The Nifty Foodie

Am I the only person who is shocked that Christmas just passed? I can’t believe it. Neighbors are taking down lights, and our tree looks SO empty without gifts under it. My favorite holiday is over, and crazy enough, it’s time for a new year. 2012.

Time to take the shrink wrap off of the new planner and get used to writing “2012″ on papers/emails/etc. This is just crazy.

Also crazy…sometime in 2012, my 4 year blogiversary is happening and my 3 year wedding anniversary is happening too. WHAT?

It’s a lot to look forward to, but before everyone rings in the new year, I just wanted to share with y’all the top 10 posts of 2011.

10. Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream – This was my first time making SMBC, and I swear, if you haven’t tried SMBC before, just do it. Please?

9. Pecan Pie Macarons – Gotta love macarons. These were really a huge favorite for Thanksgiving, and the star shape (which was a happy accident) made them super cute and festive!

8. Restaurant Style Queso Blanco – This is it. The ultimate queso blanco. If you’re as addicted to queso as me, you’d understand how wonderful it is to FINALLY have a recipe for this!

7. Strawberry Cream Cake – I’m actually glad I compiled this top 10, because I sort of forgot about this cake. Since it’s currently strawberry season in Louisiana, I think I MUST make this cake again. Yum!

6. Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles – This is the recipe that made my year, basically. I still can’t believe I won that recipe contest, and I’ve been told by a few friends who made this that these little truffles were a hit at their holiday parties! So happy to hear that!

5. Banana Nutella “Ice Cream” – Two ingredient “ice cream”. It’s basically awesome and couldn’t be any easier. Your food processor does all the work!

4. Grilled Corn Grits – I can’t be from the South, and not have a post about grits. I promise you if you make this, your hips may never be the same again, but your taste buds will tell you it’s completely worth it!

3. Easy Pasta Salad – My first (and so far, only) vlog. I might get the courage to make one again, since you guys seemed to like it so much!

2. Cooking For Kids – The infamous post. Yup, who’da thought that a soda cupcake would get so much response from you guys (both good and bad)…yikes!

1. S’mores for a Shower – Nutella S’mores. I can see why you guys loved this one so much. I’m sort of craving s’mores right now, actually.

I hope you have a wonderful New Year with your family and friends, and thank you so much for reading The Nifty Foodie! See y’all in 2012!

I absolutely love coffee, but this is actually the first time in a couple of months that I have enjoyed any type of coffee. A couple of months ago, I realized that my body was way too dependent on caffeine, and I just couldn’t stand having caffeine headaches that resulted if I didn’t drink a cup of coffee before a certain time in the morning. So, yeah…I gave up caffeine. I even sold our coffee machine at a garage sale. I’m crazy like that. I will admit, it took my body a whopping 3 weeks for the headaches to stop, and during those three weeks, it was SO hard not to just grab a small cup of coffee to avoid those headaches. Looking back, it’s worth it. SO worth it. I’ve been slowly phasing caffeine back in every so often, because I can’t not have caffeine for the rest of my life (hi chocolate!), and I’m pleased to say that I haven’t experience a caffeine headache in almost a month!

Since I’m a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher, there are times where publishers are offered free products through their Tastemaker program to try if you post an honest review on the product. I sort of forgot that I signed up for this product before I kicked the caffeine habit: Godiva coffee.

I actually received the package the second week that I gave up caffeine. It was so hard to see those coffee bags in the house, so I placed them in the pantry and told myself I’d make a recipe with this stuff once the headaches were gone.

I decided to make this recipe, because I’ve always been curious about Vietnamese coffee. I love condensed milk. LOVE the stuff. Around here, during snowball season, you can ask for them to top your snowball with condensed milk, and it just takes that dessert to a whole different level. So, I had a feeling the condensed milk would work some miracles on this coffee.

As always, when it comes to an ice cream recipe, I turn to The Perfect Scoop, and once again, this recipe totally delivered. The recipe called for some ground coffee, which weirded me out, but it totally worked in this recipe! I also thought the flavor was perfect and the texture of the ice cream was surprisingly pretty soft to scoop, for a homemade ice cream. To brew the strong coffee, I used the same technique as highlighted in One Particular Kitchen’s blog (no coffee machine required!).

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream
Source: slightly adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of strongly brewed coffee
• 1 1/2 cups of condensed milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• big pinch of ground coffee

Directions:

1. Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl until well incorporated. Chill the mixture thoroughly in your refrigerator.
2. Using the directions that your ice cream maker has, churn the ice cream. Enjoy immediately for a more soft serve texture or freeze for a few hours to enjoy as a scoopable ice cream.

FTC Disclosure: I was provided two bags of Godiva Coffee by the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program in exchange for a review and recipe idea using the coffee. My opinions are my own, as always.

I absolutely love the flavor of mangoes. I actually didn’t have fresh mango up until about 3 years ago, but it was totally love at first bite! I’ve been eating them every summer ever since!

So, when I saw a case of mangoes on sale at the store, I knew I had to give mango sorbet a try.

As much as I love strawberry and watermelon sorbet, I was very surprised to find that this mango sorbet had a very silky, rich texture. It was absolutely delicious, and I think this fruit sorbet is my favorite so far. Another hit from the infamous ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop. (I highly recommend this book if you own an ice cream maker, by the way!) My family absolutely loved this sorbet too…it was such a refreshing dessert to serve in this crazy heat that we’re experiencing lately!

Mango Sorbet
Source: mildly adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients:

• 2 large, ripe mangoes (about 2 lbs.), peeled and pitted
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 4 tsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 tbsp. light rum
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Cut the fruit of the mango into chunks and place them in a blender or food processor with the sugar, water, lime juice, rum and salt.
2. Puree the sorbet mixture until completely smooth.
3. Add rum/lime juice to taste, after tasting the pureed mixture. Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour.
4. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  Store in an airtight container in the freezer.

 

About a year ago, I bookmarked the popular one ingredient banana ice cream recipe. I usually don’t let bananas get super ripe in my house, because we go through them fairly quickly, but a couple of weeks ago, we forgot that I purchased a bunch to eat, and they were far too ripe to just eat on their own. I was about to make banana bread when I remembered this idea.

If you’re on a diet and you miss ice cream, I can tell you the texture is spot-on. It’s soft, creamy, frozen and very sweet, since the bananas are ripe. Since I’m a dieting rebel, though, I added a few tbsp. of nutella to the soft serve mixture. It was like eating marbled ice cream…very yummy and not too too bad for you!

If you have ripe bananas and a few extra minutes on your hands, definitely try this banana “ice cream”. It’s just too easy not to!

Banana Nutella “Ice Cream”
Source: adapted from The Kitchn

Ingredients:

• 4-6 very ripe bananas
• 3 tbsp. nutella

Directions:

1. Slice bananas into small bites and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
2. Freeze the bananas for 2-3 hours or overnight.
3. Place the banana slices in a food processor and pulse until smooth.
4. Place the “ice cream” in a bowl and swirl in the nutella.
5. Freeze for a couple of hours until set, if you’d prefer a scoop-able ice cream. Eat immediately if you prefer soft serve.

This past weekend, I bought a flat of strawberries. Since it’s the peak of the season, how could I not? It took me about an hour to slice up a flat of strawberries, and as delicious as they are on their own, I figured I had to make SOMETHING with them!

Well, a couple of weeks ago, one of my awesome food blogger friends, Serena of Big Apple Nosh, filled me in on a new challenge that she’s doing on her blog: The NoshGirl Chef Challenge! The challenge features two common ingredients, and each blogger has to come up with a recipe idea using those ingredients. The two ingredients for the challenge were plain yogurt and brown sugar. Since I had these strawberries on hand, I definitely wanted to also feature them in my recipe.

I really didn’t come up with the idea until this morning. Talk about last minute! I was debating between a coffee cake, a cookie or something frozen. Well, it’s already feeling like summer out here, so I had to do the frozen idea. I was worried about using brown sugar instead of regular sugar, but it really goes well with the strawberries. The addition of orange zest and juice also brings out the flavor of the strawberries really well. I really love how this turned out!

Strawberry-Orange Frozen Yogurt
Source: an original

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. strawberries, chopped and hulled
• 1 5 oz. container of plain greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tsp. orange zest
• 1 tsp. orange juice
• 1 tsp. vodka

Directions:

1. Place the chopped strawberries and brown sugar in a bowl, stir the mixture together and allow to chill in the refrigerator for about an hour for the sugar to sort of dissolve into the strawberries.
2. Place the strawberry mixture, yogurt, heavy cream, zest, juice and vodka in a blender and blend until pureed.
3. Pour the mixture in an ice cream maker and mix according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
4. Let the frozen yogurt set in the freezer for a couple of hours, and enjoy! (Note: If you serve this a couple of hours out of the freezer, it will be the perfect texture. I found that the longer I left it in the freezer, the icier the frozen yogurt became, because strawberries tend to contain a lot of water and can contribute to an icier texture when pureed.)