HOWEVER, I did make cookies last week that got oohs and aahs and were much more local than I realized. Hurray! They’re based on a recipe from Joy the Baker, which is a fantastic blog/book that will fill all your indulgent dessert needs. These peanut butter, bacon, chocolate chunk cookies are free of gluten, dairy, and soy – all no-nos for me at the moment because of migraines and breastfeeding – but I swear that you won’t even notice because peanut butter, BACON, and chocolate. ‘Nuff said.

No pictures because I ate them too quickly. Oops!

Peanut Butter, Bacon, Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil (helps with clean up) and lay out the bacon strips in a single layer. Roast for 15 minutes or until really crisp. Don’t let it burn, but make sure it’s not chewy. I didn’t cook mine thoroughly enough, so my cookies had a textural disadvantage. Set it aside and let it cool a bit. Don’t turn off the oven.
3. Mix the peanut butter and 1 cup of sugar together, like you’re creaming regular butter and sugar.
4. Add in the molasses, egg, baking soda, and nutmeg, and mix well.
5. Once the bacon is cool enough to handle, chop it coarsely. It’s nice if the bacon and chocolate are about the same size, but don’t go nuts.
6. Gently mix the bacon and chocolate chunks into the dough.
7. Put the reserved 1/2 cup of sugar in a wide bowl.
8. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or coat well with nonstick spray).
9. Take about 1 tablespoon of dough, compress it in your hands to make a (very) free form ball, roll the ball in sugar, and place on the prepared baking sheet. The dough will be crumbly, so just do your best to smash it into a golf-ball-sized cookie. Repeat with the rest of the dough. The cookies don’t really spread, so you can put them pretty close together and fit all 24 on one baking sheet.
10. Bake for 10 minutes or until browned a bit.
11. Immediately after the cookies come out of the oven, use the tines of a fork to add that characteristic peanut butter cookie cross hatch pattern. You won’t get a clear print on each cookie, but it will serve to flatten them out nicely. Let cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool down all the way.

The most recent batch, cucumber, sounds wacky, but really works, in my humble (and admittedly possibly skewed) opinion, was inspired by two events. First, a fantastic dinner we had with some friends in Paris last month that was capped off by a sort of sundae with cucumber ice cream, strawberries, and crumbled meringue. We were all a little hesitant at first, but the combo really worked. Second, a crisper full of cucumbers on Wednesday night, less than 24 hours before our weekly CSA pick up. With refrigerator space at a premium, they had to go. I think it’s delicious just as it is, but Erik prefers some accoutrements so he can forget he’s eating vegetable ice cream. Either way, it’s not terribly difficult and it’s something different to try at least once!

I’m really sorry for the equipment heavy recipe this time. If you don’t have a juicer, you could just blend or food process the cucumbers. Either use the mush directly in the ice cream or strain it either through a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. I don’t have a tried and true method for freezing the ice cream without a machine, but I’ve seen a couple of methods on the internet, so it’s worth a try. Alternately, I think you could use the base in ice pop molds, perhaps with a few chopped up strawberries.

I didn’t take any pictures of the process, because I thought it was a weird pregnancy thing and wouldn’t be worth posting. Here’s a bad cell phone photo of of the ice cream with a tasty piece of blueberry walnut cake. Mmmmmm!

Cucumber Ice Cream

Makes about 1 1/2 quarts
Note: Ice cream base needs to chill overnight (or 8 hours).

Directions

1. Pour the milk and cream into a small saucepan and heat over medium until it starts to steam and tiny bubbles appear on the edges.
2. While the milk and cream are heating, give the yolks, sugar, and salt a good whisking until they’re lighter yellow.
3. Once the milk and cream are warm, SLOWLY pour about a cup into the yolk mixture, while whisking. This will warm up the yolks without scrambling them. After that portion of warm milk has been thoroughly incorporated, dump the lot back into the pan and whisk it up.
4. Heat the milk and yolks over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. This will take somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Make sure to scrape into the corners to avoid burning.
5. While the base is thickening, get out two large bowls and a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Fill one bowl with ice and set the second inside it.
6. Once the mixture has thickened, pour it through the sieve or cheesecloth into the second bowl. Straining the base will remove any scrambled bits of egg. Letting it sit over a bowl of ice water will help cool it down faster, so that you can get it into the refrigerator. Stir the mixture every once in a while until it is room temperature. Chill in the refrigerator overnight.
7. After its overnight chill down, add the cucumber and lemon juice to the base and freeze according to the directions for your machine. Eat as is or top with strawberries and crumbled meringue cookies.