Recent cooking fun!

I've been getting back into fun cooking projects lately. I used to cook interesting recipes all the time, but in the recent past it's been more about just getting dinner on the table. But I love the creativity of cooking -- and eating the results! :)

This is my black tea (Yorkshire Gold) ice cream with shortbread bits!

Since I got a fancy ice cream maker for my birthday (with compressor; it freezes everything!!), I've had a lot of fun!

The tea ice cream was just one of many I've tried. I've been working from the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and Dessert Book, which I got at a library sale for $1.00 ages ago. I like their basic sweet cream base, so I make stuff up off of that. (Recently I've taken a few other ice cream cookbooks from the library, but that's a future post!) For the tea, I steeped . . . um, many . . . that is, SIX . . . Yorkshire Gold teabags in the cream mix for about 20 minutes! Yes, that is way too strong, but it worked for me! It actually tasted like the intensity of green tea ice cream (which I've also made!).

Homemade shortbread!

For the shortbread pieces, after one look at the price of a tiny pack at the grocery store (!!), I decided to make my own! I used the recipe from Joy of Cooking, and I have to say, I'm unimpressed. Anyone have a good shortbread cookie recipe? For an ice cream mix-in, though, it did the job and was a nice little texture surprise in there.

Then I made my own creation, chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookie dough in it. There are no photos because we all ate it up SO FAST; it was fantastic. I used MY cookie dough recipe (of course!), and put in a little espresso powder. I wrote it all down and definitely have to make it again!

Next up, a foray into Chinese-takeout-style dumplings!

My girls are NUTS about takeout dumplings -- the fat, doughy, pan-fried puffs with meat inside. I decided it would be fun to make a supply to keep in the deep freeze, for dumplings anytime!

I used the homemade wrapper recipe from The Woks of Life (fabulous website), paired with the chicken filling from Made With Lau's potsticker recipe. Now, let me tell you, apparently I can't mince chicken; I can only dice. So I had to run the filling through the food processor to get the right texture, but it worked!

Ready for the freezer

I was proud that I got the pleating fold down, more or less! I rolled the wrappers out pretty thick, to recreate the takeout kind, so the recipe didn't make as many as it said. When we ate them, I made this dipping sauce -- minus the chili oil since C. can't handle heat (yet!!) -- and they were delicious!!

Moving on . . .

This isn't all that exciting, but I did make Thai iced tea recently from a bag of loose-leaf tea from the Asian grocery store. I had had some while out with friends (hi, Brenda!) ;) and obsessed about it for a few days . . . then made it at home! It was insanely sweet as per the recipe on the bag, but I am here for it. A little half-and-half cuts right through and is just perfect. ^_^

That is all for now! Next on my list of food fun is another batch of ice cream, maybe using evaporated milk and making a caramel?? We'll see what I feel like.

What are some "fancy" or more intensive things that you like to cook?