Rebecca Davis 4/5/21 Rebecca Davis 4/5/21

Candy pretzel no-churn ice cream

No-churn vanilla ice cream with Easter candy and pretzel mix-ins is the easy, fun cooking project that you can do with your kids to use up that holiday haul! #Easter #icecream #icecreamrecipe #nochurn #dessert #sweetandsavory

If the Easter Bunny left you a LOT of candy this year (or you stocked up on post-holiday sales), this Candy Pretzel No-Churn Ice Cream is a fun way to use it up. AND, it’s so easy that my (newly) 6-year-old can make it mostly by himself!

Take me to the ice cream!

I’m obsessed with no-churn ice cream. Most recipes you’ll find are basically the same— a carton of heavy cream, a can of sweetened condensed milk, a pinch of salt (but not in this recipe because we’re using pretzels), some vanilla extract, and whatever mix-ins you like. Some recipes use a bit of cream cheese, but I prefer it without.

*There are two ways to make the ice cream base: You can whip the cream first and then fold in the condensed milk, OR you can combine them and whip the whole mess together. Obviously, it’s faster to do the milks together, but you risk over-mixing. Whipping the base too much can lead to a buttery texture in the final product, which is a little gross.

Whipping the cream on its own lets you see how thick it’s gotten, so you’re less likely to overdo it. If you’re a newbie or just worried, use this method.

I usually dump them both together and whip until I see tracks in the mixture that stay put for a few seconds before melting back into the gloop. Just note: When you mix the two liquids together, you WON’T achieve a stiff peak like you would with cream alone.

My favorite part of this particular recipe is the pretzel-Rolo concoction. You basically melt a Rolo (or any other chocolate and caramel candy) in the oven for 3 minutes and then smoosh another pretzel and some sprinkles on top. They’re like a chocolate-covered pretzel with a caramel sprinkle bonus! And much less messy to make!

Also, if you’re like us, you always have some stale pretzels in the back of the cabinet that no one really wants to eat. This is a great way to resurrect them.

Candy pretzel No-Churn Ice Cream

Time: 20 minutes + 8 hours of freezing
Yield: About 5 cups of ice cream

10-15 Rolo candies (or other chocolate and caramel candy)
20-30 mini pretzels
2-3 Tbsp sprinkles
2 cups heavy cream (1 pint)
14 oz sweetened condensed milk (1 small can)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 cups chocolate candy, roughly chopped (I used milk chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs, but use whatever you like!)

Heat the oven to 350.

Spread half of the pretzels on a parchment-covered sheet pan. Top with one Rolo or other chocolate and caramel candy. Melt in the oven for 2-3 minutes.

Remove from the oven and top each melted chocolate piece with another pretzel and glitz them up with some sprinkles. Put in the fridge to chill while you make the ice cream base.

*Combine the heavy cream, condensed milk, and vanilla extract in a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer. (See notes above for different methods for making the base.) Mix with the whisk attachment until you see visible tracks in the cream that stick around for a few seconds before melting back into the gloop.

Roughly chop whatever candy you’re using. Remove the pretzels from the fridge and roughly chop those too. Gently fold the chopped candies into the ice cream base. Pour the mixture into a metal or other freezer-safe container and freeze for at least 8 hours.

Rebecca Davis 3/15/21 Rebecca Davis 3/15/21

Browned butter and leek mashed potatoes

What’s better on your Easter or Passover table than some decadent (browned butter! cream!), spring-y (leeks!) mashed potatoes?

Take me to the spuds!

Spring holidays are the best. They feel like a gateway to blue skies, warmer weather, and, this year, like we’re one step closer to some sense of safety and normalcy. Maybe that’s overstating it, but last year’s holidays were SO WEIRD, right?. I was about 5 minutes postpartum with Z, so I’m sure everything felt worse in that state, but I remember being so afraid. We knew so little about Covid and how it spread. We wiped down our groceries with BLEACH. I was afraid to go in our front yard. We left our mail outside for WEEKS. WHAT THE FUCK.

Anyway, this year has been wild. I was actually imagining talking about it in the future. It’s going to be one of those conversations where the other people all went through the same thing, but we all need to talk about it like we were the only ones.

Anyway, about the potatoes. These are so quick and easy, but a little fancy and extra, which is what I like on a holiday table.

But let’s talk about ricing your mashed potatoes for a sec, shall we? I’m an avowed lazy cook/cleaner. I think it was years of dishwasher-less NYC kitchens that conditioned me to avoid extra dishes at any cost, so I really resisted using a ricer for a long time (and I still don’t use it unless it’s a special occasion). Some people are ricer devotees for achieving those ultra fluffy, creamy potatoes. And when you’re making straight-up, unadorned mashed potatoes, I do think the ricer makes a difference.

However, there are going to be lumps in these potatoes because we’re adding leeks, so I recommend skipping it and saving yourself some time and dishes.

Want to make these extra decadent and fancy? Add a drizzle of cream on top of the potatoes along with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt and some Aleppo pepper to finish it off. It’s *chef’s kiss*.

Brown butter and leek mashed potatoes

Time: 20 minutes, all active
Yield: About 4-6 side servings

1 lb Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
¼ cup heavy cream + more for drizzling
1 tsp kosher salt, divided
4 Tbsp butter
1 small leek, trimmed, quartered and sliced
¼ tsp pepper
Pinch of Aleppo pepper (optional)

In a medium soup pot, cover the peeled and chopped potatoes with cold water. Bring to a boil over a high flame. Once boiling, continue cooking at a rolling boil (you may need to turn the flame down if the water threatens to boil over) for 8-10 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender.

While the potatoes are boiling, clean and chop your leeks and set aside.

Add the butter to a small pan or pot and heat over a medium flame until the butter has melted and begins to bubble vigorously and pop slightly. If the popping is too much or too dangerous, turn the flame down slightly, but you want to maintain the bubbling. Let the butter cook for 1-2 minutes and check to see if little brown bits are separating and falling to the bottom of the pan beneath the bubbles. The butter should smell nutty. This may take a few minutes longer depending on your pan and how cold your butter was to start, so keep checking regularly.

Once the browning has begun, add the leeks and ¼ tsp salt to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until the leeks also begin to brown. If the browning happens too quickly, turn down the flame.

Drain the potatoes and add ¼ tsp salt. Mash well.

Add ¼ cup heavy cream to the mashed potatoes and whip vigorously with a spatula or whisk. When the leeks and butter are sufficiently browned, add them to the potatoes. Season with the remaining ½ tsp of kosher salt and ¼ tsp of pepper, or more to taste.

Rebecca Davis 4/2/20 Rebecca Davis 4/2/20

SPD: Gnocchi, sausage, and fridge leftovers

This sheet pan dinner is fast, easy, and uses up whatever you might have in the freezer or fridge that’s going bad. Because no one wants to waste food right now. #meandthemoose # sheetpandinner #roastedgnocchi #quickdinner #nofoodwaste #oddsandendsc…

Truly clean out your fridge or freezer with this sheet pan dinner that combines textures and flavors to make something much greater than the sum of its ingredients.

Take me to the recipe!

Around the new year, we decided to work on minimizing our food waste because, as any parent of young children can tell you, kids don’t give A SHIT about wasting food. Without resorting to the whole “there are starving children in the world, so you will eat this broccoli” threat that just leads to power struggles, we’re trying to be creative about getting M to eat whatever we make. Especially now that groceries are a little harder to come by (but not that hard, really).

I’ve seen millions of recipes about roasting gnocchi and for some reason, I’ve resisted. Though I feel like gnocchi should really appeal to M, the soft kind leaves him cold. When they’re roasted, however, they get crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, so they’re closer to tater tots or french fries than soft pasta. Let me tell you: Anything french fry-related appeals to my child.

We also included sausages (these are chorizo) because sausage is almost always eaten around here. You could also use hot dogs if that’s something your children will actually eat. Desperate times, people. Desperate times.

I can also confirm that this sheet pan dinner can be made with one hand while holding a baby.

A couple of notes:

When I started making this sheet pan dinner, I was trying to mimic the flavors of a Portuguese sausage and kale soup, so I used chorizo, Lacinto kale, potato gnocchi, and sundried tomatoes, but as I said above, you can use any kind of sausage that you like, including hot dogs.
You can also use any veggies in this sheet pan. I initially used just kale, which gets nice and crispy, but ended up using a combination of kale and broccoli or kale and something else that was about to go bad. I like the crispy kale, but for a meal, I feel like you need more textures. But really, use what you have on hand.
I finish this dish with oil packed sundried tomatoes, but if you only have the dried ones, reconstitute them in boiling water for a few minutes before adding to the sheet pan. I would NOT recommend throwing any fresh tomatoes onto the sheet pan because the water that comes out of the fresh tomatoes will steam the veggies and gnocchi and prevent them from crisping.

SPD: Gnocchi, sausage, and fridge leftovers

Yield: 4 grown up servings
Time: 30-35 minutes, (5 minutes active time, 25-30 minutes waiting time)

2-3 cups roughly chopped kale, broccoli, green beans, brussels sprouts, etc (defrosted first, if frozen)
1 package shelf-stable potato gnocchi
¼ cup olive oil
½ tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 lb precooked sausage, cut into large chunks (defrosted, if previously frozen)
¼ cup sundried tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 450.

Toss the gnocchi and roughly chopped veggies with olive oil and salt. Add the sausage.

Cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the veggies are roasted and the gnocchi are golden and crispy.

Remove from the heat and top with sundried tomatoes.

Serve immediately.