Unphotogenic

I couldn't get a good photo of this ice cream, but I want to write about it so I don't forget it. It's a great compromise that pleased both ice cream eaters in our household: peanut butter and chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cookie dough and cocoa nibs.

The chocolate-peanut butter ice cream is from The Perfect Scoop, but I replaced the half and half with soy milk, and added just a touch more sugar. It ended up really rich and creamy, so the original version must be insane. The cookie dough and peanut butter pleased one of us. The chocolate, the cocoa nibs, and the fact that it was peanut butter cookie dough rather than boring old chocolate chip, pleased the other one.

The ice cream contains just sugar, soy milk, peanut butter and cocoa powder. I am thinking that I might replace the peanut butter with hazelnut butter next time, for gianduja.

I make candy for the intellectual stimulation

These are homemade Butterfingers candies, from this recipe (I only had chunky peanut butter in the house, so that's what I used). I hadn't realized that Butterfingers were supposed to be peanut butter flavoured, but there you go.

These were very interesting -- and not in the euphemistic sense, I actually mean the candy-making process here is interesting. You heat the sugar until almost the hard crack stage, and then add the peanut butter. This prevents the sugar from hardening into a toffee consistency -- it ends up sort of flaky and crumbly.

Birthday cake

Technically, it's a birthday blondie with mousse topping.

It's based on the Peanut Butter Mousse Cake from The Voluptuous Vegan, except I used Kittee's recipe (with added peanut butter, and no cashews/chocolate) for the blondie layer.

Since we had a quiet little birthday celebration with just us two, I shrank the recipe down to fit my 5 inch springform pan. (I divided both the blondie recipe and the mousse recipe by 4 -- the blondie recipe made enough for a couple of bonus blondies cooked in a muffin tin.)

This was really nice. The mousse is subtle and airy, and is a nice contrast with the sweet and chewy blondie.

Iron chef: sriracha

I was out of ideas for dinner, so asked R if he had any cravings. I don't know why I asked -- I was expecting him to say no, as that's his usual answer to that question (weird, right?) but instead he surprised me and asked for something with sriracha. This turned out to be an excellent and inspiring answer.

We had tofu omelettes with sriracha (based on the Thai classic); roast cauliflower with a dipping sauce of sriracha, honey and lime juice; and latkes (from the freezer) with a sauce of vegan mayo and sriracha.

All three were pretty good but I think the best one was the cauliflower. The very brown pieces went especially well with the sauce. (I got the idea for this combination after some googling turned up the suggestion to combine this sauce with roasted brussels sprouts.)

After all that heat: ice cream (chocolate and peanut butter, with pretzels. I used soy milk in place of the recommended half and half, and regular cocoa powder, and it worked out fine -- very rich and almost fudgy.)

Frazzled

What can't a dinner of pizza and ice cream fix?

Three small clean-out-the-fridge pizzas (dough is whole wheat from the freezer at Whole Foods; cheese is Follow Your Heart mozzarella):

1. Sauerkraut, caramelized onions, ajvar. (This was my first time trying sauerkraut on a pizza and it won't be the last. This particular pizza could've done with a little something extra, though.)

2. Salsa, caramelized onions, cilantro.

3. Kalamatas, basil (from the freezer -- I threw in a bunch and it held up surprisingly well), caramelized onions.

Then almond and pecan ice cream (just so-so by itself, but much better with chocolate and peanut butter ganache and plantains).

Pride

Last month I had my biggest ever cooking disaster. We were invited to a barbecue, and I decided to make my old faithful: curried chickpea tart. There were a few hiccups -- for instance, the kitchen here on LI has no blender of any kind, so I had to use an antique eggbeater to mix the batter, and in addition there are no tart or pie plates, so I had to send our lovely host to the supermarket to buy a disposable aluminium one. Anyway, long story short, when we got there I went to cut the tart and it hadn't set up right. I served the first piece/dollop to the host of the party, who assured me it was delicious. And then I tried some... oh my god it was way way oversalted and overspiced. (Maybe it reduced down too much while I waited for the disposable tin? But then why didn't it set up? Maybe the salt in the LI kitchen is superpowered?)

I was mortified.

It was lucky, after all, that the tart was in a disposable tin. It meant I could slink out of the party at the end of the night without having to claim my leftovers.

Anyway, tonight we are going back to those same people's house for a dinner party -- I had to redeem myself. Hence: peanut butter filled chocolate cookies (with the usual vegan subs, and egg replacer). They are tooth-rottingly sweet (like giant peanut butter cups) and I will be walking into that place with my head held high.