Chocolate Cream Pie Ice Cream

What's the difference between Chocolate Cream Pie Ice Cream and Chocolate Ice Cream you say? Well, the difference is that I took a chocolate cream pie mishap and turned it into ice cream 2 days later. The result? Fantastic!

On Saturday I was making a chocolate cream pie using the Homesick Texan's delicious looking recipe for a dinner party we were having. Something happened in the custard-thickening process and it just never thickened. I thought it was good when I saw a top film that seemed thick enough, but boy was I wrong when I poured it into the pie shell. It was like chocolate milk! The meringue which I knew I did wrong came out correctly, go figure. I baked the pie in hopes of some kind of thickening in the oven. No luck. So I threw it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Again, no luck on the custardy filling even getting to the pudding stage! Needless to say, I did not serve dessert to my guests.

I tasted the runny pie and deemed it a delicious soup. Then today I decided I'd buy some heavy whipping cream and see if I could turn it into ice cream. It had all the right ingredients and I thought it just might work. I scraped off the meringue and threw it away. I poured the chocolate filling into a pyrex, added a cup of whipping cream and stirred. I poured the whole mess into the ice cream maker and viola! 20 minutes later I had a creamy light chocolate ice cream. I added pieces of pie crust at the very end for a little hint of what it used to be. Delicious! I highly recommend it--the one thing--you have to mess up the pie in order to get this to work.

Chocolate Cream Pie Ice Cream
4 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa
3/4 cups of sugar
5 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of whole milk
2 egg yolks, beaten slightly
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 pie crust

Directions (I think)
1.Mix together all ingredients through eggs with whisk. Heat over medium until it thickens slightly to coat the back of spoon.
2. Meanwhile, poke holes in pie crust with fork. Bake pie crust for 20 minutes at 400 degrees or according to package directions
3. Remove chocolate mixture from heat, add butter and vanilla and stir until butter is melted.
4. Place chocolate mixture in the refrigerator and chill until well cooled.
5. Break pie crust into bite-sized pieces, set aside.
6. Prepare ice cream maker. Mix 1 C heavy cream with the chocolate mixture and pour into ice cream maker. Freeze for 20 minutes. With two minutes remaining, add pie crust pieces.
7. Scrape ice cream into container and freeze until ready to eat.

Smokey Meat Sauce

There is no shortage of pasta sauce types and flavors in the grocery store, but sometimes I don't want to pay $4-5 for a jar that I will use only a quarter of. What if the flavor ends up being terrible? Last night, I needed to use up some hot Italian sausage so I thought I'd whip up a pasta sauce of my own. It turned out pretty well actually--a smokey flavor because of one unusual star...bacon.

Applewood bacon is all the rage at restaurants these days. A selling point for burgers, cobb salad and BLTs. We got a pound of it last week from Trader Joe's and it turned out that applewood smoked bacon, while it has a lot of flavor, is also a lot more fat than actual porky bits. As a result finding a use for it was tough, so adding it to the pasta sauce seemed like a good decision. It really does bring a twist.

Smokey Meat Sauce
Ingredients
3 slices bacon, chopped
2 hot Italian sausages, casings removed, chopped
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes wth garlic and basil
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 T Italian seasoning
1 clove garlic, chopped
scant T olive oil

Directions
1. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat until fragrant. Add bacon and sausage and saute until browned breaking up sausage with spatula.
2. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more
3. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and Italian seasoning. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 20-30 minutes or until slightly thickened.
4. Meanwhile prepare pasta of your choice