metal one; the plastic ones are shit) cut

13/4 cups shortening

into the dry mixture, until it resembles coarse crumbs; I find all-vegetable shortening works best.  Tear off a sheet of waxed paper and put it on your countertop, then add the egg mixture to the dry mixture and knead the mass together with your CLEAN hands; once it’s well-combined gather it into a ball, put it on the waxed paper, wrap it up and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.  If it’s still too sticky to work after that time, knead in another 1/4 cup constarch and put it back in the fridge for at least 15 more minutes.  This recipe makes 4 crusts (top or bottom), so enough for two full-crust pies like fruit pies, or four custard-type pies or quiches.  When you roll the crust out, sprinkle the pie board or counter with cornstarch instead of flour.  The dough freezes well, but if I’m going to freeze it I prefer to roll out the crust on waxed paper, then roll it up into a cigar shape (paper side out) and put it in a ziplock freezer bag. Let it thaw in the fridge, and roll it out again with a fresh sheet of waxed paper between crust and rolling pin.

The trickiest one I’ve perfected so far is biscuits (by which I mean the scone-like things we call “biscuits” in the US, not the sweet things we call “cookies”).  They’re already difficult to master even when using conventional flour, so it took me several attempts and some additional internet research to get it right.

Biscuits

1 cup millet flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Mix all dry ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl, then using a pastry knife (see the recipe above for comments on this) cut in

1/3 cup shortening

until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Then add

3/4 cup buttermilk

and mix together with a fork.  Turn the dough onto a clean surface dusted with cornstarch and knead the dough for 10 or 12 strokes, then use a biscuit cutter to cut the biscuits to the desired size.  Put them into a biscuit pan (if you don’t have one, any small metal baking pan with sides will do) with sides touching; the biscuits should not be spaced out.  Now, here’s the sneaky part: FREEZE the biscuits before using them.  I suggest doing them the day before, but if you need them the same day, I reckon 2 hours or so in the freezer should be good.  When you’re ready, preheat the oven to 450o and put the pan directly into the oven from the freezer (do not thaw them first).  Bake for about 12 minutes or until golden brown, then immediately remove them from the pan to a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.  Here’s the science behind the unusual instructions: since non-wheat flour lacks gluten, without the extra steps the biscuits will turn out packy and dense rather than light and flaky.  Freezing them helps them hold their structure in the first stage of baking, and crowding them together forces them to rise upward rather than bloating outward.  The buttermilk & soda combo creates extra carbon dioxide for more lift.  If you don’t want to use them right away, once they’re frozen transfer them from the pan into a ziplock freezer bag or other airtight container, and remember to put them in the pan with sides touching when you go to bake them.

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

 

 

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Diary #449

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , , , on February 5, 2019| 4 Comments »

I haven’t made gumbo for a long time, and because it used to be the centerpiece of my Imbolc feast I decided to go out to Sunset over the weekend and make some.  I remembered to order the andouille from my favorite supplier, Bailey’s in LaPlace, Louisiana, on Monday so it would be sure to arrive on time, and prepped the chicken on Wednesday (see my gumbo recipe, linked above) so on Saturday all I had to do was chop up the sausage & onions, make the roux, combine the ingredients and wait.  Well, I also had to make potato salad, which many Louisianians (including Grace) enjoy plopped down right in the middle of the gumbo.  I did share my potato salad recipe on Radley Balko’s old Agitator blog years ago, but since that, sadly, is no more, here it is again: cook as many peeled potatoes as you like until soft, and hard-boil one egg per potato. I use small russet potatoes; you don’t want too little egg in proportion to potato.  Crush the eggs with a fork as one would for egg salad, then add the potatoes and mash it together with a potato masher.  Add 1 heaping tablespoon of mayonnaise per potato, then one heaping tablespoon of prepared mustard per two potatoes, then one heaping tablespoon of pickle relish (I use sweet relish) per two potatoes.  You are going to have to fiddle with the proportions a little to get it the way you like it; I usually end up adding more mustard.  You’ll note that south Louisiana style potato salad is much creamier than the styles from other parts of the country, which use much less thoroughly-cooked potatoes for a chunkier texture.  Oh, and most down there like it cold, though some (including a couple of my sisters) prefer it soon after it’s made, while it’s still warm.  Speaking of cold, I headed back to Seattle on Sunday, a day earlier than planned, due to the snow; Seattle drivers in snow are as stupid and dangerous as Los Angeles drivers in rain, and I had no desire to see the effects multiplied by an overnight freeze.

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Grace’s Chili

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , on September 11, 2014| 24 Comments »

Next to jazz music, there is nothing that lifts the spirit and strengthens the soul more than a good bowl of chili.  –  Harry James

One of the things I really missed on the road was my own cooking.  I don’t mean that in a vain sense, as though my cooking was better than everyone else’s; what I mean is that I am, as I reminded y’all on Tuesday, a creature of habit, and it feels weird to go that long without cooking.  It’s part of the rhythm of my life, something that shapes my days, and my husband and Grace will both attest to the fact that no matter how tired I am or how busy my day, I insist on preparing a proper evening meal for my family unless I’m either too ill to stand up or we’ve already planned to do something else.  In fact, when I arrived home a week ago today I insisted on fixing dinner, despite having just driven for more than eight hours; it was part of the process of re-orienting myself to my normal life.  That’s not to say that Grace couldn’t have done it; she’s a competent cook herself, and though her repertoire is very limited she does what she does very well.  Today I’d like to share her recipe for chili; though I’m the one who cooks it for us nowadays, she developed it all by herself over 20 years ago and in my opinion it’s the best chili ever.

3# (1.4 kg) ground beef
2 (8 oz/225 g) cans tomato sauce
2 (6 oz/170 g) cans tomato paste
2 sauce cans water
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies (Ro-tel tomatoes)
1 medium onion, minced
¼ cup butter (½ stick)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) chili powder
2 tablespoons (30 ml) brown sugar
1 tablespoon (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons (10 ml) paprika
½ tablespoon (7.5 ml) black pepper
1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
1 teaspoon (5 ml) granulated garlic*
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) prepared brown mustard
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) sage
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) mace
Tabasco sauce to taste

*If you don’t have granulated garlic, use half as much garlic powder or twice as much finely-minced garlic or garlic flakes.

Brown ground meat thoroughly in a large, deep skillet, then add onions and saute until tender.  Transfer to a large pot and add all other ingredients, stirring well after each addition.  Simmer over low heat for one hour, stirring occasionally.  Serve with crackers.

You will notice that the recipe contains no beans; that’s because we prefer beanless chili.  If you like beans, there is an additional step which must be performed first:  in a large pot cover one pound of pinto beans with water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and boil for two minutes.  Remove from heat, cover and let sit for an hour.  Then drain the beans completely and add two liters of fresh water; bring water to boiling, then reduce heat to medium and cook for 90 minutes.  At the end of this precooking process, drain the beans again and add them to the chili with all the other ingredients; increase the chili’s cooking time to 90 minutes or until the beans reach the desired degree of tenderness (it won’t hurt the chili to cook longer).

One thing that’s really good about this chili is that when prepared as directed it’s spicy, but not blisteringly hot; however, it’s really easy to turn up the heat if so desired.  You could use the hot Ro-tel tomatoes instead of the original ones, use a hotter type of chili powder (or increase it to three tablespoons), use hot Hungarian paprika instead of the mild Spanish variety, substitute red pepper for the black, substitute horseradish for the brown mustard or increase the amount of Tabasco…or if you really like to live dangerously, all of the above.  The recipe makes enough for six people (nine if you make it with beans), but it also freezes well so don’t hesitate to try it even if there are only two of you.

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I Scream, You Scream

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged , , on July 3, 2014| 10 Comments »

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.  –  Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, and Robert King

boys making ice cream, 1940Here in North America, summer has started and the weather is starting to get hot; one of the nicest ways to beat the heat is with a dish of homemade ice cream.  You may think it’s hard to make, but you’d be very wrong; modern electric ice cream freezers are quite inexpensive, and most of them use table salt now instead of rock salt.  The freezer can sit in the sink while running to catch any spill, and the canister can be placed in the freezer to harden the ice cream.  Nor do the recipes have to be difficult; while custard-style ice creams (like French vanilla) require cooking, simple fruit- or syrup based ice creams or sherbets do not, and are both simple and delicious.  Here are three recipes I always use; note that these are for a two-quart freezer, so if yours is larger or smaller just adjust everything in proportion.  It won’t look like enough when you pour it into the canister, but it expands considerably during the freezing process.

Syrup-based ice cream

2 cups half-and-half
2 cups whipping cream
¾ cup syrup
¼ cup sugar

Pour all ingredients into container and process as directed by your freezer’s instructions.  Yes, it really is that easy, and the results are delicious.  You can use any kind of syrup, thick or thin; I like to use those Italian syrups that go in sodas or coffee.  Note that if you use a syrup stored at room temperature, the freezing time may increase somewhat.  Also note that this recipe is fully compatible with the fruit-based one, so you can make, say, chocolate banana or cherry vanilla by simply mixing a half-batch of syrup-based with a half-batch of fruit based; the machine will do the rest.

Fruit-based ice cream

2 cups chopped or pureed fruit, as you prefer
2 cups whipping cream
1 cup half-and-half
1 cup sugar (if fruit is already sweetened, reduce to ¼ cup)

I prefer to use pureed fruit because it gives a more even consistency and flavor.  Note that if you use frozen or near-frozen fruit, the freezing time may be shortened somewhat.  See above for comments about combined flavors.

Sherbet

2 cups fruit juice
3 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar

You can use any drinkable-concentration fruit juice; if it’s too concentrated to be a pleasant drink (lemon juice, for example) you’ll need to dilute and/or sweeten it to beverage strength before using it or your milk will curdle and the sherbet will be much too sour.  Of the three recipes, I have tested this one the least; it works perfectly with orange juice, though.  The first two recipes I’ve made many, many times and the only time the results were less than perfect was the time I used insufficiently-pureed frozen bananas, resulting in more banana chunks than I personally care for.

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