Root Beer Float

There is a nasty rumor circulating that it is going to cool off, and maybe even have temperatures under 80 this month. I for one am very skeptical as I just do not see this happening.

It’s hot, humid, and nasty out there, and I really want something cooling, almost every other corner in Manhattan has an Ice Cream truck, and I tend retrieve a milkshake from one or the other on a regular basis, but yesterday I was reminded of a youth favorite, The Root Beer Float.

Sad to say I was greatly disappointed by the “drink” given to me. Lacking in flavor, overwhelmed by soft serve ice cream, the root beer just was not up to expectations.

Wikipedia says Root Beer is:

Root beer is a carbonated, sweetened beverage, originally made using the root of a sassafras plant (or the bark of a sassafras tree) as the primary flavor. Root beer, popularized in North America, comes in two forms: alcoholic and soft drink. The historical root beer was analogous to small beer, in that the process provided a drink with a very low alcohol content. In spite of roots being used as the source of many soft drinks in many countries throughout the world, the name root beer is rarely used outside the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Philippines and Australia.

Root beers have a thick and foamy head when poured, and a rich flavor.

There are hundreds of root beer brands there is no standardized recipe. The primary ingredient, sassafras flavoring, is complemented with other flavors, common ones being vanilla, wintergreen, cherry tree bark, licorice root, sarsaparilla root, nutmeg, acacia, anise, molasses, cinnamon, clove and honey.

And a Root Beer Float is :

Also known as a “black cow” or “brown cow”, the root beer float is traditionally made with vanilla ice cream and root beer, but can also be made with other flavors.

In the United States and Canada, the chain A&W Restaurants are well known for their root beer floats. The definition of a black cow varies by region. For instance in some localities, a “root beer float” has strictly vanilla ice cream; a float made with root beer and chocolate ice cream is a “chocolate cow” or a “brown cow.” In some places a “brown cow” was made with cola instead of root beer

The origin of the name “black cow” has always been of interest to food and beverage experts and allegedly dates to August 1893 in Cripple Creek, Colorado.

The only source of this story is the great-grand-nephew of Frank J. Wisner, who has popularized it through advertising on his soft drink products and website. Wisner, owner of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company, had been producing a line of soda waters for the citizens of the then-booming Cripple Creek gold mining district. He had been trying to create a special drink for the children of Cripple Creek and came up with an idea while staring out at his properties on Cow Mountain on a moonlit night. The full moon’s glow on the snow capped Cow Mountain reminded him of a dollop of vanilla ice cream floating on top of his blackened Cow Mountain. As he told the story later, he was inspired by this view to hurry back to his bar and add a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to the one soda water he produced that the children of Cripple Creek seemed to like best – Myers Avenue Red root beer – and served it the very next day. The drink was an instant hit. Originally named “Black Cow Mountain”, the local children shortened this to “black cow”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bacon Caramels

Spoken prior :

Sarah Hepola, on Salon.com, suggests that eating bacon in the modern, health-conscious world is an act of rebellion,

“Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smolders between your lips.”

Evidently my eldest has a true rebellion going on, with the latest being bacon caramels.. Sweet, salty, soft and crunchy with a hint of smoke from the bacon. But as a 1/4 oz bite of this goes for upto $6.00, I’ll look to making my own.

Perhaps I’ll use my own double or triple smoked bacon. (Bacon that has been cold smoked, rested and then smoked again.) If one does not have access to these things, a slab of bacon, thick cut and brushed with liquid smoke is a passable substitute.

We know bacon makes everything taste good, just like bourbon, bacon and bourbon will make linoleum tiles taste wonderful. (Depending on the amount of bacon and bourbon.) So for that extra roguechef twist, a bit of bacon, a bit of bourbon, and some of my roasted pecans, to round out the taste / texture experience.

Wikipedia says:

Caramel candy is a soft, dense, chewy candy made by boiling a mixture of milk or cream, sugar, butter, vanilla essence, and (more common in commercial production) glucose or corn syrup. It can also be made with chocolate. It is not heated above the firm ball stage ((250 °F), so there is almost no caramelization. This type of candy is often called milk caramel.

Read the rest of this entry »

Coconut Cake with Lemon Icing

It is sooo hot, but I sooo want cake, and I am NOT buying the chemical laden garbage one finds in the local mega mart. Besides, I want something that tastes better than the wrapper… I suppose I’ll need to brave the slings and arrows of my stove…

Cake is a form of food, typically a sweet, baked dessert. Cakes normally contain a combination of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter or oil, with some varieties also requiring liquid and leavening agents. Flavorful ingredients like fruit purées, nuts or extracts are often added, and numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients are possible. Cakes are often filled with fruit preserves or dessert sauces, iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders or candied fruit.

I love fruit based cakes, with mashed / crushed cherry, banana, hard fruit sauce, (apple, pear, etc), but one serious favorite is coconut cake. Most people just add coconut flakes to a white cake and call it a day, but I am the rogue chef.

What if, for a liquid I used coconut milk, and added replaced 1/2 the vanilla extract with coconut extract, then just for extravagant indulgence, added a lemon sour cream drizzle for icing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peach Cobbler, Grunt or Buckle

As I’ve said before:

I love my green grocer, I hate my green grocer, they know exactly what I am trying to do , even when I don’t.

As an example, my last trip in I was shown some very peaches, I am a huge fan of these, but was unwilling to consider possibilities, at least until the temperatures come down, until the proprietor started talking about peach cobbler…

Cobblers:

Deep-dish fruit desserts in which sweetened fruits (fresh berries or apples are the traditional choices) are topped with a biscuit dough before baking.

A subvarity of cobbler is the buckle or grunt

Varieties of cobbler include the Betty, the Grunt, the Slump, and the Buckle. Grunts, Pandowdy, and Slumps are a New England variety of cobbler, typically cooked on the stove-top or cooker in an iron skillet or pan with the dough on top in the shape of dumplings—they reportedly take their name from the grunting sound they make while cooking. A Buckle is made with yellow batter (like cake batter), with the filling mixed in with the batter.

Crisps:

In a crisp, the fruit is baked under a crumbly topping, usually made with flour, butter, and sugar, and sometimes oats, nuts, and spices.

All that said, I still think of a crisp when you say a cobbler. The difference in my mind is the fruit used and the time of the year your make it.

As for today’s post I’ll hazard the slings and arrows of culinary fortune and look at another early summer fruit.

When early summer fruit starts arriving, I have to make a buckle. It is a simple and rustic dessert recipe, you can use any kind of fruit that is around, the ingredients are pantry staples and it freezes fabulously. When I make buckles, I usually make two, one to serve and one to keep in the freezer for a quick thaw and serve desert. Blueberries, raspberries, cherries, peaches, apricots, nectarines, all are delicious in a buckle.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fruit Syrups for Drinks / Ice Pops / Snow Cones

One of the things that tell me summer has hit Manhattan, is the presence on every other corner of a man with a HUGE saddle shaped block of ice, a ice plane, and bottles of fruit syrup. For the minimal price of a dollar he will scrape out a cup of ice, dump it into a cone cup, and add a drizzle of fruit flavored syrup.

Is it sanitary? Your guess is as good as mine. Is it COLD? Oh, YES!. Is it REFRESHING? YES!. Is it just what you need on a hot humid day after a trip on a subway with no AC? ABSOLUTELY!!!

Now we can do this at home, expect those flavored syrups are kinda hard to come by. So IF we sort out how to make them, we have the keys to all kinds of snow cones, icee’s, fruit spritzers, fruit teas, and possibly a sorbet or so…

Simple syrup is the real heart to the best cold homemade beverages. Once make the syrup, you can add any fruit juice and create your own special summertime drinks.

There are several thicknesses of simple syrup and they have different uses. but for the purpose of this post will work with a thick simple syrup, a ratio of 1 part water to 1 part sugar, and is the basis of cold drinks.
Read the rest of this entry »

Cold Apple Soup

This recipe is of Eastern European origin, was carried to Greece by immigrants. It was first served to me at a Greek Orthodox wedding, the cold, crisp taste of tart apples was a most refreshing of palate cleaners.

The soup is made with tart apples, pungent spices and wine. The sweet and spicy soup takes on the distinct flavor of wine. One can use tart apples and a sweet wine or sweeter apples and a drier wine, or maybe a nice bourbon. A touch of lemon is added to help prevent browning, and of course there will be a rouge chef twist in all of this.

Given the heat of this week, one must understand my reluctance to make more than reservations for dinner..
Read the rest of this entry »

Grilled Banana Sandwich

HELP ME!!!!! I’m MELTin… ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!.

No someone did not throw water on me, I merely walked across the street, and the heat from the sun and the asphalt are turning me into a dripping sponge…

It is so hot, but I really want something other than cold soups, cold cuts, and ice cream.

Looking around the kitchen, I have of course, banana’s that need to be eaten. From some of my travels during my youth I remember a grilled banana desert, where the bananas are cooked whole in the skin, and then are peeled and slathered with honey.. This is a bit rich on the sugar content, and a bit light on the bulk side, perhaps add a bit of bread and some peanut butter to make a really nice sandwich…

Read the rest of this entry »

Meatless Mondays – Bananas Foster Pudding

Once again, I’ve bough fruit, and while most of it has been devoured, some of it has not been eaten as a whole, and will have to be disguised in some way to ensure its consumption.

Banana pudding is a dessert common in the Southern United States, generally consisting of repeated layers of sweet custard, cookies (usually Vanilla Wafers) and sliced bananas placed in a dish, baked and served, sometimes with whipped cream or meringue on top. I’ve built this in parfait glasses, scooped on to a plate / bowl, in individual bowls. One tip is to give the banana slices a bath in lemon juice to stop enzyme actions that turn them dark and slimy in minutes.

The real trick is to make the custard yourself and add that special rouge chef twist, bananas cooked and coated in a run / banana liquor and brown sugar sauce. (AKA Banana’s Foster)

On overiew of constructing this desert is as follows:

1. Cook custard
2. Layer cookies, custard, banana’s
3. Add cream topping
4. Chill
5. Serve

Read the rest of this entry »