Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream

With so much hot weather in Southern California these first three weeks of autumn, I'm feeling frustrated that it's too hot to curl up with a good book and blanket and sip on pumpkin spice lattes. What's this fall-loving girl supposed to do when I have to endure the opposite of fall weather every day...Well here it is! The perfect compromise of warm weather relief with fall flavor. Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream!
This has got to be the best find of the year. I saw this recipe for three-ingredient ice cream on Facebook and it inspired me to try it at home with one of my favorite seasonal instant coffees, Maxwell House's Pumpkin Spice Latte. I know it may not be a Starbucks Latte but for this girl on a budget and no time to wait for thirty minutes for a fancy coffee...this is the next best thing!

This is an insanely easy and delicious Pumpkin Spiced Latte Ice Cream! It contains no eggs, so it's lighter tasting. Which I find refreshing, especially with all this hot weather. Just to put it in prespective how hot it got in the Los Angeles area yesterday, it was 102 degrees in my neck of the woods. We were hotter than Las Vegas and Dallas! It was ridiculous!  
Anyway, back to the ice cream...It's delicious all by itself or topped with your favorite sauce. I drizzled mine with caramel but you can skip the caramel sauce and serve it a la mode with pumpkin pie. Can you imagine...pumpkin pie with pumpkin spice latte ice cream? Yummy. 
Another great thing about this recipe is that it's versatile. You can use just about any flavored coffee...mocha latte, vanilla, peppermint spice and even hazelnut coffee. The combinations are endless. Stay cool and enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream

Adapted recipe from Tip Hero via Facebook
Serves 4-6

2 1/2 cups Whipping Cream

1 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk

5-6 t. Maxwell House International Pumpkin Spice Latte Instant Coffee/Creamer, dissolved in 1/2 cup of regular coffee and then cooled to room temperature.

Mix 5-6 heaping teaspoons of Maxwell House International Pumpkin Spice Latte instant coffee into 1/2 cup regular hot coffee. Stir until fully dissolved. Place coffee in refrigerator to cool about 20 minutes. (I made my instant coffee mixture the night before so it would be ready in the morning.)

In a large bowl add condensed milk and coffee and whipping cream. Using a hand mixer, whip ice cream mixture until fluffy peaks are stiff. ~5 minutes. 

Pour mixture into a freezer safe dish and cover with plastic wrap and freeze 8 hours or overnight. Scoop, top with your favorite sauce, and Enjoy!

Other desserts to try:
                      Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes          Cinnamon Cheesecake Cookies

Monster Morsels

I know I probably say this every time I make a dessert for the blog, but I'm not much of a dessert person. I used to be when I was in my teens and twenties but sometime in the last 20 years, I've lost my taste for the sweet stuff. 
Give me a meal with salad and I'm good, but occasionally I do crave a little something sweet, like chocolate or cheesecake, but my favorite cookie would have to be SHORTBREAD, hands down!
Buttery, delicious and not too sweet! This is definitely my kind of dessert! I seriously could eat these little morsels every morning with a cup of coffee. If I hadn't taken these little bites of wonderful to school for a PTA meeting, I would of eaten every single last one all by myself. I already ate two dozen right out of the oven!
Make a big batch of them and watch your little monsters devour them!

Happy Halloween!

Monster Morsels (Mini Shortbread Cookies) 

Boo! Bites recipe from Seeded at the Table

Makes ~9 dozen bite-sized cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 t vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 t salt
2 T nonpareils Halloween sprinkles

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Cream together butter and sugar and add vanilla. Add flour and salt to stand mixer and mix on low until incorporated. Stir in the Halloween sprinkles by hand until evenly distributed.

On parchment paper, form dough into a rectangle. I used the edge of a spatula to square off the edges. Then I used a regular rolling pin to smooth out the surface of the dough.

I decided to fancy up this deliciously simple cookie recipe by using my super cool engraved rolling pin that my mom gave me last year. I think they turned out pretty neat. Don't you? 
(Thanks mom! XO)

Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into 1 inch cookies. Place cookies one inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 13-15 minutes at 325 degree oven. Cool and enjoy!

Other Halloween Desserts to try:
Black Velvet Creme Cakes  Candy Corn Sugar Cookies  Zombie Pretzel Cookies

Spicy Roasted Cauliflower

I had this idea to make a Halloween inspired dish from cauliflower because lets face it, it looks like brains. Perfect Halloween material right? I figured there's a great side dish or salad in the making. The problem is, cauliflower pretty much tastes like water. Not much flavor going on. It's like chunky H2O. Unless you smother it in a cheese sauce or salad dressing it's pretty bland. This recipe however is the farthest thing from bland-ville.

The cauliflower is roasted and basted in a sweet, spicy, and garlicky sauce that's so delicious that even my husband loved it and he is NOT a fan of cauliflower...he had two servings.  

Slicing the cauliflower into flat patties does a few things. One it makes them look like cross-sections of cerebrums. Which is way cool and creepy for a Halloween inspired side dish. Two, it helps infuse the sauce better because the florets are smaller bites of cauliflower. And three, it makes for quick, easy, and even roasting. 

This recipe was so yummy and the pictures turned out so beautiful that the plating doesn't look much like a Halloween dish. But like all my Halloween recipes, they can be made any time of the year, not just for Halloween, just change up the plating to de-Halloween-ify it.

This would be a perfect side dish with my Midnight Sushi with Wasabi Skulls and a cool Fangtini. Enjoy!

Roasted Brains (Spicy Roasted Cauliflower)

Serves 4

1 head of Cauliflower, florets cut into thin flats of cauliflower

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 T toasted sesame oil
3 T soy sauce
3-4 T sriracha (to taste)
1 clove garlic, finely minced (I used Dorot garlic cubes)
juice of one lime
2 T honey
green onions (garnish)
black sesame seeds(garnish)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix vegetable and sesame oils, soy sauce, sriracha, garlic, and lime juice and give a quick stir. Note: The honey is not added at this point to prevent the sauce from burning during roasting. The honey will be added to the leftover sauce after basting the cauliflower. 

On a parchment lined cookie sheet, place cauliflower florets in a single layer. Baste one side of cauliflower flats with spicy sauce (with no honey added). Set leftover sauce aside.


Roast 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes. 

Add the honey to the leftover sauce and mix well. Add additional sriracha if desired. Or if you didn't have much remaining, make a new batch of sauce, this time adding all the ingredients at one time. 

Remove cauliflower from the oven and baste generously with the spicy sauce with honey. Transfer to a bowl or platter garnish with green onions and black sesame seeds and Enjoy!

Other Halloween recipes to try: 
Love at First Bite Linguini               Black Magic Spellcakes               Midnight Sushi

Zombie Pretzel Cookies

It's time for a super cute and fun ZOMBIE cookie using Rold Gold Pretzel Thins! I made these fun pretzel dipped cookies despite my last promise to NEVER, EVER MAKE ANYTHING WITH THOSE DREADFUL CANDY MELTS! However...my competitive nature lured me back to give it another go.  I just could not let those confectionery buggers get the best of me. 
This is a terrific recipe for the "melting chocolate challenged" folks, like me because they don't have to be perfect! They're Zombies! They're supposed to look cock-eyed and a little disheveled. My kids loved them, said they tasted like Mother's Circus Animal Cookies! That's a win in my book!...not that I'm keeping score or anything.


Castellon's Kitchen-1(Yay!)   Candy Melts-2

Zombie Pretzel Cookies 

(Makes 12)

12 Rold Gold Pretzels, Pretzel Thins

1/2 bag of light green candy melts plus 3 chips of black to darken the green to a moldy hue

black melting chocolate

red melting chocolate

white melting chocolate

24 candy eyeballs

Chocolate jimmies

Prepare the Zombie Eyes:
From the pack of Candy eyeballs, pick out the misshaped candy eyeballs and some that are off-center. Pair these wonky ones with the small perfect eyeballs. Mixing the big and the small eyeballs will make for great zombie eyes. Set aside.
Now, place 10 or so black candy melts chips in a small zippered sandwich bag and melt in microwave for one minute at half power. Knead until melted.  Cut small hole into a corner of the plastic bag. On a separate piece of parchment paper, Squeeze out small dots of black chocolate and then place a candy eyeball onto the black chocolate. Refrigerate until set.

 

Prepare Zombie Teeth:
Melt two white chocolate chips on a piece of parchment for about 20 seconds in the microwave. Using a butter knife, smooth out the chocolate into a thin coating. Let harden. Using a sharp knife, cut white chocolate into small irregular squares. These will be the zombie teeth. It's okay if they break or look jagged, that adds to the zombie feel of the cookies. Plus you can now proudly state that they're supposed to look like that and not worry that you've done them wrong. We'll call it dramatic license. :)

Prepare Zombie Dipping Chocolate:

Prepare the moldy green chocolate by heating 1/2 bag of light green chips plus 3 chips of black in a small bowl, according to package directions. Add 1/2 T of shortening if you need to thin the chocolate out a bit. 
Once thoroughly melted, drop pretzels in one at a time and use a fork lift it out of the chocolate. Gently tap the fork on the side of the bowl to shake off extra chocolate. 


Place chocolate covered pretzel on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining pretzels. 
While the chocolate is still wet, sprinkle tops of pretzels with chocolate jimmies to create the zombie hair. 

Next, place your Zombie eyes into the wet chocolate. Don't worry if your chocolate covered pretzel has hardened, simply scoop a tablespoon of your moldy green chocolate from your bowl into a zippered sandwich bag and melt in microwave. Dot a small amount of the green chocolate on the pretzel and place the zombie eyes. Ta-Dah!

Zombie Mouth:

Place 10-12 chips of red melting chocolate into a zippered sandwich bag and melt for about 30 seconds at half power. Knead until melted, heating as necessary. Cut a small corner of the bag and pipe a small line of red chocolate to make the mouth. Using a toothpick, place 3-5 zombie teeth into the red chocolate. Again, if they look goofy and caddiwampus...Dramatic license! Just repeat these words as you place the teeth..."BRAINS!...I NEED BRAINS!"

Get your kiddos into the Halloween spirit and make mobs of these undead cookies! Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

Guacamoldy Mousse

Today is my 46th birthday and I got to spend most of the day by myself which is exactly what I needed. My kids were at school, husband at work and I effectively shrugged off all unnecessary obligations, much to the dismay of some of my friends that were anxious to do something with me last weekend and today. Last year, I celebrated my "Half way to 90" birthday by renting a limo with my girlfriends where we painted the town with wine and vodka sodas, like we were in our twenties again. It was tons of fun. But this year, not so much. These last few months have been tough ones for me and to be honest, I just didn't feel like celebrating my birthday. I don't have it in me to fake it and be social because inside I just feel sad. Next week, I fly out to Texas to bury my father who passed away in July. His last wish was to be buried near his parents in Texas, so next week my brother and sisters will finally lay him to rest. Maybe it's not just sadness that I feel, I guess I also feel guilty because I've been so busy with getting through all the daily things in life that I haven't spent any time, since his memorial, grieving for my father. I feel numb like I'm just moving through obligation to obligation. Not happy, not upset, but just automatically taking care of the task at hand, with little outward feelings about it. But inwardly, I have lots of feelings...like "I hate doing this" "Why am I having to take care of all these things?" and "I just want to be left alone".
As next weekend approaches, I feel anxious and sad. Next weekend makes it final because buring him next to his parents is the last bit of help my father will need from me. He won't need my help anymore and since I've spend the greater part of the last 15 years caring for him in some way each week, I find myself feeling the gravity and finality of losing him. ...I love you Daddy. 

I realize that this was not the best introduction for this recipe..This is just what I wanted to write about today...

Guacamoldy Mousse

1  large avocado
1 -8oz. package cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 c. fresh cilantro, loosely packed
1/2 cup Serrano chile 
juice of 2 limes
1 t. salt (to taste)
2 t. cumin
1 t. onion powder
1 t. garlic powder
red chile flakes (to taste)
1 cup cold water, divided
2-1/4oz. envelopes unflavored gelatin


Tape up openings of Halloween Mask like this...

Spray inside of taped mask with cooking spray.Set aside.

Combine avocado, cream cheese, cilantro, chiles and lime juice in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add cumin, salt, onion and garlic powders and red chile flakes until desired spiciness and set aside. 
(Note: I made this recipe spicy so adjust amount of chile to your preference. Reduce the amount of Serrano chiles and/or omit the red chile flakes if milder spice is desired.)
 
In a small bowl, add 1/2 cup of the water and the two envelopes of gelatin and stir. Heat the other 1/2 cup of water in the microwave until boiling, about 1-2 minutes. Add the boiling water into bowl of gelatin and stir until fully dissolved.
With the food processor on high, add the gelatin to the food processor insert to slowly incorporate the gelatin to the avocado/cheese mixture. Continue to puree on high until all the gelatin has drained out of the insert. 

Taste your mousse and add more salt or seasonings as needed.
 
Pour the mixture into the prepared mask mold and cover with plastic wrap. refrigerate for 2 hours or until mixture is set. To serve, invert mask onto a platter. The mask is not rigid so it's easy to coax the mousse out with a little squeeze of the mask. For more rigid molds, place bottom of the mold in hot water for about 30 seconds and then invert on your serving plate.
Serve with tortilla chips. 

Other Halloween-inspired appetizers to try:
Ghoulish Goat Cheese Torte                     Spiderweb Eggs                            Amputated Appetizer