Cool off with peach ice cream, cucumber soup
Good morning on this sure-to-be-glorious August day. We’ve got two requests from Mrs. Odell Waddell, for soft tacos, “preferably cheese, but all kinds are welcome,” and a chimichurri sauce for meats and other dishes.
JUST PEACHY
On a recent morning I bit into a tasty white peach and then picked up the mail. Carrie Potts was writing with a recipe for homemade peach ice cream. This is the season, so here is her recipe.
Ms. Potts wrote, “My mother saved this recipe from The Chattanooga Times, July 15, 1965. I have used it ever since.”
And here are her adjustments. “I make 1 1/2 gallons of this and adjust the recipe. I blend peaches in the blender and therefore can put them in at the beginning of the freezing process. I start eating as soon as the electric freezer stops and store the rest in small Tupperware containers, and it keeps in my freezer until I can eat it. It has never gotten icy. Don’t overfill the freezer tub or adjust recipe by cutting down on cream. If you can’t eat cream, don’t make it. Yellow peaches make the best ice cream. Also, do not overfill the can. It will not freeze hard enough.”
Old-Fashioned Peach Ice Cream
2 cups crushed fresh ripe peaches
1⁄3 cup sugar
1⁄8 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1 cup sugar
1⁄8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 ½ cups milk, divided
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream
Combine peaches with 1⁄3 cup sugar and almond extract, if using. Set aside.
Combine the 1 cup sugar, salt and flour in a saucepan. Blend in eggs and ¼ cup of the milk. Add remaining milk, and cook over low heat until mixture coats a metal spoon, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and cool.
Stir in pure vanilla extract and heavy cream. Pour into a 2-quart freezer can. Place can in a frozen tub. Cover with lid. Pack with coarse ice cream salt and crushed ice, using about 1 part salt to 8 parts ice.
When ice cream is half frozen, open and pour in peaches. Turn until hard to turn. Remove gear case, lid and dasher. Pack down ice cream with a spoon. Cover can with a piece of aluminum foil and replace lid. Cork or cover hole in top of lid. Drain off water and pack tub with salt and crushed ice, using 1 part salt to 4 parts ice. Let stand at least 2 hours to ripen and become firm.
Yield: ½ gallon or 8 to 12 servings.
FAVORITE COLESLAW
Clifford Burdette is up next. “You requested help with coleslaw. This is my favorite recipe.”
Sweet Restaurant Slaw
8 ounces cabbage, grated
½ carrot, grated
2 tablespoon diced onion
1⁄3 cup mayonnaise or Miracle Whip
1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1⁄2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1⁄8 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon poppy seeds
Combine the cabbage, carrot and onion in a large bowl.
Whisk together the salad dressing, vegetable oil, sugar, vinegar, salt and poppy seeds in a medium bowl; blend thoroughly.
Pour dressing mixture over coleslaw mix, and toss to coat.
Chill at least 2 hours before serving.
Note: I use half of a 16-ounce package of slaw mix to make this.
CUCUMBER SOUP
A cold cucumber soup, sent this week from Peggy Walkup, has stood the test of many steamy summer days. She wrote, “My mother gave me this great cold soup recipe years ago. It has become my favorite during hot weather.”
Gazpacho Verde
1 can cream of celery soup
1 cup milk
1 small cucumber, diced (about 1 cup)
½ cup chopped green pepper
¼ cup sliced stuffed olives plus additional for garnish
Dash hot pepper sauce
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup sour cream Croutons for garnish
Blend soup, milk, cucumbers and ¼ cup olives for 2 minutes.
Blend in hot sauce, lemon juice and sour cream. Chill for at least 4 hours. Serve in chilled bowls. Garnish with sliced stuffed olives and croutons.
Makes about a quart.
VINAIGRETTE, MORE OR LESS
Here is a second installment from the proprietress of a popular omelette restaurant in New York City, known as well for a simple salad with a simple dressing. In Madame Romaine’s cookbook, published in 1963, she does not specify Dijon mustard for her salad dressing. But we can make that assumption. She is French, after all — no hot dog mustard for her.
Plain Vinaigrette (Salad Dressing)
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard
Any herbs you like
Put in a jar and mix well. It keeps well for a great length of time without being put in the refrigerator.
Use 1 tablespoon dressing per individual salad.
Plain Vinaigrette by the Jar
2 cups oil
¾ cup wine vinegar
3 tablespoons prepared
Dijon mustard
2 level tablespoons salt
¾ tablespoon pepper
Mix well, and use 1 tablespoon for each individual salad. (Keep your salad dry.)
Now. Having distilled here a very small part of this cookbook, I admit that there is a bookful of details that could be added. However, with lots of practice you just might not need the book.
NEWBIE RECIPES
Lucy Boyd expands the conversation among several of you, offering help for a young man just opening his own kitchen.
“I found the request for recipes for the young man who is just beginning to cook heartwarming. I wrote such a book aimed at college students, with dozens of beginner recipes, along with basic nutritional advice and primers on various cooking methods and appliances. If you have his email, you might want to tell him about it as I’ve found it to be helpful to many a young adult.”
And so I followed this link to Amazon and learned the story behind her cookbook as well. Among the reviews were several comments that this book would make a good gift for a graduate. Here’s the link for the book, titled “The Complete Guide to Healthy Cooking and Nutrition for College Students: How Not To Gain 17 Pounds at College”:
http://tinyurl.com/ ydgr9ndq
Have any of the rest of you written cookbooks of any kind? If so, let us know and share a recipe or two found therein. In fact, Ms. Boyd, we would love a recipe or two from the cookbook you wrote. And if you’ve written not a cookbook but a recipe that gets raves, the rest of us would like a copy of that, too.
I will watch for you next week.