Looks good, doesn’t it? Well it wasn’t!
The kitchen gods appear to be out to get me today, and because of that I suffered a few minor disasters: I blew out the blender, cut the tip of my finger off, felt tired while cooking, served food cold that was meant to be hot, and to top it all off, my never-fails Mexican Montage all tasted, um I’m not sure the word…weird. Everything just tasted strange. Old-hat menu items came out tasting funky. I was feeling in a funk. Did the food pick up on that? I thought it might just be me and my taste buds, so I checked with Jeff and he agreed, “Yeah, everything was just okay!” Confirmed.
Why did this happen to me? Are they using some kind of strange gas in the trucks that transport from California? Is it that I am picking up on the regional flavor of California March Fresh (apparently not a good flavor)? Is it that the produce I used was not organic? Something I did only for purposes of convenience, and apparently a BIG mistake! What happened? Did the food turn out mediocre because I was having an off day, or was it the produce?
The best thing on the menu was dessert. We enjoyed Strawberry Crusted Mojito Ice Cream Cake, but even that suffered the day’s revenge of the kitchen gods! My strawberry crust was too crumbly, and the whipped cream topping (omitted from the picture) looked brown. How do I appease the gods? What have I done wrong?
Strawberry Crusted Mojito Pie
Ingredients:
- 1.5 quarts Alden’s Organic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
- 1 handful fresh mint leaves
- 1 can frozen lemonade concentrate
- zest of 1 lime
- 2 Tbs. Creme de Menthe
- 4 cups frozen strawberries
- 1/2 cup coconut, toasted
- 1/2 cup pistachios, roasted, salted and crushed
Directions: Let the ice cream and the lemonade concentrate soften a bit before you take this on unless you want to blow out your blender motor. Place the lemonade concentrate in the blender first followed by the mint, lime zest, creme de menthe and ice cream. Pulse the ingredients until it looks like a malt.
Pour the mixture into a bundt pan and freeze. Allow the pie to set up for about an hour and then add the strawberry crust. Pulse the frozen strawberries in the food processor and then spread on top of the ice cream layer. Let the pie freeze for at least six hours.
To remove the ice cream cake from the bundt pan, immerse for a few seconds in a bowl filled with hot water, then place a serving plate on top of the bundt pan and flip it over. Allow the cake to firm another hour in the freezer before serving. Serve topped with toasted coconut and roasted pistachios.
Vegetarian Perspective 