Ice Cream Cake

We decided, with it being a hot weekend forecast, that we'd make an ice cream cake... having flirted, (momentarily) with thoughts of making a gluten free 'arctic roll' type ice-cream-filled-roulade, common sense (and laziness) returned.  A silicone cake mould had been bought a few weeks before and we had some Swedish Glace vanilla in the freezer... that, with some added extras, would be our simple cake! 

The 'main' ingredients used were a whole pot of vanilla Swedish glace and mixed nuts.  We used pecans, pistachios and macadamias in the cake.  Flaked almonds were used on the top together with a few of the pistachios.

If we'd had them, we would have put in some gluten free mini macaroons/amaretti biscuits or honeycomb to add a bit of crunch to the mix.

Using a whole pot of Swedish Glace, we put it in a bowl and softened it up by stirring.



 Taking our assortment of nuts, they were lightly toasted in a hot frying pan (don't leave them for long, they catch and burn quickly) then allowed to cool.



The cooled, toasted nuts were then roughly chopped...





... before being added to the softened vanilla ice cream.  Sous Chef J had a bit of a struggle to get the mixture combined but managed it in the end.


Next, the nut and ice cream mix was added to the silicone mould, which was then put in a large plastic bag and put in the freezer overnight (or you could leave it

longer) to re-freeze.

Once it was nearly time to serve the ice cream cake, we had to 'ice' it... to do this we made a ganache using equal volumes of dark chocolate and double cream.   The cream was heated to just below boiling point, allowed to cool slightly and then the chocolate was added and stirred well until it was smooth and glossy.

Whilst we were letting the ganache cool, we turned out the cake from the silicone mould. This was surprisingly easy.



The 'cake' looked pretty impressive and was ready to be 'iced'.

Taking the cooled chocolate ganache, it was gently spread over the ice cream cake and allowed to 'find its level' - aka leak all over!

When the chocolate ganache had been added, we sprinkled over the remaining pistachios and flaked almonds together with some chocolate stars I'd found in the cupboard.

The cake was then returned to the freezer, briefly.  Finally, we sprinkled over some dried raspberries to go with the fresh raspberries we added to the final dish for serving.

Special Spicy Noodle Stir Fry

This is a dish that is very flexible in content - basically depending upon what we have to hand - but is broadly made up using nuts, rice noodles and vegs with added gluten free soy sauce (or tamari) and sweet chilli sauce.  It's vegan, spicy and quick to make.

The pictures used in this post are from two different meals but you can see that the general ingredients are as listed above!

We gathered together the ingredients, chopped/sliced the vegs - in this pic it was orange and yellow peppers, carrots, cavalo nero leaf and stem, cherry tomatoes, frozen peas and sweetcorn, garlic, root ginger and spring onion.  Also, we added cashews (although peanuts work OK too).

Using a tablespoonful of oil, we fried off the garlic, ginger and spring onions. 

The rice noodles were put in boiling water for about 5 minutes whilst we stir fried the veg mix trying to stirfry them to make sure they cooked consistently.  So we cooked the carrots and stems first then added the peppers and tomatoes.








Having drained the noodles, they were also added to the wok with the soy sauce and chilli sauce and it was mixed through.

That's it... as simple as that!  Once the prep is done (which I often get done before the evening dog walk) it's a case of heating the wok, adding the ingredients, stir frying and serving up.  We often also have prawn crackers to accompany the dish.

The picture at the top and below shows a completed stir fry which used red peppers, cauliflower florets, broccoli, carrots, cashews, rice noodles, peas and sweetcorn.  Basically, we make the stir fry as colourful as possible and it's one of Sous Chef J's meal of choice.

Speedy Mushroom Sauce

Things are not quite 'right' here at the moment. Sous Chef J is rather unwell (more on that in later posts, I should think) and, as a result our life is even more chaotic than usual.

Luckily, we were sent some samples of Boursin Cheese the other week and during a lunchtime fridge audit (those of you that follow me on twitter may recognise that term!) I spotted the Garlic and Herb Boursin loitering alongside a few mushrooms.  It wasn't a great leap of culinary genius that lead to my mind coming up with a plan to use them together but a moment of thinking "that'd go well together"... so I gathered the ingredients and set about trying an ad hoc concoction.

An onion was finely chopped and fried in a little oil over a low heat for a few minutes during which time the mushrooms were cleaned, de-stalked and chopped.   The 3 chestnut mushrooms (they were quite large) and a handful of button mushrooms were added to the frying onions and a knob of butter was added.  This was all then left over a low heat for about 10 minutes to sweat down.  A squeeze of lemon juice was added to the pan and mixed well.

The mushroom mix was then drained in a sieve to remove excess moisture.  It was then blitzed using our Braun stick blender.

Finally, a whole pack of "Boursin Ail & Fines Herbes" was added and quickly whizzed to combine.  The mix was then placed in a jar and stored in the fridge until teatime when we cooked some Dove's Farm Gluten Free Pasta, drained it, returned it to the cooking pan and mixed the mushroom sauce through. 

We thought it was delicious, although in his current, under the weather state, am sorry to report that Sous Chef J would "not even taste a molecule". 

However, we tried half of the summer flavour Sun Ripened Tomato, Onion and Chive Boursin stirred through the warm pasta and the young Chef's plate was cleared so fast, there was no time for a photo! 

To use up the remainder of the pack, we also added the cheese to a salad to accompany our steamed salmon the next night making another quick and tasty meal. 

Thanks to Kirsty for sending the samples.  They've provided us with the chance to make speedy, tasty food when we've really needed to be spending as little time as possible on daily chores.