Its been a shamefully long time since Ive blogged.

Partly because I hit a plateau in the diet; I havent lost weight in a while and weve been eating the same handful of recipes over and over again so there hasnt been much to say. The fella also disappeared to Boston for a man vacation for a couple weeks and my single girl menus were nothing to brag about. Lastly with spring has come a full social schedule which hasnt left me time to sleep let alone write. I know, excuses, excuses.

No worries, during this time Ive continued to cook a few new and interesting things and I have a bunch of wine to tell you about. Hopefully Ill have some time to write about all of this soon. First I have to tell you about my newest obsession.

Ice cream.

A little fairy (okay it was my mother) left an ice cream maker for me a couple weeks ago and I havent stopped experimenting with ice cream since. Custards sweetened with agave nectar work really well so these have been some very tasty experiments. It also helped that I discovered David Lebovitz about this same time. This man knows what hes talking about when it comes to frozen treats so Ive stuck with his recipes thus far and been very happy.

Writing about food comes with a fair amount of hyperbole and metaphor but there is none of that when I say this is the best ice cream ever created . I mean it literally. Make this ice cream and you could seduce anyone. It could get you a promotion. You could probably use it to get out of jail. Okay now Im exaggerating but it really is that good.

Not only is it amazingly sweet and rich it is super easy. These four simple components make it taste like you spent hours slaving over complex mixtures of mysterious sweet ingredients. The secret really is the saffron which pairs perfectly with the coconut milk and creates a unfathomably delicious flavor. It tastes like....something. You cant quite wrap your mind around what but its fabulous and comforting and coats all of your taste buds in a halo of yum.

Ive already made this twice. The first time I made the recipe as is (all I changed was to use agave in place of his sugar) and it was enough to share with a friend after dinner. So I had to be a bitchy foodie running around telling people how good it was but not having any proof. The next time I quadrupled the recipe and that was the perfect amount of this. It was enough for the fella and I to nibble on for over a week and share with a few people so they could see what I was talking about.

If you have an ice cream maker you have to make this, its too simple and too good not too. If you dont have a machine Mr. Lebovitz has you covered. So go, now.

Coconut Milk and Saffron Ice Cream

2/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup coconut milk
scant 1/4 cup agave nectar
scant 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

In a medium-sized saucepan, bring all the ingredients to a boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer gently for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and chill the mixture thoroughly.

Once chilled, freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers directions. Once churned, be sure to scrape any saffron threads clinging to the dasher back in to the ice cream.

Vow to never buy store bought ice cream again.

Original recipe by David Lebovitz on his blog Living the Sweet Life in Paris.

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This is one the strangest things Ive ever made which is saying a lot considering I cooked frog legs for New Years, once spent 8 hours waiting for ox tail soup to finish cooking and made green fairy ice cream for the fellas birthday.  And that isnt to say it wasnt tasty because it truly was but in an odd am-I-really-putting-this-in-my-mouth kind of way.  First of all its so high in fat and all that naughtiness that even as someone on a low carb diet I felt weird eating it.  Secondly fried cheese and pineapple in the same dish?  Thats just crazy.  Yummy but crazy.  And like so many things, this meal is all the fault of the fella and the chef.

See the fella went through a faze a while back where he was buying a ridiculous amount of pineapples.  We always seemed to have 2 in the fruit bowl.  It was as if I would cut one up and put it in the fridge to snack on when another would appear in the house magically while my back was turned.  And I like pineapple but those suckers are labor intensive to cut up so eventually I got fed up with the pineapple and left one to languish in the bowl figuring if the fella wanted to keep buying them he could cut the freaking pineapple up himself.

You know, typically passive aggressive chick behavior towards someone youve lived with for a while and drives you crazy in the best possible ways (mostly) and occasionally drives you to perform small scale sociological experiments to find out if the other person of their volition will ever do the thing youre sick of doing when it stops magically getting done for them.  Why does this ever seem like a good idea?  It never works.

Anyway at some point the chef came over and he noticed the pathetic pineapple and in his typical fashion started dreaming up totally insane things to do with it.  I just shook my head and hoped to not encourage the behavior.  The fella then hops in with the helpful suggestion "Lets smoke it."  Which then became plans to fry it or, marinate it in fish sauce or turn into a hat rack.  Who knows by then I was in my happy place thinking about socks and puppies and ignoring them both.  When I drifted back into the conversation they were contemplating using apple wood to smoke the poor pineapple then debating whether that was kosher or not.  All this at 8AM or so.  This is my life.

It was then I  knew I would have to give up my silent pineapple cutting strike.  So being that this was during the great early winter paneer surplus I went looking for a crazy Indian recipe that would take care of the remaining paneer and the pineapple at the same time.  Imagine my surprise when such a recipe existed.  I gathered the ingredients to cook this that night before the pineapple fell into the hands of philosophical extremists.  Image how surprised I was when what started as a joke ended up as a great dinner.  The super sweet pineapple somehow works with the salty paneer to make something wonderful.

I cant make any of this up.  Its all true.  So long story short, if youre looking for a really interesting curry to impress yourself and anyone lucky enough to be eating with you, this is it.  Pineapple curry, who knew?

Paneer Bagh E-Bahar

1 cup paneer cubes (about ½ pound)

1 cup yellow or red pepper, chopped

1 cup pineapple, chopped

1 cup tomato, chopped

1/4 cup cashews

1/2 cup cream

2 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon garlic, finely chopped

2 green chillies, finely chopped

2 tablespoon tomato sauce

Cut paneer, pepper, pineapple and tomato all into 1 inch pieces.

Make a paste of cashew nuts by placing them in food processor along with a few teaspoons of water and grinding until smooth. Add the cream and process again briefly.

Heat oil in deep frying pan over medium high heat to fry garlic and chilies until browned. Mix in the cashew paste. Increase heat and stir fry pepper in cashew and garlic mixture until softened. Add pineapple and tomatoes and stir frequently until cooked through. Mix in paneer, tomato sauce and salt and pepper to taste.

Stir fry one minute longer, combining ingredients fully. Serve sprinkled with a couple tablespoons of cream.

Original recipe from Indian Food Forever.

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