Tate's Bake Shop (Apple Cranberry Crisp)

Recently, I won a give away from The Cilantropist (check her out - beautiful pictures and awesomely yummy food).  It may have been the first time in my life that I've ever won anything, besides a Lisa Frank pencil and paper set in a raffle in fourth grade.  That's a pretty long run, over 17 years.  Hm.  There must have been a $1 scratch off lottery ticket in between there somewhere. Hmmmm...

Anyway, this giveaway was better than a Lisa Frank pencil and paper set AND a scratch off lottery ticket combined.  This giveaway was from Tate's Bake Shop.  A few months ago, I noticed them popping up all over the Internet.  Tate's Bake Shop is a little bakery in the Hamptons that became famous at the beginning for their chocolate chip cookies.  Now they make all kinds of baked goodness, and can ship these treats anywhere.  The gift set included three kinds of cookies - chocolate chip, macadamia white chocolate chip,oatmeal raisin - and a cookbook.  I wish I had some pictures of the cookies, but I don't.

Still hot... (Cinnamon Sugar Ice Cream Sandwiches)

I'm not an air conditioning kind of girl. That being said, it's currently 103 degrees outside, so yes - I am sitting in front of the vent on the kitchen floor, trying not to spontaneously combust. Must.....eat....frozen....deliciousness.....

In all honesty, I'm probably being a baby about it, since today I've scurried from the door to the car to the hospital to the car to the door. All in all, I probably spent about 5.2 minutes in the heat today. Hubby the golfer, however, sweated off about 6 pounds this afternoon, and he was very excited to see these in the freezer.

My thought after the fact: if you had marshmallow ice cream, these would taste exactly like frozen s'mores!

Cinnamon Sugar Ice Cream Sandwiches

Brown Sugar Refrigerator Cookies
(Betty Crocker Cookbook)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
3 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat together brown sugar, butter, vanilla and egg with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Stir in remaining ingredient to form a dough. Shape dough into a 10x3 inch rectangle on plastic wrap. Wrap and refrigerate 2 hours until firm (not longer than 24 hours). Heat oven to 375. Cut "brick" into 1/8 inch slices, back 2 inches apart for 6-8 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks.


Melt 1-1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1-1/2 teaspoon shortening in a microwave (45 seconds, then 20 second increments until melted). Stir well. Spread chocolate mixture onto the flat bottoms of (completely cooled) cookies. Allow to cool and harden.



For the ice cream filling, I used the generic vanilla bean ice cream from the grocery store (Lucerne brand) because it comes in a cardboard container that can be peeled off and the rectangular ice cream can be cut in half and sliced into appropriate sized pieces to match the cookies. I wanted to take a picture of this, but the ice cream melted the second it came out of the freezer and I had barely enough time to get the sandwiches filled before it turned into a huge mess.



Store in a sealed container in the freezer for up to 2 weeks. Best enjoyed in front of a fan. :-)

Ogres have layers. (Chocolate Layer Ice Cream Cake)

Onions have layers.

This cake has neither ogres or onions, but it does have layers. Layers of ice cream and chocolate yumminess. Earlier this week, we had a little dinner party with our very good friends and their beautiful new baby girl. That day, it was hot. When I say hot, I mean, 95 degrees. I'll look for any excuse to eat ice cream, and this seemed like a great opportunity to break out the blue binder o' recipes and see what it had to say about ice cream. I found this little gem a few pages past the pineapple slush. I'd never made it before, but it was one of those things that my mom handed me and said "Look how easy this is! Wouldn't this be really good....?"

And it was. On both counts.

Chocolate Layer Ice Cream Sandwich Cake

12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches (rectangular kind)
1 tub whipped topping (thawed)
1 box instant chocolate pudding
8 Oreo cookies
1/2 cup chocolate fudge topping
mini chocolate chips



Chop the Oreos into small pieces. Mix 1 cup whipped topping, the fudge topping, the instant pudding and the Oreo pieces.


Lay four sandwiches side by side to form the bottom layer. Cover with half the pudding mix. Lay four more sandwiches on the chocolate layer and cover with the remaining pudding mix. Lay the remaining four sandwiches on top to form the cake. Ice with the rest of the whipped topping, top with mini chocolate chips. Keep frozen until 10 minutes before serving. Eat fast - but not tooooo fast....

:-)

Summer Sunday... (Pineapple Slush)

It's been a crazy kind of first week back to school! Monday and Tuesday are full classroom days, and the rest of the week we're out in the hospitals with real patients, doing real things. I think that my favorite rotation is going to be the maternity clinical - babies! I'm a little baby crazy right now, as a married 26 year old woman living in a house with two empty bedrooms. I read through the maternity textbook and alternate between a teary eyed "awwwww" and a horrified "what happens to you?!?" My other favorite rotation is going to be the mental health clinical. I'm at a mental health facility for children and adolescents. One of the kids there is autistic, and I'm looking forward to spending some time with him again next week and seeing if I can make a connection. In any case, the whole experience is going to be interesting!

It's also been in the 90s here all week - summer has officially begun! Summer for me marks the beginning of frozen treat season. My favorite frozen treat is pineapple slush. My mom made this all the time when I was a kid, in the rectangular, beige tupperware container with the with the puffed up opaque lid. Every time we saw her get out that plastic container, we knew what was coming - slush!! Now that I have my own plastic containers, it's time to start our own summertime traditions. So, without further ado...

Pineapple Slush!
(I usually halve this recipe, since there are only two of us and we have limited freezer space, but you can make as much or as little as you want.)
4 cups water
4 cups white sugar
46 oz pineapple juice
6 oz frozen orange juice concentrate
1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh squeezed is best)

In a large saucepan over the stove, completely dissolve the sugar into the water over med-low heat. Add the remaining ingredients, whisk until mixed and the frozen OJ melts. Remove from heat, allow to cool. Transfer to a wide mouthed freezer safe container, freeze until solid (usually 8 hours or overnight). Remove from freezer, scrape the mixture and spoon into a glass. Top with grapefruit soda. As kids, we always used Squirt, but I haven't been able to find that recently, so I go with the Wegman's brand. 7Up/Sierra Mist works too, but isn't as special. This is definitely a straw and spoon treat!

(Helps you pretend you're in Hawaii...)