CHOCOLATE DIPPED ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

Come June, my head spins as end-of-the-year school functions approach with rapid fire. And this year, I also find myself in the last week of finishing the manuscript for my book, which feels very much like giving birth to a 3rd child! Life is extremely busy, and can feel like a bit of a whirlwind for someone like me who enjoys being social, but also craves slowness and quiet.

My natural clock keeps telling me it's time for summer vacation - my inner teenager wants to sleep 'til noon, laze around in the sun, read trashy novels, and gobble ice cream sandwiches while belting out, "School's out for summer... School's out forever..."

Have you tried an It's-It? Ice cream, sandwiched between two oatmeal cookies, then dipped in chocolate... that's right. That's the kind of summer treat I'm craving these days. It's-Its were created in San Francisco in the 1920s and you can still find them tucked into ice cream freezers all over the West Coast. When I saw a recipe for homemade It's-Its in Jennie Schacht's charming new book, I knew I had to make them with Lilah and her buddy, Anni.

I hummed Alice Cooper the whole time.

INGREDIENTS - slightly adapted from Jennie Schacht's I Scream Sandwich!
(printable recipe)

Oatmeal Cookies:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour {GF folks: I use Pamela's Bread Mix and Flour Blend}
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• generous pinch of sea salt
• 1 1/2 cup rolled oats {GF folks: be sure to buy GF oats}
• optional: 1/2 cup raisins

Chocolate Shell:

• 1/2 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil

 Ice Cream: Jennie makes her own, but I was too lazy this week.

• Store-bought vanilla ice cream for filling. For those of your who can't tolerate dairy, try Coconut Bliss... it's really creamy and good. {GF friends: be sure to check the ice cream label to be certain it's gluten-free}

Preheat oven to 350.

First, go ahead and make your cookies. In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, or using a medium mixing bowl with a hand-mixer, cream together butter and sugar.  Add egg and vanilla. Blend until ingredients are integrated.

In a separate small mixing bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. While the standing mixer is still whirling, slowly add the dry ingredients. Finally, add oats to the batter. Mix until batter is well blended.

Line 1-2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop dough onto the lined cookie sheets. Jennie very wisely suggests making 24 tablespoon size cookies. (We went ahead and made 14 bigger cookies - piggies, I know. From here on out, I'll stick to Jennie's reasonable portions!) Give the cookies some room to spread during baking, and use your fingertips to flatten the dough a bit, flatter disk-shaped cookies make for more manageable ice cream sandwiches.

Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes until golden, rotating the cookie sheets halfway through baking to ensure even browning.  Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on their baking sheet, then transfer them to a rack to finish cooling.

Once cookies have cooled completely, scoop (slightly softened) ice cream between two cookies to make a sandwich. Stick the prepared sandwiches in the freezer on a parchment-lined baking sheet to chill thoroughly before dipping them into the chocolate shell.

Making the chocolate shell... Gently melt chocolate with coconut oil in a double boiler, or microwave. Once the chocolate is warm, liquidy, and smooth, stir and you've got your dipping chocolate.

Take each fully-frozen ice cream sandwich, and dip it halfway into the the melted chocolate. Let the drips fall away and then return the dipped sandwich to your cold, parchment-lined baking sheet.  Freeze the sandwiches again for 15 minutes, until the chocolate had chilled and hardened.

Eat and enjoy! Wrap any extra ice cream sandwiches in parchment and store them in the freezer until you're ready to munch again.

makes 12 ice cream sandwiches (we made 7 monster-size sandwiches, but I will definitely stick with a more manageable size next time)


Happy Summer everyone!!!

If you want more summer ice cream deliciousness, check out Phyllis' genius recipe for S'Mores Ice Cream on Food 52...

STONEHOUSE OLIVE OIL + BLOOD ORANGE BROWNIES

Back in September, Trish from Stonehouse Olive Oil hired me to shoot some new images for her website. When I got Trish's call - I was stoked at the opportunity to work for a woman who is passionate about her business, especially when that business is such a delicious one. I first met Trish almost 20 years ago when she and P worked together at Alice Waters' Cafe Fanny - as long as I've known her, she has dedicated her life to good food. I'm guessing that many of you are probably already familiar with Stonehouse from their shop at the SF Ferry Building. If you don't know these oils, you should. They are awesome, and I am totally hooked.

The photos above are from a field trip last month to Talcott Ranch in Carneros. When Trish offered to let me tag along, I jumped at the chance to walk through an olive grove at harvest time - the array of olive trees dripping with ripe fruit was simply breathtaking. Getting to see, touch, and smell the place where my food comes from always inspires me and makes me quite hungry!

Trish's life has been all about olive oil for over 15 years. Being food obsessed myself, one my favorite things about this project has been hearing Trish share her knowledge of oils and her food philosophy in general. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and I wanted to share with you guys...

Erin: So many of us food-lovers are ultra conscious of where our produce comes from, but we don't always have the same depth of knowledge about olive oil. The seemingly countless olive oils lining the market shelves can be daunting for consumers. Plus, all the controversy about bogus extra virgin oils from Europe has left me all the more confused. What are you guys up to at Stonehouse?

Trish: Here at Stonehouse, we taste through all our oils at the end of crush (harvest time) and select only the oils that are fabulous. I use our oils all the time, and we have a very loyal following that keeps us honest! We also have our oils certified but the COOC, the California Olive Oil Council, which has some of the most stringent extra virgin requirements in the world.  The COOC  is the best insurance a customer has these days to make sure they're buying the real deal.

It's overwhelming how corrupt the international olive oil industry is. Although it makes perfect sense, when you consider olive oil is one of the top commodities in the world, worth billions and billions, and it is incredibly unregulated.  It is not an exaggeration to say most of the extra virgin olive oils in the supermarket are not only NOT extra virgin, but not even 100% olive oil.  For people who want to know more, Tom Mueller wrote a great article for The New Yorker years ago, and followed it up with a book this year, for those who want to geek out on the subject. 

Erin: Name a few food artisans/cooks/purveyors who inspire you? 

Trish: There are so many!  I have to give 1st nod to Full Belly and Riverdog farms, as probably 70-80% of what I eat is grown by them.  Alice Waters and Michael Pollen get a lot of press in the food movement, and deservedly so, but the farmers themselves are the biggest heroes for me, because they really have skin in the game-- their lives on the line, their physical bodies-- in a way writers or restaurateurs do not.

And Capay Valley is a special place for me. It's been a pleasure to watch the farmers there grow and become part of the Farmer's Market revolution that has culminated with the opening of the Ferry Building in 2003, which is a kind of mecca for me.  Even after 10 years, I still feel blessed and weepy every time I walk into that building.  It's so gorgeous I feel lucky and honored to be a part of it.  And we're one of the most successful stores in there, which still blows my mind. Sometimes I think, wait, do I really have a store here? or am I dreaming?


Erin: What are your most dogeared cookbooks?

Trish:  The #1 most beat up is Fields of Greens, partially because it's 20 years old and one of my 1st cookbooks.  As a young vegetarian it was my 'joy of cooking,' my go-to bible.  Many of my standard dishes are from that book.  I guess I've turned back to it now because of my health issues and it has the 60's/70's cross cultural cooking I still like.  Remember the 1st time you made gazpacho and felt sophisticated?  

Alice's The Art of Simple Food is great - it feels like the culmination of all her years of experience.   I like the variations of the recipes she offers, so that each recipe really has 5-6 versions, which is how I cook, rarely the same exact thing twice.  Her Vegetables is a standby as well. 

Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi is a newer cookbook I'm cooking my way through and loving (Jerusalem is on it's way).  I'm also big on blogs these days for inspiration--Smitten Kitchen and Heidi, and of course Yummy Supper!

STONEHOUSE BLOOD ORANGE BROWNIES 

These brownies are not your standard fare. They do have all that dense chocolate goodness you want out of a brownie, plus the blood orange oil, quinoa flour, yogurt, and ample dose of cinnamon make for a surprising and healthful bite. With ingredients like these, we could even eat brownies for breakfast. Yum!

INGREDIENTS - thank you Trish!
{printable recipe}

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder (Trish suggests Valhrona, 100% cacao)
• 1 cup quinoa flour
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon Ceylon Cinnamon (or a 1/2 teaspoon standard cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 1/3 cup Stonehouse Blood Orange Olive Oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Into a medium mixing bowl, sift dry cocoa, quinoa flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and salt - dry whisk to mix, set aside.

In a standing mixer, or using a hand mixer, blend the eggs together then add yogurt, blood orange oil, and vanilla and mix until combined. Slowly add dry ingredients into the mixing bowl. Continue to mix until well blended.

Wipe the insides of a 8x10 inch pan with a little bit of Blood Orange Oil. Pour the batter in and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

TEA + COOKIES

I don't want to get too heavy on you, though I have to admit, this is an intense week. One of my favorite people on this planet is getting ready for a really tough surgery. Maybe it's my coping mechanisms kicking in...  but I needed to bake some cookies. Crispy, chewy cookies. Comforting, easy cookies. In fact, you may not even have to go to the store to buy ingredients for these little guys, because they are made with just a few simple pantry ingredients. 

Cookie-making highlights....

Getting to stay in my pajamas while I cooked. 

The smell of the almond extract when I whisk the egg whites.

Eating cookies and tea before lunch.

The warm heat of the oven on a gray and rainy day.

AMARETTI  adapted from Patricia Well's Tratoria
(printable recipe)

• 1/3 cup egg whites (whites from 2-3 eggs) - warmed to room temperature
• 3/4 cups finely ground blanched almonds 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350.

If you are pulling your eggs from the fridge, you can quickly bring them to room temperature by submerging them in a bowl of warm water.

In a medium bowl, mix ground almonds and sugar.

In another bowl, whisk egg whites and almond extract. Doesn't that smell good! 

Pour whisked egg into the bowl with the almonds and sugar, stir, and you'll have a sticky batter that's ready to bake.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop 1/2 teaspoon dollops of batter on to the parchment paper. Leave plenty of room around each cookie so they can spread.  Wells suggests baking only 12 cookies on a sheet, and that worked well for me.

Bake for 11-15 minutes. The cookies are done when the outsides are golden brown and the middle is a little firm. Remove from the oven and place cookies (while still on the parchment) onto a cooling rack. The cookies will crisp up quickly and be ready to eat.

Boy, were those easy and good. I'm satisfied now.



Makes 3 dozen cookies. These should keep up to 10 days in an airtight container.