Who doesn’t love a bowl of fresh fruit? As great as a simple bowl of fruit can be, there are times when you just need to do something unusual to it, and for, well, that was to make a syrup to go along with it.

A handful of years ago, my wife and I decided to plant mint alongside our house. It could have been the best thing that we have ever planted. Extremely low maintenance, mint grows in abundance. With that said, I am always looking for opportunities to use mint. I use it in Thai food, salads, and mojitos, and now in fruit salads. Let’s get started on this simple treat.

Begin by placing your sugar, water, and mint in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the rum and continue to cook for another 10 minutes. Turn off your heat and mix in the juice of one lime. Remove the pan from the burner and set aside to let cool. Strain the syrup and place in the refrigerator until it is ready to be used.

• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 2 cups of water
• large bunch of fresh mint, plus an extra few leaves, chopped.
• 1/2 cup of white rum
• Juice of one lime
• Bananas, 1/4 inch thick
• Pineapple, cut into chunks
• Strawberries, quartered

Add your fruit to a bowl, and pour on about a quarter cup of the syrup on top of the fruit. Add in the chopped mint leaves, and serve. A great tasting bowl of fruit salad with the extra surprise. This one should get your guests talking at the table.

You have probably noticed that out of a lot of my food categories, dessert falls pretty low on the totem poll. I am getting there, and realize that it is probably my kids favorite meal of the day, however, dessert is never really a priority to me during a meal.

I am like many of you, that at the end of a meal, I often, if not all of the time, pass up dessert. Not sure what it is. Others at the table get excited to end a meal with dessert, but not me. There comes a time when I have to stop being selfish, look around at the sweet eyes of my children and wife, and realize that they are wanting a dessert.

As many of you have noticed, I have been making ice cream lately, and delicious and simple homemade ice cream at that. The kids have been loving it, and with recent conversations with one of our cousins, it was mentioned that one of their favorite Filipino ice cream treats was coconut ice cream. When that was mentioned, I initially thought of Baskin Robin’s 31 Flavors and thought of all of the flavors that I had eaten as a kid, and never, coconut ice cream.

This is when coconut appeared on a recent Sunday morning. It became ‘coconut’ Sunday. We had our nephews in town and I realized that they would probably be stopping by, so what a better way to introduce a dessert that I knew they would have never had, and offer them a sweet treat before they headed out of town. The coconut bar was not only simple to make, but it was a huge treat.

Ingredients:

• 14 oz condensed milk
• 1 1/2 cups of sweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips
• cooking spray

This is as simple as it gets. Spray a small casserole dish with some cooking spray. Preheat your oven at 350 degrees.

To a bowl, add the coconut, condensed milk, and the white chocolate chips. Mix well and place in the casserole dish.

Place in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the top of the dish is nice and golden brown.

Let the dish cool and cut into squares or rectangles. This stuff is addicting so be careful. Between the kids and a few adults, this dessert was devoured. Coconut ice cream is another day. Enjoy.

The things I do for my kids I tell you. If you have kids like mine, you soon realize that the only thing they have on their mind are sweet treats. The waffle in the morning now becomes the chocolate chip waffle. Lunch is fairly neutral, a quick dinner, then the big question is always, and I mean always, ‘what’s for dessert?’.

The kids could eat desserts all day if they were allowed. Frozen yogurts could replace lunch and dinner, and they would still ask, ‘what’s for dessert?’.

I pretty much stopped by store bought ice cream months ago when I purchased the ice cream maker, and now desserts are easy. I have answers for them every time. ‘Ice cream!’. They know me all too well being that I am in the kitchen most of the time, and they know it is probably not going to be a standard vanilla or chocolate ice cream. So my response this week was, ‘We are having double fudge ice cream!’. Cheers and laughter was embedded in the kitchen, and wow, was this ever a big hit.

Left over brownies crumbled up in fresh made ice cream make this one a real treat. I thought my cookies and cream was a real hit, but this one is a real competitor.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cold milk, placed in the freezer for about 10 minutes
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups of heavy cream, placed in the freezer for about 10 minutes
• 1/2 sheet of left over brownies, crumbled (I like these)

Begin by freezing the ice cream bowl, as it is very important that it is completely frozen. Begin by adding the milk and sugar to a mixing bowl, and mix with a whisk until all of the sugar dissolves. Add in the heavy cream and vanilla extract. Assemble your ice cream maker, and turn it on, adding in your mixture. About 20 minutes into the mixing, add in the crumbled brownies, and let it spin another 5-10 minutes.

Place the bowl in the freezer for another hour or so, then remove the bowl, and get your scoops on. Trust me, this is a real winner, and a great dessert.

There are a couple of things around the house that I look forward to every year, and that is planting a vegetable and herb garden, and picking fresh raspberries. When we moved into our house over ten years ago, I never thought of the bushes on one side of my deck. Then came late spring and early summer when berries began to appear. I thought you have to be kidding me! Literally we would go out every day and pick a large bowl of fresh raspberries. It was the best, and still is to this day.

So with the recent purchase of an ice cream maker, I thought what a great way to get more raspberries into the house, and make more attempts at getting my boys to eat them (Yes, they refuse to eat the raspberries!).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cold milk
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 3 cups of fresh raspberries, blended

Begin by freezing the ice cream bowl, as it is very important that it is completely frozen. Begin by adding the milk and sugar to a mixing bowl, and mix with a whisk until all of the sugar dissolves. Add in the heavy cream. Assemble your ice cream maker, and turn it on, adding in your mixture. About 20 minutes into the mixing, add in the blended raspberries, and let it spin another 5-1o minutes.

Remove the bowl and place back in the freezer for another hour or two, to let it harden just a bit. Serve with some fresh mint and enjoy the freshness of the ice cream.

If there is something that screams Summertime, it has got to be a granita. A granita is really a fancy term for delicious shaved ice, originating in Italy. The ingredients are ever so simple and the end result is a really cold cup or bowl of fresh, and fruity ice. Granitas can really be anything you put your mind on, whether it be raspberry, strawberry, or in my case a watermelon granita.

I will admit that I typically do not eat watermelon, but a recent stop at the grocery store really attracted me to the seedless watermelon. For one, I knew my daughter would love it, and I wanted to make another attempt at my boys trying watermelon. For some odd reason, both of my boys refuse to eat watermelon. So what a better idea to make a granita and see if they would go that route. Still failed.

The boys really missed out as this granita was super refreshing on a hot July afternoon.

Ingredients:

• 1 large seedless watermelon, cleaned and rind removed
• 1 lime, zest and juice
• Simple Syrup (see below)
• Mint leaves (optional)

Begin by making the simple syrup.  Take 3/4 cup of sugar and 1 1/2 cup of water and bring to a boil, making sure the sugar gets dissolved. Remove this from the heat and let it cool.

During this time, break down your watermelon. Place this in a food processor and add the lime juice and zest, and simple syrup. Pulse everything down in the food processor.

Transfer the mixture into a shallow baking dish and place uncovered in the freezer. About every 30 minutes, check on the mixture, using a fork to stir the granita mixture.  Continue to freeze and repeat the process, for up to 3 hours. Don’t worry if you do not have this time. If it hardens completely, just take it out of the freezer and let it sit on the counter for about 20-30 minutes, then scrape with a spoon.

Serve in a nice glass, add some chopped mint, and serve with a spoon.

Fresh melon flavor, cold and refreshing. Enjoy.

This past weekend was spent hanging out with my kids. It was father’s day weekend, and I wanted to do something special with them. I always think what I can do with them in the kitchen, whether it is making pizza dough, or helping out mixing something for a special recipe. So with my recent purchase of an ice cream maker, I thought that I would bring in one of the kids and ask what they wanted for ice cream. The result was a chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips, marshmallows, and a caramel crunch. A perfect treat for all of my sweet tooth’s!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cold chocolate milk
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 1 cup of Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Morsels
• 1 cup of mini marshmallows
• Homemade Caramel (see below)

Begin by freezing the ice cream bowl, as it is very important that it is completely frozen. Begin by adding the milk and sugar to a mixing bowl, and do just that, mix with a whisk until all of the sugar dissolves. Add in the heavy cream. Assemble your ice cream maker, and turn it on, adding in your mixture.

During this time make the caramel.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of water

Begin by getting a large, heavy saucepan on the stove, adding the sugar and 1/4 cup of the water. Bring this to a boil on medium heat. You will notice about after five minutes, the sugar will begin to turn color. During this time, us the remaining water, and with a cooking brush, brush down the sides of the pot.

Keep on eye on the caramel, and swirl your pot a bit to even things out and prevent the caramel from burning.

Next, I add the caramel mixture into the ice cream mixer. Why? Because it hardens in like one second. Quickly remove the block of caramel and let the chocolate mixture continue to spin. Add the hardened caramel into a ziploc bag and with a mallet, crush it, then add back into the ice cream mixture. Add in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Give a good stir.

Remove, and place the bowl back in the freezer for up to two hours. Scoop and enjoy!

As many of you are aware, I recently purchased an ice cream maker. It is possibly the best thing I have purchased in years, and it is truly a device which everyone appreciates. So far, I have made four batches of ice cream, none of which has been your standard vanilla, or chocolate. I have made a killer mint chocolate chip ice cream, a pineapple, angel food cake with frosting, as well as cookies and cream.

As I polled the kids to see what they wanted me to make, they rattled out a handful of ideas, and after seeing Oreo cookies in the pantry, of which I typically do not purchase, they immediately said ‘Cookies and Cream!”.  Done deal. Seeing that I had about ten cookies left in the cookie bag, I decided it would be a perfect match with some vanilla ice cream.

Lets get started.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of whole milk, cold
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 10 Oreo cookies, crumbled

As noted in a previous post, freeze the bowl, as it is very important that it is completely frozen. Begin by adding the milk and sugar to a mixing bowl, and do just that, mix with a whisk until all of the sugar dissolves. Add in the vanilla extract, and the heavy cream. Assemble your ice cream maker, and turn it on, adding in your mixture.

Let the mixer spin for at least 30 minutes. Add in the crumbled Oreo cookies about 25 minutes into mixing. Place the bowl back in the freezer for at least an hour, or in my case, overnight. Scoop and and enjoy.

I will admit, and I believe the kids will admit as well, this could have possibly been the best ice cream I have ever had. There was something about the texture, and how course the cookies were crumbled that made this cookies and cream really divine. Hope you enjoy.

My wife and I made it to our first real milestone in life, our tenth anniversary. I can’t say that it has felt much like ten years, but after seeing my kids growing up, well, it is an indication that life is just flying by us. I will admit that I have found the love of my life and immediately realized that roughly twenty three years ago when we first met. After all, my wife is part of the reason why I love cooking so much. She is someone who I want to please, and want to be able to present a tasty dish to every time I get the opportunity. So with our tenth anniversary past us, in the spirit of things, we decided to exchange gifts. She presented me with a huge box, a box so big that both of my boys carried it over to me. I had no idea what was inside, but what I did know, is that it was big. So I opened it up only to find a wine cellar! Awesome, and beautiful, and big. After first glance, we immediately realized that it was just too big to fit in our space. As bummed out as we both were, we decided to return it, and have me shop for something else. No big deal.

So the following day, we shopped, and probably at  one of my favorite stores in town, Crate and Barrel. I have only been in there once, but I recall their kitchen area, and I LOVED EVERYTHING. So, we returned the wine cellar and began browsing the store. I already knew what I wanted, an ice cream maker. We cruised through everything, and I began to feel like a kid in a candy store. I was ‘giddyy’ if you will. I got the ice cream maker, which was on sale, and began picking up other items, like a microplane, corn holders, and a butter spreader for corn, I mean, c’mon, a butter spreader!

So as soon as we returned home, I immediately froze the ice cream bowl, anticipating that I would be making ice cream later that night. After all, my nephews were coming over to have me shave their heads, their first real buzz cut, and I chose them as my little helpers.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of whole milk, cold
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 2 tsp peppermint extract
• 2 tbsp fresh mint leaves, diced
• 1/2 cup of mini semisweet chocolate morsels
• 1 tsp green food coloring

Freeze the bowl, it is very important that it is completely frozen. Begin by adding the milk and sugar to a mixing bowl, and do just that, mix with a whisk until all of the sugar dissolves. Add in the extract, food coloring, and the heavy cream. Assemble your ice cream maker, and turn it on, adding in your mixture. The mint leaves and chocolate chips can wait until the very end.

Let the mixer spin for at least 30 minutes. Add in the chocolate chips and mint leaves about 25 minutes into mixing. Place the bowl back in the freezer, in my case, overnight. Scoop and and enjoy. I will admit that this was really great ice cream and we ate it for breakfast the following day. A perfect texture, and the flavor that you would expect from mint chocolate chip ice cream, with the subtle surprise of mint leaves. Looking forward to being creative on my next batch of ice cream!

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Fish frys are a big deal in Wisconsin, and finding a good one is always a topic of conversation at work. Sure, I make my own fish fry about three times a month, and it is a major hit with the family, plus I save a ton of money. There are times however, that as much I want a fish fry, I actually want something just slightly different, and last week was one of those times. After posting a question to all of my Facebook friends on what they were excited to eat for Easter, one of my friend’s stated some Thai dishes. The light immediately came on, and I had a real craving for not only Thai food, but fish in particular. This is where Thai fish balls come into play.

Call them Thai meatballs if you will, but call them delicious. These balls will be a real surprise to you and your guests. Make them as an appetizer, or an entree, as you will not go wrong with these. Oh yeah, and the dipping sauce that I made was something that I thought paired really well. Think of your Wisconsin fish fry, typically fried cod with tartar sauce, kicked up to a Thai-style, but instead of tartar sauce, a lime mayonnaise! Enough already, I am drooling just thinking about them.

Ingredients:

• 3 medium cod fillets, cut into quarters
• 1-2 tbsp of red curry paste (2 if you like more heat)
• 1 kaffir lime leaf, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, stems and leaves, rough chop
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Canola oil for frying, roughly 2 cups

Place everything but the cooking oil in a food processor, and begin to pulse the fish and other ingredients down, not into a paste, but pretty darn close. You still want a bit of texture with the cod. Remove the blade from the processor, and with a spoon, begin to form your fish balls. Place the fish balls on a baking sheet lined with wax paper, and once all balls are formed, place these in the refrigerator for about 1 1/2 hours.

Heat your oil to about 360 degrees. Drop about 4-6 balls in the hot oil, gently moving around for only about 3-4 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on some paper towel to let any excess oil drain.

Serve with lime mayonnaise, recipe is below.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
• 1 lime, zested and juiced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp of fresh cilantro, chopped
• pinch of salt
• pinch of black pepper

Mix the ingredients together, and place in the refrigerator for at least one hour. Serve with the fish balls, dip your fries in it, or spread on your favorite deli sandwich. Whichever you chose, it is a real winner.

There were a handful of cookies that my family made while growing up, and that was fine with me as I never really had much of a sweet tooth. My grandma made possibly the best oatmeal cookie I have ever had, my Mom, as she made a variety of cookies, made one that really stood out, and my Dad had his favorite which were a glob of chocolate oatmeal.  All of these cookies were truly delicious, but one that stood out was my Mom’s meringue cookies. I do not know if it was the texture of these cookies, or the fact that they had these great colors that bled over from the M&M’s. As simple as the ingredients are, there is some technique involved in making a meringue. Basically the goal of making a meringue is beating egg whites until they form tight peaks, then beat superfine sugar into the egg whites until you form your meringue. The process is a very cool one and one that your kids will love as they are pretty amazed to see how the sugar and egg whites color and form into a really great cookie.

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites, room temperature
• 1/2 cup of superfine sugar
• 1/8 tsp of cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup of M&Ms

Begin by add your egg whites to your mixer, or to a large bowl if you are using a hand mixer. Beat the egg whites on medium until they reach a stiff peak, roughly a few minutes. You will notice that the egg whites become frothy then begin to form some peaks. Once they are formed, add in the cream of tartar, then gradually add in the superfine sugar. You could use regular granulated sugar, however it will not dissolve as quickly, so using superfine is the way to go. Beat the egg whites and sugar until they form really stiff peaks. You will see. Lightly fold in the M&M’s.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet, and lightly sprinkle flour on top of the baking sheet. Using a spoon, spoon a large tablespoon onto the baking sheet, separating each by about 2 inches.

Place in your oven, and cook for about 45 minutes. You probably notice the very low temperature on this one. The goal by cooking the meringue slowly is to remove any moisture from the meringue. The end result is an extremely light cookie that is crisp on the outside and airy and chocolaty on the inside. These meringue cookies did not last long and were gone within about one hour. A big winner in my house.