Sundays with Joy/Toasted Coconut Dutch Baby with Banana and Pineapple

I made this WAY earlier in the week because I wanted this post to be on time but Friday I was writing an igamemom post, Saturday I was baking for my niece’s birthday, and Sunday was her party.  So…the post comes today.

That’s 1/4 cup of butter we bake this in folks!

Anyways, this dutch baby was a LOVELY way to start the week.  It was one of the mornings that my baby had preschool.  I came right home and whipped this up.  The great thing about being alone to make something is well, for it being my first time making one, it took me no time at all.  I took uninterrupted pictures (well kinda, at that point it was getting close to pick up time so I had to speed it up).  But the worst thing, I was the only one home to eat it.  I usually make the kids wait to eat my stuff till after I take pictures but no one was home so I got to eat a piece first!  Plus, obviously, warmer is better.  My son did have a piece when he got home, though.

I used unsweetened coconut just because that is what I had on hand and aside from that I didn’t change a darn thing.  It looks like a complicated food but it was really quite simple.  I totally went with the whole wheat flour just like Joy said and I was not disappointed.  It went very well with the browned coconut.  I already have a variation I might want to try.  We’ll see.  I did try to make something for you this week and it didn’t go so well.  Out of the oven perfect but overnight, not so much, and it was supposed to be a snack that lasts a few days.  Back to the drawing board for that one…

Yum!

Anyways to see other variations on this check out Ellen at Indigo Scones.  She has some great pictures of her dutch baby all puffed up.  I can’t believe I didn’t think to take pictures at that point!  It looks pretty cool.  Also if you’d like to try this buy Joy’s cookbook!

My GeekyLinks for today were this app I just bought and something a friend wrote.  The story of this app is that it helped a documentary filmmaker finish his movie.  It makes video look like it was filmed with actual film from like 20 years ago.  I have big plans for this one during the summer when the kids are playing in the yard.  The best thing about it is that you can mute the sound of whatever it is your taping which helps make your film believable as something from a bygone era.  I tried it with the kids talking but it was kinda weird.  My other link is for those of you that remember the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where people that were frozen and sent to space were picked up and “thawed” by the Enterprise.  First off, you’re awesome and you might want to read Waking Up in the Future.

A lovely (yet lonely) brunch if I do say so myself.

Pineapple Coconut Bars

I am not ready for fall.  I usually LOVE it.  I don’t know what my problem is.  I was so mad at my husband the other day for getting out the Halloween decorations and he even put them up.  OK, mostly I was mad that he didn’t put everything up and now there is a box in the middle of my living room that the two little ones have been getting into but, I digress…

Everybody is posting pumpkin recipes and recipes with lots of cinnamon and spice and…I’m just not there yet.  Maybe I’m just unsatisfied with myself that I didn’t try as many new recipes during the summer that I would’ve liked, maybe it’s only because it is still too darn hot in So Cal, I don’t know.  It’s not that I don’t like pumpkin.  I would’ve said I didn’t a few years ago but then I found a recipe that slowly made me appreciate it and it evolved into making my own pumpkin pies and really loving them.  Whereas years earlier if I ever ate a slice of pumpkin pie it would be for the mountain of whipped cream that I would plop on top to go with it.

Crust, then with the first thin layer of topping, and then…all done.

I don’t know.  Does it sound like I am trying to convince myself to “get into” fall?  Maybe so.  But when my local supermarket had pineapple on sale last week, that meant I still had a week to avoid it.  I went full on tropical summer vacation with this one.  I used the crust from those Scarlet O’Hara Pecan Pie Bars that I had made before.  If I had thought more ahead I would have put macadamia nuts in the crust instead of the pecans but the crust was still as lovely as I remember.  The topping was nice and sweet without much additional sugar either, just lovely and pretty easy too.

My GeekyLink for today is something that I had never heard of before this week.  But luckily for me, I am on Twitter and follow lots of people that live in the U.K.  Everyone this week was tweeting about a show called Red Dwarf.  From their website, “First broadcast in 1988, Red Dwarf is a half-hour science-fiction sit-com.”  Hmm…with new episodes…?  I just might have to get on this train.

Also, I am working on a Recipe Index so be on the lookout for it!

Sundays with Joy/Chocolate Covered Coconut Macaroon Ice Cream (in a Blizzard Maker)

Yeah, yeah, Monday again.  I am late because, well, this week turned out to be a lesson in using what you’ve got.  Last time I used my sister-in-laws ice cream maker but as of Thursday, she was out of town.  I couldn’t even go pick it up.  So Thursday and Friday were spent wondering just what I was going to do for this week’s Sundays with Joy since it was ice cream.

Then I did what any mom would do on Saturday.  I went to the mountains with my kids and spent the day.  My husband rarely has a Saturday off.  Especially one where we don’t have anything to do, so we pounced on our opportunity to spend the day together.  We got home before dark and I went out in search of my ingredients, still not knowing how I was going to make the ice cream.  I had to go to 3 stores (all my local ones, thankfully) but I found everything I needed.

Toasted Coconut

Then I decided to break out the mini guns.  Both my daughter’s received dessert treat makers for Christmas.  I decided I would try to use both.  After reading the instructions, it turned out one didn’t really “make” anything, it just kind of dispensed it.  It made its own stuff using their mix but it couldn’t to any freezing or churning.  So we were down to one.  The DQ Blizzard Maker.  And it worked!  Kind of.

Angela working as fast as she can and do I see it thickening?

Using their mix, I would imagine it would make something harder than soft serve because when I finally did it all the way right (the second batch) it went REALLY well.  Of course the downside is that you are hand cranking for twenty minutes (only 10 with their mix) and longer.  O yeah, and since it only holds as much as a Dixie cup, we had to do it THREE times!  We only did it 100% right once because we were running low on ice (that trip to the mountains the day before needed a cooler) and salt (each time takes 3/4 cup!).  I ended up freezing each batch together as we went and mixing in the coconut by hand at that point as well.  Once we were done (we still had some batter leftover but we were DONE with the hand crank) I let it set up (stirring every 30 minutes) and took my pictures before the sun went down.

Homemade Magic Shell anyone?

So I guess it worked, although it took all day.  I couldn’t have done it without my kids, which was kind of cool.  O and did I mention that the ice cream was friggin awesome?  Let’s not even talk about the homemade Magic Shell, which was frickin amazing and the easiest thing ever!  The best thing about using the Blizzard Maker and having to make small batches?  I ended up tasting it A LOT as the day went on, truly yummy!  As always, please buy her cookbook for the recipe and please check out Bakeaholic Mama’s site for all the other ladies’ attempts and adaptations!

The only picture where you can see some of the coconut in the ice cream.

My GeekyLink for today is Star Trek For Kids a list compiled by GeekMom of essential Star Trek episodes that you should watch with your kids from all the franchises.  Speaking only for the Star Trek: TNG list, I really liked it a lot and agreed with the picks (yay, The Offspring, my mom’s favorite and who doesn’t love The Measure Of A Man or Deja Q?).  However, just off the top of my head I thought of two she could add for Season 1 (since she only includes the two part pilot).  How about When The Bough Breaks, which shows that even in the future it is possible to take your kids for granted, and Hide and Q, for more fun with Q?