summer indulgence..blackberry coconut ice cream

The heat is brutal but you gotta give it to the fruits when it comes to summer. My ice cream machine has been working harder than anything else in the store. We have been making ice cream all day everyday. The most popular has been all the dairy free coconut ice cream flavors that I made. These blackberries are from Austin Farmers' Market. You can still get them but I don't think they will last much longer.

The recipe is super easy and you will get your ice cream in no time at all.

1/2 cup blackberries
2 cups coconut cream (you can buy coconut cream or you can scoop the top part of the coconut milk before shaking it. You can use the whole can of coconut milk but coconut cream will give you a better texture. Coconut milk will make the ice cream icier)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt

You can make this ice cream two ways. You can bring everything to a boil and simmer until all sugar is dissolved and put the mixture in a blender. Or you can bring everything but blackberries to a boil and then add blackberries to the mixture and blend. Either way, you will end up with this irresistible rich colored ice cream. Enjoy your summer.

a short trip to Boggy Creek

I had a 15 minute visit to Boggy Creek Farm this morning. I knew they had some figs and I wanted to make fig ice cream. I got my figs, gave Carol Ann a big hug and left. These are the sweetest, softest, most juicy figs I have had in a long time. Go get them at Boggy Creek Farm Stand on Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 9 am - 1 pm. Or not? So there is more for me. I love figs and I hope these figs will make it to my ice cream if only I can stop eating them.

the harvest of spring

Summer just got here, may be yesterday for real. I am pretty good with heat but when it hits 100 F, I will feel it. Just before it gets too hot in Texas for green beans and tomatoes to survive in the city, I thought I will share with you what we have harvested from our garden. These green beans are growing on our front yard fence. It is so showy to passer bys and I am so proud of my husband for taking care of them. Last year, I grew some bush beans because they take shorter time, about 45 days versus 60 days.I was told though that the pole beans taste better. This year, we have both in because I really want to harvest early but then I also want to see if the pole beans are really better.

One thing I can definitely tell is that the pole beans are easier to harvest. I always missed a bean or two when harvesting bush beans. Since we have our brand new front yard fence that we put in last summer, I thought we could give it a try. I'm not sure if it's the varieties that I got, but my pole beans taste super delicious, sweeter than the bush beans and I don't have to kneel down to harvest them. I'm all about pole beans next year.





The recipe for Som Tam is in the previous post. My son loves to eat vegetables now that he can pick them off the vines from the garden. So, if you have trouble encouraging your kids to eat veggies, grow some. They will love watering, weeding, picking, and of course eating. We grow a lot of green beans, tomatoes and peppers this year and there is no better way to use them all but in this very recipe. I hope you enjoy your garden.

chocolate beet birthday cake

My boy turned three and I had some beets from Tecolote Farm at Austin Farmers' Market I searched and found this recipe and just followed it almost strictly except for the glaze that I added a little agave nectar and threw in some mint leaves to steep in the glaze while it was hot.


And of course, I added Spiderman and the Green Goblin fighting on the cake for some 3-year-old birthday excitement. It was delicious and I would make it again and again. Did I say I love summer? The farmers' markets come alive again and I have so much to work with and so much to experiment. I am searching for a good beet ice cream recipes. I came up with one but I think I just needed more beets in mine. There will be the next beet post.

peaches, more peaches

I have been enjoying the peach season here in Texas. There is no better time than now. I have been buying, picking, eating, cooking with peaches. I love them and I wish I could have them all year round. But then, I won't have anything to look forward to in May. Over the weekend, Leo and I went to pick organically grown peaches at Suzanne Santos' farm, Tierra Antingua Farm in Kyle. We got there a little later than expected but since it's summer, there was plenty of light to see those peaches.




Leo really enjoyed the peaches and the sprinkler and the dogs and the chickens and the horses and the goats. He first got all wet and then went to pick some peaches. We got about 10 pounds of them. While picking, he probably ate 15 of them or so. Between Leo and me, we probably ate half of the peaches. The rest? I made some minty peach ice cream adapting the recipe from David Lebovitz in his book, that I love, the Perfect Scoop. I got some mint from Kate Thornberry of Hungersauce and they make perfect combination. It turned out so creamy and so delicious.The recipe is below



Minty Peach Ice Cream

1 1/3 pounds peach
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
a few drops of fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup mint leaves, finely chopped

peel the peaches and cut up the meat into chunks. Boil them in water over medium low heat, covered, for ten minutes. Remove from the heat and then stir in sugar and cool to room temp. Combine the peaches and the rest of the ingredients and blend it in food processor or blender. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer instructions.

Happy Hour at Rain Lily Farm : a perfect evening out

When Elizabeth Winslow from Farmhouse Delivery invited me to be the chef for the happy hour evening at Rain Lily Farm, I jumped at the opportunity. Stephanie Scherzer and Elizabeth Winslow started Farmhouse Delivery in February 2009. Every first and third Wednesdays, they host a farm stand happy hour where you will get to tour the farm, buy freshly picked produce, eat some good food, taste some great beverages and just hang out. This is a super kid friendly event.




For the evening, I made Thai Beef Salad w/ cucumber, green onions and red onions from Rain Lily, some microgreens from Bella Verde. Those cucumbers were just amazing, I mean AMAZING.





Darrell brought some mixed micro greens to the farm that same evening and we mixed them in our mixed greens, the results? The most delicious beef salad I ever made. His micro Arugula are the best. They are so pungent and spicy. Every time I bit into it in the salad, it always makes me want some more. If you haven't tried his greens in the salad, you are missing out. A little will go a long way too.




We grilled some Sirloin from Bastrop Cattle Company. Their Sirloin Steak is just perfect, very lean and tender. I ate five servings of the salad that night.




I had a great time, my son had a great time. He ate three (or more) cucumbers and two peaches with a few pieces of grilled beef, we were one happy family. See you again at the next happy hour.

market finds

Last weekend, I went to Austin Farmers' Market, the first time since they changed the lay out. I loved it. I was looking for something fun to cook for Thai Fresh. I got some specialty squashes, golden zucchini and zephyr, from Harvest Time Farm Stand, and some peaches from Gundermann Farms. I made the squashes with shrimp. The peaches will be our ice cream of the week. The recipe is from David Lebovitz' Perfect Scoop. The squash dish turned out beautifully, the taste and the look of it.



the recipe, or no recipe, is from the previous post

I used fish sauce instead of soy sauce. Either sauce will be just fine. Serve it over rice.

fried pork ribs

First you have good pork ribs ( in my case,it's Berkshire from Peach Creek Farm) and then you fry them, not much can go wrong between those two. The marinade is super easy and super delicious. This was the dish I made for the Austin Food Blogger pot luck party at our very own David Ansel's house from the Soup Peddler. There were so many amazing foods. A recap of the day is on Addie's blog. I had a great time. My son enjoyed his swimming too.He was in the water for two hours and his lips were blue. A chocolate cup cake, or two, saved his hunger.

Here is no recipe recipe for these amazing pork ribs.

Cut up the ribs to about 2 inches long, add oyster sauce, any kind would do. Splash a little fish sauce to taste and sprinkle a pinch of coarse salt. I also minced the end of cilantro stems and threw that in the marinade. Keep refrigerated for about 2 hours and deep fry.

Fry chopped garlic, add freshly ground pepper to the fried garlic and mix in with fried ribs. It's ready to serve.

tea party

Yesterday, I had a chance to host a tea party at Thai Fresh. It was just an informal gathering that Nathan does at his house every Friday and he thought he would bring it to Thai Fresh. Of course, I said yes to the opportunity to learn more about tea. Suhan (I think I got the spelling right) from Jade Leaves Tea House was here along with a few other tea enthusiasts. We tried about 5 teas.
We tried Pu-erh aged tea. It was from 2007. The first brew was a little bitter but the later brews got better and better. Then we tried White Jade Rabbit tea.

It was a spring pick from last year. This tea was so delicate. Suhan said this is the best pick he tasted for this tea. I absolutely loved it. We then tried some Oolong that Nathan got from Taiwan when he visited.

My favorites were Jin Xuan and Gaba tea. I like the Jin Xuan because it reminds me of Japanese Sencha tea that I love. It has a little bit of sweetness and a little bit of savory side to it. That was my most favorite. The Gaba was a nice finish because of the calming effect it has as you drink it. You can just tell by the first sample cup of Gaba that it relaxes you. Although it was just too much tea in one sitting and I stayed up all night last night, it was so worth it. It was my first experience so I went all the way. We spent three hours just drinking tea and learning about it.



Brewing tea is an art. Water is very important. Good spring water will bring out the flavors of the tea, or in other words, it will not affect the flavors of tea. The temperature of the water also plays an important role in brewing tea. If you are brewing green tea or oolong, too hot water can burn your tea leaves.

These teas were hand picked and the leaves are so full. As we finished brewing each tea, we poured the leaves out from the tea pot and those leaves are just fully open.



You can chew tea leaves just like you chew tobacco. Not that everybody would know how to chew tobacco, but just chew them slowly and enjoy the taste of the tea leaves.
We are hoping that we will have this gathering as somewhat regular event and invite more tea enthusiasts around town to join us. Of course, we will definitely invite our very own Dr. Oolong, Jeffrey Lorien from Zhi Tea.

If you have a chance to stop by on Friday afternoons, join us for a cup of tea.

nam tok: another beef salad

As the weather is getting warmer and as the mint in the garden is going wild, I thought I would post another beef salad recipe. It is actually the same as Larb, the minced meat salad I posted last year when mint was going wild. So, as an alternative, you can grill your beef, any cut of steak will do. I like to make it with sirloin. You can also pan sear your steak. Then, you just thinly slice the meat and throw in the same ingredients as Larb. There you go, another wonderful way to use up those mint leaves.