Frozen easterbunny special

This is the last of this year's easter presents:


Easter ice cream!

Take 200g carrot puree, add some lemon juice (probably 1-2 table spoons) and 150 g sugar. Adjust the flavor with a little bit of maple sirup, and mix 1/8 l heavy cream into it. Cool that mixture down in the fridge, and when it's cold, stir it well again (or don't if you'd like it to be orangy-marbled) and pour it into your ice cream machine. After 20-40 minutes you should have some beautiful creamy carrot-bunny-easter-special ice cream, that you can serve with caramelized walnuts.

Keep in mind - I have not yet tried this recipe myself (I create to many recipes and can't keep up with testing them..).
Depending on your taste & how sweet your carrots are you might have to play a little with the proportions, but based on my icing-experience this should make a real cool easter treat :-)

Introducing: Icecream Madness

Last week I had a visitor, Christian, who loves ice cream and always discovers the newest, strangest and most delicious ice cream creations in the freezer section, local ice creamery and private cookbook of secret ice creamers.. When I saw him last, he introduced me to Pomegranate-Chocolate, which is outstanding. This time, in Nashville, there were no really wild things to be found, but we ate lots of ice cream anyway...

This morning I remembered that there is one ice creamer in Nashville who is really crazy. She designs ice cream that no one has ever heard of, creations so utterly unspeakable that I have to talk about them here, starting now, tasting soon... Without further introduction:

Welcome to the new section of TasteBuds: Icecream Madness!, by Elin

My ice cream inventions date back to my first ice cream maker, obtained as a gift from my dear & master-chef mom in 1996, I believe. Maybe christmas 1995. A while ago.

I started simple: lemon ice cream, the most difficult and complex of the simple flavors that I know of. I tend to eat lemon ice cream in any ice cream store, first thing, to find out how they do it, what their philosophy is about and whether I wanna steal their recipe..
After years of making cream, yoghurt, and buttermilk based lemon flavors I figured that it is one of those things that one day I will discover perfection and die with heavenly lemon ice cream on the tip of my tongue.
So, I haven't tried anymore, I'll start again maybe when I turn 80 or so.. just in case I'm right.

After the first lemon, I became inventive. Some of it is actually quite good, although opinions varied about the smoked trout ice cream on horseradish whipped cream..

I wrote my private ice cream cookbook (and one I gifted to my mom a few years back, with pencil drawings of each recipe), containing some tested and lots of never realized recipes, ranging from classic sweet to savory, from standard compositions to crazy concoctions - be prepared, they will make their entrance into the world on online cooking.

Now.

:)

Apple of many seeds

Sometimes the world is so in admiration of something, that it cannot get enough of it - over and over you encounter this one single item, as if there is nothing else noteworthy in this life. So, you trust the spirits, the vibes, the improbability accumulation and your coincidence detector, and enjoy what is offered to you.

Good choice!

That's how it felt to me last week, when I repeatedly encountered pomegranates in all forms and disguises.A worthy fruit to be detected, discovered, and deliciously combined with flavors, textures and colors.

So, what did I encounter? I'll focus on two only, to not overwhelm the worthy fruit-lover..

First, pomegranate icecream with chocolate chips. DARK chocolate, that is. I know people who cannot stand the combination of fruit & choc, but I really love it. Pomegranate is the perfect candidate for such a mix, because it brings a robust acidity into the marriage, paired with distinct fruitiness - together with the rich aroma of cocoa beans this adds up to something that does not allow not to be eaten up. Entirely. And still, you feel really okay afterwards!
Second: The next wonder of the pomegranate world I met was at "Jayne's gastropub" in San Diego. If you're in the area, check it out - it is a beautiful little restaurant, all european feeling, where me and my two german friends were debating which place in Germany (or France?) (or where?) this looked similar to. Beautiful tile floor (reminding me of my grandparents house), walls half dark wooden, half white, covered with large mirrors, a british flag and other treasures from across the sea.. the kitchen open, visible from the bar, with beautiful stainless steel gas stove in action - sip on your first glass of Cabernet and enjoy the skillful wrist movements of the chef that let the skillet merely wiggle, but every food in it jumps up & down, just like you inside. I'm like a big kid in a toystore in these kind of places.

Here is what I ate:
Oven Roasted Maple Leaf Duck Breast potato gnocchi, savoy cabbage, spinach, pearl onions, shitake & cremini mushrooms, pomegranate balsamic reduction
The picture I found is only similar, I was too focused during dinner to remember taking a picture.. my duck actually was medium rare, nice and red inside, grilled & almost crispy outside - the gnocchi and vegetable were tossed together, a really great combination, gnocchi, savoy cabbage & spinach? Man, so phantastic.. Savoy cabbage is pure magic anyway..
But the pomegranate sauce was really interesting - I'm not entirely convinced that there is something gained from adding balsamico to pomegranate, because they both hit the same spots, fruity, only lightly sweet, acidic.. but that is just me wondering - the result, along with the duck dipped in it, was beautiful and very tasty.

Let this be enough of my pomegranate encounters. Check out this site here to dive deeper.. enjoy & let me know how your encounters turned out!