A Fly Boy Feature: Chocolate Mint Ice Cream

As most of you may know "Fly Boy" is my husband and he does not cook! I finally told him he had to make dinner at least once a week. While this recipe does not count as dinner, he was so proud of himself he asked me to post it on my blog. I thought that was cute so I told him I would do a Fly Boy feature anytime he made something new and blog worthy!

Let me give you a little bit of ice cream background about our families.  In my family my Granny always had Cookies and Cream ice cream and ice cream sandwiches.  She would offer it to you any time of day...after breakfast, lunch or dinner! My parents always have at least three or four half gallons of ice cream in the freezer and usually my  mom has a bowl every night. I worked in an ice cream store in high school and my little sister spent a few summers working at another local ice cream joint. Now I thought that having ice cream for dessert with breakfast was a sure sign of ice cream lovers until I met my husband's family.

I thought my family ate a lot of ice cream but when I met Fly Boy I realized I was wrong. He will eat an entire container in one sitting.  Ice cream is a side dish to every dessert.  When asked if you want cake it appears with ice cream even though there was no mention of ice cream. His grandma always has 5 or six different flavors in her house. We don't buy ice cream now that we are married because it does not last more than a day.

So a few days ago we returned some dishes to Bed, Bath and Beyond and had a ton of left over store credit.  In my blog stalking I have seen a lot of recipes for ice cream and I thought it would be fun to have an ice cream maker so we could make our own flavors.  We purchased the maker and Fly Boy was itching so bad to make some ice cream that he made it at 10:00 one night.  I was impressed with the outcome. 

The ice cream directly out of the ice cream maker has more of a milk shake consistency but if you put it in a container and freeze it, it comes out pretty much like store bought ice cream.  Fly Boy made this Chocolate Mint Ice cream and I was impressed.  It does melt fairly fast as you can see in the picture below. 

Be sure to read the directions that come with your ice cream maker before starting.  Ours you have to freeze the bucket for about 12 hours.

1 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup chocolate syrup
3 tbsp sugar
3 cups  heavy cream
1 tsp mint extract
1 cup chocolate candies (we just used chocolate chips)

In a mixing bowl, combine the first three ingredients until sugar is dissolved.  Add the heavy cream and mint.  Pour into ice cream maker and mix for 20-25 minutes.  Five minutes before the mixing is complete, add the chocolate candies. Place mixture in an air tight container and freeze for at least two hours.

Mexican Pasta Bake

I got this recipe idea from my friend Emily's blog.  I had a few extra things in the cabinet that I wanted to use up so I made some changes to the original recipe and it actually came out really good!

1 lb ground beef
1/2 pound pasta (I used bow tie)
2 tbsp mined onion
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained
1 (14.5 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes
1/2 can enchilada sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons taco seasoning mix OR chili powder and red pepper to taste
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup crushed tortilla chips

Cook the ground beef and the minced onion. Drain any excess grease from the pan.

At the same time, boil your pasta and drain.

When the ground beef is finished cooking add the corn, black beans, diced tomatoes, enchilada sauce, seasonings and salt and pepper.

Mix the ground beef mixture into the pasta.  If you want it more saucy then add more enchilada sauce.

Pour the pasta/ground beef mixture into a casserole dish. Top with cheese and crushed chips. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

NOTE: I did not use all of the ground beef mixture with my pasta. I saved some of it for tacos.

Creamy Ham and Potato Soup

We went to an Easter Potluck and I had to find something I could make and that would stay warm while we were at church.  I was going to make mashed potato casserole but then I saw this recipe on the blog I was looking at and decided it was the next best thing.  It was quick, easy and I had all of the ingredients on hand.  This recipe is from www.allrecipes.com and The Girl Who Ate Everything.

4 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1/3 cup finely chopped onion (I used 2 1/2 tbsp mined onion)
1/2 cup carrot, diced
1 cup diced cooked ham

1/2 cup corn
3 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups milk


Directions:
1.Combine the potatoes, onion, carrot, corn, ham and chicken broth in a pot. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender for about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the salt and pepper.

2. In a another saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour and cook, stirring constantly until thick for about 1 minute. Slowly stir in milk and continue stirring over medium-low heat until thick for about 4 to 5 minutes.

3.Stir the milk mixture into the pot and cook soup until heated through.

Top with cheddar cheese and bacon if desired.
 
Makes 6 servings
 

German Spaghetti

Many, many moons ago when I was an ice cream scooper at a Western theme park (that is not a lie) I had this wonderful spaghetti at an employee dinner. I had never had anything like it! I was looking in a church cookbook from my church in Maryland and wouldn't you know there was the recipe for German Spaghetti! I didn't follow the recipe exactly but I was happy with the result!

Ingredients:

1/2 lb spaghetti noodles
1 can tomato soup
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese (or more if you like cheese!)
12 pieces of bacon

Boil the noodles according to the directions on the package. At the same time, cook your bacon. I used the precooked bacon that you just have to microwave for 45 seconds or so.

When the bacon is cooled, crumble it up.

When the noodles are finished cooking, drain them and return them to the pot.  Add the cheese, soup and bacon bits to the noodles and stir until the cheese is melted. 
You may need to turn the burner back on low to help melt the cheese.

I like German Spaghetti to not have a lot of extra sauce but if you want more sauce just add 1 more can of soup and some more cheese.

Hello Dolly Bars

A few years ago, my roommate made these bars around Easter time and they were super yummy. I for the life of me could not remember the name of them other than they had some woman's name in the title. Then in my blog stalking I notice that Life as a Lofthouse had posted a recipe for Hello Dolly Bars. That was the name! So I checked out the recipe and notice the bars had coconut and nuts in them.  Well Fly Boy won't eat those things so for a few weeks I tried to decide if I should just make them with the nuts and coconut and gain 50 lbs eating them alone or figure out if there were some suitable substitutes.  So what I decided was to leave out the coconut and nuts and replace  those with just one ingredient: heath bar pieces. So I made Hello Dollys my way and you may go into a sugar coma after eating a piece but boy are they good!

1 stick of butter
8 graham crackers crushed
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup butterscotch chips
3/4 cup heath bar pieces OR (1 cup chopped nuts and 1 cup coconut)
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and then place the stick of butter in an 8x8 pan and put it in the oven for five minutes to melt the butter. Remove pan from oven.

Spread the graham cracker crumbs over the melted butter. Layer the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, heath bar (or coconut and nuts) on top of the graham cracker crust.

Pour the condensed milk over the top of the candies and bake for 25 minutes or until the condensed milk it bubbly and the center of the bars is set.

NOTE: If you use nuts and coconut your layers should be butter, graham crackers, nuts, choc chips, butterscotch chips, coconut, condensed milk (in that order).

Oh and Fly Boy liked the bars so much he asked me if I wanted some Dolly Partons to eat. I told him there were no big boobs in that pan at all :-)