Tour of Work

I am working at Hawaiian Island Sno Balls in Duck, NC. It is a quiet little town that is designed for lots of foot traffic. The speed limit is only 25 mph, and they are really good about a bunch of crosswalks, pedestrian signs, and really wide sidewalks to share the road with. There are a bunch of little plazas and boardwalks with tons of gift shops and restaurants.

To the east is the Atlantic Ocean, and less than a mile to the west is the sound, a body of brackish water, which means it is half salt-water, half fresh-water. There are lots of places to rent bikes, kayaks, windsails, or just sit and enjoy the sunset.

When you walk in the front door you're greeted with tons of bright colors! There's one of my bosses, Linda - posing with her can of soup. I caught her while she was making lunch one day.

To the right is the area where you order, and the ice cream cases. We have 24 flavors of "hard" ice cream that we scoop, plus a soft serve machine with vanilla, chocolate, and swirl. We make all kinds of floats, malts, sundaes, shakes, etc. with the ice cream if you are interested in more than just a scoop!

What we're really famous for, though, are sno-balls. This is a coarsely shaved ice served in a cup, with flavored syrups added. There are literally hundreds of flavors and special recipes my other boss, Jeffrey, makes by hand. People also get funky with the toppings on these too, we have a sno-ball cream, chocolate, and marshmallow.

Here's a better view behind the counter and of the sno-ball ice shaver.

The industrial fridge, which I'm always insanely jealous of. I wish I had one of these at home! It has so much room, and is so open and easy to see inside for easy organization.

We also do all kinds of specialty coffees, espressos, lattes, etc. This was the part of the job I was most anxious about when I first started 4 summers ago. But now it's like 2nd nature to me and I love whipping up drinks. I also find that people ordering specialty drinks tend to tip better than those just ordering a scoop of ice cream! Cha-ching!

This is Linda's home made fudge section of the store. Every Sunday is her day "off," but it's anything but. She spends the whole day making new batches of fudge for the store. Everything from plain chocolate and vanilla, to crazy renditions of a Snicker's bar.

Above the fudge is a container of salt water taffy that I steal pieces out of all the time. I love our taffy, it's so soft, unlike the rock hard pieces I remember when I was little. And on the right are little bags of crack chocolate covered espresso beans. I steal some of those too.

And there you have it! That's where I'm working, saving up the moolah, and hopefully working off some excess pounds! We have free access to anything we want, but thankfully I'm not much of a sweets eater, so I generally abstain.

FroYo

You guys post about fro yo all the time and I have never been! Sure, I've eaten frozen yogurt in cartons you buy at home, or made my own. But as far as these trendy little by-weight froyo places? Never been.

Until last week. Visiting my God daughter, we went for it after dinner since they ate all of their turkey.

You grabbed your bowl, filled it up with the flavor of your choice (under the spoons), then had fun with the toppings! There was a salad bar area with lots of fresh fruit and candies. Along the wall was a row of gumball machine-like devices for even more toppings like cereals and other crunchies.

The cash register had a scale in front of it, so you put your bowl there and it was .39c per ounce. I got strawberry yogurt, banana yogurt, and put fresh strawberries, blueberries, and crumbled sugar cone on top. It came out to about $3.

Here is my God daughter, Marissa with her bowl. I promise she's not always a blur! I'll have clear pics of her in future posts.

And her little sister, Cecelia, shouting "CHEEEEEEEEEESE" while she poses with her bowl!

Various Reviews

Sometimes Blogger uploads my pictures sideways for no reason. Even J, the web developer/programmer, can't figure it out. I usually fiddle around and re-save them to fix it, but for now, since I'm posting from a random computer and don't have much time, I'm leaving them sideways. Sorry!

I got these Magnum ice cream bars with a coupon from Foodbuzz. They come in a 3 pack box, and are usually in the $4-5 range, but these were on sale for $3 at my local store. All of the flavors had whey (boo) so J couldn't test them, and I went with my choice since I'd most likely be the only one eating them. (My dad's not big on dairy.)

It was pretty good. The milk chocolate was my least favorite part, I think I would have preferred dark chocolate. I liked the crunchy of the almonds and the ice cream was amazingly delicious and creamy (maybe the whey?). Honestly, unless I had the coupon I probably wouldn't buy them. $1+ for a lone bar is way out of this cheap frugal girl's budget.

I won Ally's AMAZING giveaway a few weeks ago. I literally screamed and called J over. This is, hands down, the awesomest giveaway I've won! I got 4 of these little cookbooks, an (unpictured) grocery bag, and 52 coupons (1 year's worth) for FREE Organic Valley products. Our store carries their milks and butter, but I'm hoping NC will have a wider variety of their products. It'll still be cool to not have to buy milk for a whole year! Thanks again, Ally!!!

I saw a commercial for these and wanted to try them. I'm not usually a cookie person, but something about these caught my interest. I had a coupon from the Sunday paper, so I got them.

Wow, they're good. The peanut butter ones were my #1 choice and are reminiscent of Girl Scout's Tagalongs. Dangerous, but oh so delicious.

I received a coupon through Foodbuzz's Tastemaker program and Magnum ice cream to purchase the bars. The photos and opinions are my own.

Valentine's Spumoni

Johnny's favorite guilty pleasure is ice cream. In fact, that was one of the very first things I learned about him.

His favorite ice cream is spumoni. Unfortunately, the convenience of buying them at the store stopped a few years ago when the economy tanked. A lot of ice creams that used to be whey-free now have whey as the first or second ingredient to cut costs (it's a cheap filler). Johnny hasn't had spumoni in years! (Except one bad experience where he ordered it at a restaurant and we learned later, the hard way, that it had contained whey.)

For Valentine's I wanted to recreate his favorite ice cream! It is usually made up of three parts - pistachio, cherry, and chocolate.

Chocolate:

I cheated and bought some at the store, since I was already making the other two at home. I splurged and picked out a really great all-natural one with a short ingredient list, though.

Pistachio: (adapted from an Epicurious recipe)

1 1/4 cup shelled pistachios, divided
3/4 cup sugar, divided
2 cups milk (I used skim)
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 egg yolks
1 cup whipping cream

Grind 1 cup of the pistachios and 1/4 cup of the sugar into a powder in a food processor. Add this mixture and the milk to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the almond extract.

Whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar in a medium bowl. Gradually temper this by mixing in about a cup of the hot milk mixture a few tablespoons at a time. Return this to the saucepan, cooking over low heat until the custard thickens. This will take about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not let boil.

Pour into a large bowl, whisk in the cream, and refrigerate at least 2 hours. Once chilled, process in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. During the last few minutes of churning, add the remaining pistachios, chopped.

Makes about 1 quart.

Cherry: (adapted from allrecipes.com)

1/4 cup cherry juice concentrate
1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
1 cup vanilla yogurt (I used Chobani fat free)
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt
1 cup frozen cherries
1/2 tsp almond extract

Place all of the ingredients except the cherries in a blender and blend until smooth. Add the cherries and puree until small bits of cherries remain. Process in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Makes about 1.5 quarts.

I only tried the cherry and the pistachio, so I can't comment on the chocolate.

The pistachio was delicious. I loved the almond extract in there and the chunky bits of the pistachio. The color was terrific! This was Johnny's favorite of the three.

The cherry was also a terrific color. The cherry juice concentrate (a thick syrup) and the yogurt resulted in a tangy flavor, instead of overly sweet. I loved the chunks of cherries in there, too. This was my favorite of the two I tried.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

Ok, finally! The very last recipe from my dinner party! I knew I'd cooked a lot that day, but it wasn't fully clear just how much I'd cooked until I sat down to write out the recipes for you guys.

Although, technically, I didn't cook this one - Johnny did. From start to finish, all by his pretty little self.

As most of our home made ice creams do, this came from The Perfect Scoop. If you have an ice cream maker I highly recommend getting this book to go along with it. It's the perfect companion, with everything from ice creams, sorbets, sherberts, mix-in recipes and ideas, sauces, toppings, and even recipes for cones and edible bowls! We got this book as a "starting point" for our ice cream collection, but we haven't bought another book because we haven't needed to!


1 cup milk (we used skim)
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
5 six inch cinnamon sticks, broken up
2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon sticks, and 1 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan. Once warm, remove from the heat, cover, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour. (Holy cow this step smells really good!)

Remove the cinnamon sticks with a slotted spoon, discarding them. Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, and slowly pour the warm mixture into the yolks, whisking constantly. Add everything back to the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.

Pour the cooked mixture through a mesh strainer into the large bowl with the cream. Stir over an ice bath until cooled. Chill the mixture in a refrigerator for a few hours, or overnight. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to directions.

Makes 1 quart.

Interested in making your own ice cream at home? Below is the ice cream maker Johnny and I use. We've had it for a year and a half and we love it! It's really convenient and requires no salt or ice. Just freeze the bowl for 24 hrs ahead and you're ready to go!

Friday Firsts - Pomegranate Sorbet

Happy Friday everybody! If this is your first Friday Firsts click the link above or on the sidebar for more information! My 12 year old cousin Taylor is visiting me so I've had quite the busy week. Sorry for the lack of posts and comments lately!


My first for this week was a perfect treat for this beautiful 80° weather we've had the past two days! A crisp and refreshingly beautiful Pomegranate Sorbet!


I think I've created a monster. I came upstairs earlier today to find Taylor googling recipes. She saw a stash of pomegranate juice I have in my fridge and went in search of a use for it! The ice cream and dessert lover that she is, she settled on pomegranate sorbet and printed out the recipe. It is very simple and with a little help from me, the mixture was chilling in the fridge in a few minutes. Later Johnny helped her with the ice cream machine to freeze it.

Ingredients:

2 cups water
1 cup sugar
2 cups pomegranate juice
1/4 cup lemon juice

Directions:

In a saucepan combine the sugar and water. Heat to a boil and let simmer for about 5 minutes to create a simple syrup. Remove from the heat and stir in the pomegranate juice and lemon juice. Chill in the refrigerator until cool.

Freeze in your ice cream machine per manufacturer's instructions.


Not only did she take the initiative, find a recipe, help me make it, but she inquired about a special glass to display the sorbet in for a pretty picture! A food blogger in the making - right!?



Now it's your turn to tell me about your first! To participate in Friday Firsts create a blog post featuring a "first" of yours. It could be the first time you've used a new pan or the first time you've eaten a vegetarian dish! Any culinary first will do! Next, link that blog post below and tell us about it! If you don't have a blog or a specific post to link to please tell us about your first in the comment section! Any and all participation is welcome!



Thank you for helping me spread the word each week! If you would like to display the Friday Firsts button as a badge in your post or on your side bar, you can copy and paste the following code:

<a href="http://www.dinneratchristinas.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://glc.dinneratchristinas.com/i/fridayfirsts.png" alt="Friday Firsts / DinnerAtChristinas.com" style="width: 220px; height: 220px; border: none"/></a>

The pomegranate juice used in this recipe was generously provided by POMWonderful.

Pumpkin Ice Cream

Wouldn't you know that Edy's (Dreyer's in some parts of the country) changed the vast majority of their flavors last year (including pumpkin) to New! "Fun Flavors!" with whey as the first ingredient? Yes, whey. Not milk, not cream - a processed additive! Mmmm, "Fun!" indeed!

Johnny had a major craving for pumpkin ice cream a few months ago. Since we can't buy a whey-free version at the store, he came up with his own by adapting The Perfect Scoop's sweet potato ice cream recipe to be a pumpkin ice cream recipe!

This was the third or fourth time Johnny made the pumpkin ice cream this year. He usually uses canned pumpkin, but when he made it for Italy Night, he used fresh pumpkin. Wow, let me tell you, it made a WORLD of difference. The canned version tasted a little tinny to me, but Johnny gobbled it up. The fresh version was velvety goodness and I gobbled it up!

15 oz. can of pumpkin (or about 2 cups fresh pumpkin, which I recommend)
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp milk (we used 1%)
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
a few drops lemon juice (we used the bottled concentrate)

Combine all of the ingredients (except the lemon juice) in a blender and mix for about 30 seconds. It will taste great at this point, but trust me and add just a few drops of lemon juice and re-blend. It should allow all of the other ingredients to just POP and become brighter, not add any citrus qualities.


Freeze in your ice cream maker according to instructions. Serve immediately in a more soft-serve texture, or freeze to serve later! Please note, however, that homemade ice creams freeze "harder" than commercially aerated versions. You'll need to take them out about 5 minutes before scooping.

Italy Night

I think it's been easy over the course of my blog to conclude that I'm Italian. 75% to be exact.

My mom is currently a little obsessed with Italy. Her first trip was March 2006 with her sister (my aunt) and she's since gone back twice with different small groups of girlfriends. Her latest trip was in November, when Johnny and I were in D.C.

To prepare herself for these trips, her friends and her have "Italy Nights." They'll listen to Italian music, cook Italian food, they've taken Italian lessons and overall just broaden their knowledge and love for everything Italy! They've even given each other "Italian" nicknames!

From her recent trip, she brought back special grade 00 flour from Italy. This is the finest ground flour, it was like baby powder! She also brought her grandmother's (my great-grandmother's) pasta press and ravioli mold I used earlier this summer at her house. We invited Johnny's sister, Di and brother in law, Rob over and the 6 of us had our own "Italy Night" here at my house! This night's theme was "pumpkin!"

First, Johnny and Rob made two batches of dough for us. Once you make the dough, it needs to be wrapped in plastic and sit for about 20 minutes. While this was sitting we had our appetizers.

We had bruschetta with olives, fresh basil, pepperoni, and balsamic marinated tomatoes as toppings. Toast the bread in the oven on a sheet pan. Once it is warmed, remove it and brush each piece of bread with a raw piece of garlic. Place your toppings and drizzle each piece with a little olive oil. Put back in the oven for a few more minutes to crisp up.

Also served was an assortment of cheeses my mom brought back from Italy. The "star" of the cheese platter was this white truffle cheese. She went to a truffle festival and came home with coveted goodies. We were glad she shared this with us. It was creamy, velvety delicious with an earthy undertone that made me truly understand the definition of "umami."

The last appetizer was a classic prosciutto-wrapped melon, which we dressed up with cute little toothpicks for easy grabbing!

By now the pasta was ready to be rolled out. Di and Rob tried their hand at the pasta press and did a great job for their first turn! It takes a bit of practice to get a steady crank and passing process down, but they picked it up right away.

My mom and I whipped up the batches of filling. We had to do 2, to make one whey-free for Johnny. We used homemade pumpkin puree my mom made, roasted garlic, ricotta cheese (cottage cheese for J), sundried tomatoes, and seasonings. (Doesn't it look like I have Padma's scar in the above pic!? Weird- must be the reflection!)

Just like this summer, we filled the ravioli molds and then rolled a rolling pin over to release the extra dough.

Out popped plump little dumplings of goodness!

My dad made a light soup of broth with garlic, fresh spinach, and white beans. We ate this while waiting for the pasta water come up to a boil.

My mom had a chestnut sauce while in Italy and seeing how light that was, realized that a white or red sauce with the delicate flavors of the squash would over-power this. So, we went with a really, really light "sauce," just enough to wet the ravioli. It was made with chicken broth, white wine, garlic, sundried tomato oil, chestnuts she brought back from Italy, fresh sage, and a dash of cream with a hint of mozzarella cheese. (my mom's picture)


After boiling the pasta (only for a few minutes because it's freshly made!) we stirred them around the sauce pan with a wooden spoon, just enough to coat them with the sauce. We garnished with crispy fried sage leaves, which I'd been dying to try since seeing them all over the Food Network and the blog world. Kind of like a furry, herby potato chip!

Then, to bring pumpkin full-circle, we had Johnny's homemade pumpkin ice cream for dessert! He used my mom's homemade pumpkin puree in his usual recipe, which he adapted from a sweet potato recipe in The Perfect Scoop. This was served alongside warmed homemade panettone from one of my mom's piano students. We also munched on some pumpkin seeds my mom had roasted.

Needless to say, we were stuffed! It was a fun night learning new things and having everybody help have a hand at making dinner! It makes it a little more interesting than the usual dinner party! Just make sure guests arrive early enough to accomodate for all the cooking time! We had Di and Rob come at 4 to start, with the appetizers and soup during so we weren't famished, and ate the finished pasta around 6:30.

BSI: Chocolate (Entry 2: Chocolate Covered Coffee Bean Ice Cream)

Chocolate inspirations left and right this week for BSI, being hosted by London Foodie in NY!

In case you missed it, my first entry was Banana Boats. This is the second entry - another homemade ice cream. Both Johnny and I agree that it's our favorites of the ones we've made so far!

We followed the recipe for Coffee Ice Cream from Perfect Scoop, but as an extra somethin' somethin' included cut up chocolate covered coffee beans!

(Makes 1 quart)

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans (we used decaf)
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp finely ground coffee
1/2 cup chopped chocolate covered coffee beans

Because of the inclusion of egg yolks, this was also the most labor intensive of the recipes we've made so far!

Warm the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, pinch of salt (see below), and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium sauce pan. Once warm, remove from heat and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour. (Oh. Em. Gee. The smell!!!)

Johnny got to whip out his "pinch" measuring spoon for this one, too! (He's a measurer, I'm not.)

Pour the remaining 1 cup cream in a large bowl and place a mesh strainer on top. In a separate, medium bowl whisk together the egg yolks (the pic has a little cream around the edge because we swapped bowls!) . Rewarm the coffee-infused milk mixture.

Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so you don't cook the yolks. Pour everything back into the saucepan and over medium heat, stir constantly until a spatula is coated.

Pour the custard through the mesh strainer, pressing down and moving the beans around to extract as much flavor as possible. (We found it helpful to scoop some of the cream from below over top the coffee beans periodically to loosen up the custard mixture) Discard the beans, mix in the vanilla and finely ground coffee and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture and freeze per your machine's instructions.

We froze for about 15 minutes, then added the 1/2 cup chopped chocolate covered coffee beans for the final 4 or 5 minutes.

This smells, looks, and tastes delicious. It's rich, creamy, and full of hearty coffee flavor. The ice cream alone would be delicious, but the crunchy, chocolatey bits in there give it an extra level of flavor and texture.

Don't forget to head over to Hey What's for Dinner Mom? tomorrow to vote for my Best Foodie Fotos (BFF) in Laura's contest!!!