Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: summer recipes

Libby Klein On my last posting day, I told you of my love for fruit desserts which sounds way more healthy than it is in my case. My other love is ice cream. Put the two together and BAM! I'm a happy girl. And I don't just mean for summer. I'd eat ice cream in January standing in snow at the North Pole. My favorite flavor is vanilla, but I'm very picky about my vanilla. If I don't see those little black specs I'm not interested. That's what coffee ice cream is for - when you don't have good vanilla. (Coffee ice cream was my gateway to drinking coffee - but that's another story.)

A couple weeks ago, I got so excited over the fat juicy blackberries at the farmer's market that I bought too many. Then I made a huge blackberry cobbler. You can see the recipe here. It was after making this huge cobbler that I remembered - my kids don't live at home anymore. I'm gonna have to eat this whole cobbler by myself. I am not up to that challenge. I love desserts, but a little goes a long way with me before I'm emotionally moving on to the next thing. That's when I thought about folding the cobbler into my other favorite dessert.

You might know that I used to have a professional ice cream batch freezer in my kitchen back when my daughter in law and I had an ice cream business. In spectacular timing that defines most of my life, we launched it right before covid hit. Needles to say it did not survive. But my love for making homemade ice cream far precedes 2020. And it all began with Alton Brown. This recipe is adapted from his Vanilla Custard.

Most of this is taken right from of Alton Brown's recipe with minor changes. My memory says that I learned about adding alcohol from Alton Brown's Good Eats episode on ice cream. It acts as antifreeze and keeps the ice cream from getting too hard. I also remember it being a part of the original recipe but when I looked it up, it is not there. But trust me. You will be happy you added the alcohol when your ice cream is the perfect frozen consistency.

Homemade Blackberry Cobbler Ice Cream

Ingredients:

3 cups half-and-half
1 cup heavy cream
8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean scraped
½ cup vanilla rum (for anti-freeze)

Blackberry Cobbler (or any leftover pie or cobbler will do)

Directions:

Place the half-and-half and the heavy cream into a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Bring the mixture just to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat.

In a medium bowl whisk the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla bean and whisk to combine.

Temper the cream mixture into the eggs and sugar by gradually adding small amounts, until about a third of the cream mixture has been added. Pour in the remainder and return the entire mixture to the saucepan and place over low heat. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon and reaches 170 to 175 degrees F. Pour the mixture into a container and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stir in the rum. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and once it is cool enough not to form condensation on the lid, cover and store for 4 to 8 hours or until the temperature reaches 40 degrees F or below.

Pour into a countertop ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's directions. This should take approximately 25 to 35 minutes. While the ice cream is churning, scoop your blackberry cobbler into little pieces and chill them. When your ice cream is thick like soft serve, stop the machine and spoon the vanilla ice cream onto the blackberry cobbler pieces. Gently fold them together until you have a nice swirl. Freeze for another 3 to 4 hours to allow the ice cream to harden.

I actually made a double batch of the frozen custard and ended up with three kinds of ice cream. A coffee ice cream with Kahlua and chocolate shavings, and caramel ice cream with caramel liquor and a caramel swirl. Let me know in the comments if you'd like me to post the recipe for either of these on the blog. And let me know what is your favorite ice cream flavor.

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

CLEO COYLE: Marc and I hope you're all enjoying this holiday weekend. For many, July Fourth marks the start of summer vacationing season, and summer eating! Mouthwatering barbeques, fresh corn on the cob, sweet slices of watermelon, and ripe garden tomatoes...

Marc and I love them all. Another of our favorites is ICE CREAM. We don't have an ice cream maker, so we use the easy no-churn method to make it fresh in our own freezer. If you'd like the recipe for our No-Churn Vanilla, Chocolate, and Coffee Ice Creams, click here or on the photo below, and have a delicious summer, everyone!

Click here or on the photo above to get
Cleo's recipes for No-Churn

Chocolate, Vanilla, and Coffee

Ice Creams (No Machine Needed!)

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NOW IT’S YOUR TURN...

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE FOODS OF SUMMER?

Join our chat in the comments and you’ll be

entered to win a terrific set of books

for your summer reading!

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LESLIE BUDEWITZ: I'm with Cleo on loving ice cream in summer, though we don't often make our own. We do make our own Chocolate Cabernet Sauce, which I shared with readers in Butter Off Dead and on the blog. Super easy, super yummy, and delish all year round. Plus it keeps in the fridge for a weeks, though ours never lasts that long.

Summer is also the perfect time for salads that need nothing except maybe a chunk of bread and a glass of a crisp white wine to make the perfect dinner. Even better if you can make a big bowl of it and enjoy it for dinner a couple of nights and maybe lunch in between. One of our faves is one we call Hail to the Shrimp---it was one of my first posts as a Mystery Lovers' Kitchen guest and the one I shared a few years ago for the blog's 10th anniversary. We've already made it once this summer, and I'm betting it's back on the menu at least a time or two before the weather cools. It's super flexible---use whatever fresh herbs you've got. It's bright and colorful and easy---just right for any summer evening!

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LUCY BURDETTE: How I love the vegetables of summer! That's when I make my first-ever recipe on MLK, the leaning tower of eggplant, with fresh eggplant, tomatoes and arugula from the garden or the farmer's market. Or I might make Mark Bittman's tomato rice soup, or how about a tomato cheese pie with a cornmeal crust?

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LESLIE KARST: I love outdoor dining--and cooking!--during the summer months. Nothing like firing up the barbecue to grill some sausages, chicken, and summer vegetables, then sitting around the patio with your family and friends sipping wine as you chat and watch the sun sink into the west.

And as Lucy says, the summer veggies! Oh là là! Time for homemade pickles and tomato jam!

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MADDIE DAY: Ah, summer, how I love you. When I can wander out to my garden and harvest dinner, I am a happy author - and human being. Sweet corn from the farm store. Freshly picked blueberries from my own bushes. Armfuls of basil. Asian eggplant on the grill, and mostly, sun-warmed tomatoes.

One favorite thing to make is when I have my own eggplant, peppers, basil, and tomatoes is Roasted Ratatouille. If it's too hot to roast indoors, you can grill the eggplant and peppers.

Last year I even my had my own potatoes to serve with the ratatouille. Mmm. Right now my garden tomatoes are small and green, but they'll get there!

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PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON: I'm old enough to remember when summer meant the arrival of watermelon and corn on the cob because neither was available year round like they are now. We were so excited when they first became available at the local farm stand. I still look forward to both of them! I also love ice cream, but that's a year-round treat. Right now we have locally grown asparagus from Michigan and I could eat that every night! I will also grill anything that doesn't run away and I love making desserts with the luscious berries that become available. I just made this simple strawberry cobbler again and it was the essence of summer.

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MAYA CORRIGAN: Living near the Chesapeake Bay, I associate summer with hard shell blue crabs. That's what we'll eat with friends for the July 4th celebration at our house. We won't cook the crabs ourselves, but buy them from the crab truck that parks outside our local supermarket several times during the summer.

For those who don't care to crack the shells and dig out the crab meat, we often serve Chesapeake style shrimp along with the crabs. The crabs and the shrimp are steamed with Old Bay seasoning, a Maryland product. Corn on the cob, coleslaw, and watermelon complete the feast.

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VICKI DELANY: For me it's tomatoes, hands down. I am lucky enough to live in farm country and that means tomatoes straight from my neighbouring farm. Since coming to live in Prince Edward County, Ontario, I've come to appreciate the wide variety of heirloom tomatoes that are having a resurgence in popularity. I've posted in the past about Vicki's Veggies (no relation) who specializes in heirloom tomatoes. Her tomatoes tasting day at the beginning of September is a county tradition. Here's some pics of the variety

What to do with all those tomatoes? Here's my summertime favourite recipe for Italian style bread salad:

Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Bread salad (mysteryloverskitchen.com)

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TINA KASHIAN: I love summer and the hotter the better. We plan a garden every year and grow Jersey tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and herbs. Using fresh ingredients from my garden to prepare dishes and salads makes me happy. We also have our own grapevine, and we pick grape leaves to make stuffed grape leaves. We pick the leaves when they are tender and freeze them in glass jars of brine to have enough to last all winter. As you can see, the grapevine can take over.