.: evil jungle prince :.

As I've already harvested squash for the year, the remaining squash flowers in my garden or more decorative than functional. The bees absolutely love them -- so much as that at times it's hard to be in the garden for fear of getting stung. Today however I decided to take the flowers for myself and make a dish I've been wanting to make for ages now... Greek stuffed zucchini blossoms.

1. To begin this dish, harvest a handful of zucchini flowers, rinse, and set aside.

2. Next fry half an onion in a liberal amount of olive oil. Add to this mixture 1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley, 2 tsp salt, pepper.

3. Next, add 1/2 cup dry rice and 1 cup water. Cook the mixture until it is soft but the rice is not fully cooked. Set aside.

4. Hold a blossom propped up by three fingers (including thumb) and place a spoonful of the rice mixture into the blossom, closing the blossom quickly with the petals. Place into an oiled baking dish. Repeat until the blossoms are stuffed. Place the stuffed blossoms very close to each other (touching) so that they stay closed while baking.

5. Pour a small amount of water into the dish -- just enough that will complete the process of cooking the rice inside. Place into a pre-heated oven at 375F and cook until water has boiled off. I also suggest sprinkling the tops of the stuffed blossoms with olive oil so that they begin to brown while being baked.

Remarkably, the blossoms do stay together while being baked, forming an omusubi-like rice ball full of delicious and healthy herbs. What a delicious treat.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My second experiment with the new ice cream maker was this: mango lassi frozen yogurt. Mango lassi happens to be one of my favorite dairy treats, so the combination of "frozen" and "lassi" seemed like an obvious one. I also adore mangoes and can never eat them fast enough, so all the more reason to give this frozen version a go.

1. First I began by pureeing two fresh mangoes in a blender with just enough water as was necessary to grind them to a smooth mixture.

2. Then I combined 16 oz of Greek yogurt (rBGH free) together with the mango mixture and 1/2 cup sugar in the ice cream maker.

3. While the mixture was churning, I also added 1/2 tsp cardamom and 3 drops yellow food coloring for a vibrant yellow color. I additionally added 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

3. After 30 mins of churning, the frozen mango lassi was ready to be frozen for about four hours before being served.

Result: awesome!! This is my new favorite frozen treat; I'm kind of surprised you don't hear about "frozen lassi" more often. The combination of the sweet-sour mangoes, the tartness of the yogurt, and the sweetness of the sugar, vanilla bean, and cardamom was a winning combo which I will surely be preparing again and again.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

It's finally cooling off here in the desert, which means it's time to start harvesting citrus fruits! My small, still-young key lime tree managed to produce a few fruits this year, so supplementing them with a few grocery store bought key limes I thought I'd try out somethingg entirely new this time around: key lime pie "sorbet" ice cream, made in my new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker [attachment].

Though there are certainly more fun things to do than squeeze dozens of tiny, hard key limes for a measly 1/2 cup of juice, the idea of making my own ice cream for the first time injected some fun into the endeavor and the end goal made it worth the effort. I'm not sure I've ever tasted real key lime pie so I can't tell you how authentic tasting this recipe is, but the combination of sour and sweet was tasty, I thought.

1. Start out by squeezing key limes to produce 1/2 cup key lime juice. Strain and set aside.

2. Heat 3/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar on stove until the sugar dissolves. When dissolved, through in some ice cubes to cool down the liquid. Add 1/2 cup lime juice and a 14 oz can of sweetened, condensed milk. Mix. (The original recipe suggested icing down the liquid before going any further, though I didn't do that.)

3. Add a dash of vanilla extract to the liquid and a few drops of green food coloring.

4. Remove the ice cream freezer bowl from the freezer, pour in the liquid, and mix for 20-30 minutes until the ice cream begins to solidify. (I added some crunchy chocolate wafers for texture during the last minute.) Freeze in a non metallic container.

Who doesn't like ice cream?!

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)