No Churn Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Figs and Salted Honey

In which I go buy more food so as not to waste one ingredient.

It may seem counterintuitive for someone who cooks most of her meals at home and operates a food blog, but I frequently get comments from friends who have seen inside my fridge that I never have any food in there. My response is usually the most obvious answer of “Well, I ate it.” It is equally shocking to me to see friends’ refrigerators bursting with food, because I can’t fathom keeping that much food around, knowing I could never possibly eat it all before it went bad.  As anyone who watches John Oliver could tell you, food waste is not a new topic nor does it seem to be an especially urgent problem to most people, but for me, I try really hard to only buy food I have a plan for or to frequently take stock of my freezer and pantry and make meals out of what is available. It’s why I make a ton of frittatas and frequently find myself suffering through foods I’m sick of, like a recent posole I did not enjoy even before I froze a gallon of it. But, every time I’m forced to throw away a moldy nub of ginger root or a slimy bag of cilantro, I’m reminded that wasting food is even less enjoyable to me than the most disappointing leftovers.

All of the above is really just a very long winded explanation of why, when I found myself with some unspoken for figs in my refrigerator this week, I quickly panicked that I had absolutely no idea what to do with them. I’m fairly new to figs, having never tried them until last summer, and so I don’t necessarily find myself craving them and I have no repertoire of recipes to make use of them when I find myself with extras. Day after day, watching them shrivel and wrinkle in the refrigerator, I first cursed myself for buying them, then decided I had to take action.

My number one rule for not letting food go to waste is that your freezer is your friend. Take a peek in mine and you will find vegetable scraps, heels of bread, rolls of tomato paste and parmesan cheese rinds, all waiting for the day when I have use for them. The freezer is also the wonderful invention that allows me to keep on hand one of the most amazing substances on this earth, ice cream. And, since I currently was out of stock after consuming a quart of Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter Ice Cream in record time,* I had a void waiting to be filled.

*Look, sometimes you just need a little comfort when all of your vacation days are gone and you are staring down a dark, endless tunnel devoid of Federal holidays until November.  

One thing I do know about figs from ordering my fair share of cheese plates is that they very frequently seem to be paired with goat cheeses and honey. I saw no reason to break the pattern so I decided on a goat cheese ice cream with a balsamic fig swirl and salted honey to cut through the sweetness. I also had yet to try my hand at this no-churn ice cream trend I’ve been reading about all summer, so I kept my ice cream maker in the cabinet and went the way of whipped cream and condensed milk instead. As it turns out, the bonus to making ice cream this way meant that I had minimal new ingredients to buy to go along with the figs. I didn’t have any cream or egg whites left over, and since I had been out of regular honey anyway, having a new jar of that in the cabinet was just another bonus.

This came out phenomenally well, so well that it's fortunate no one else was around to witness my dorky happy dance upon first bite. Even with the two flavor swirls, this is possibly the easiest ice cream I have ever made, and among the tastiest. The goat cheese is tart, the figs are sweet, and the honey is salty. There are still a few days of summer left, so if you've got a stand mixer, a hand beater or a sturdy arm in your possession, I suggest you go make this immediately!

No Churn Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Figs and Salted Honey

Makes 1 quart, method adapted from Martha and The Kitchn.

Ice Cream Base
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
2 cups heavy cream
8 oz goat cheese

Sea Salt Honey Swirl
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp flaky sea salt

Fig Swirl
1/2 lb mission figs, stems removed
1 tbs honey
1 tbs balsamic vinegar

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Quarter the figs and toss with honey and vinegar. Roast, covered for 15-20 minutes until soft. Let cool and puree. Set aside until completely cool.
  2. While figs are cooling, stir together honey and sea salt and set aside. In the bowl of  an electric mixer (or using a hand mixer), whip together goat cheese and heavy cream until stiff peaks form (it might be helpful to smooth out the goat cheese with a little cream first). Gently fold the whipped cream mixture into the condensed milk until all ingredients are incorporated. There may be a few lumps in the mixture but that's ok, they will turn into nuggets of goat cheese goodness in the final product!
  3. Pour the ice cream mixture into a freezer safe container and swirl in the honey and fig mixtures. Cover and freeze until hard.

Better Buffalo Blasts

Exercise is good for the mind.

There’s a local hiking spot here in the Bay Area called Mt. Diablo, and the name is pretty apt, as hiking there on a hot day feels like marching through a steep, unshaded hell filled with horse flies.  I’ve now hiked it twice, most recently enduring the full base to summit loop as practice for the Wyoming hike. The thinking was that though it is a shorter hike at (only) 13 miles, Mt. Diablo is steeper and hotter and would be a good test of our stamina and general fitness levels before heading to the Tetons. We all obviously survived the hike, but it was so unenjoyable I don’t think any of us has plans to ever hike it again. There is no real payoff for your effort until you get to the summit, and even if it’s a clear day, the view never quite seems worth it.

The one thing that kept me sane on this last Mt. Diablo hike was dreaming up these buffalo chicken wraps. At the start of the hike, I got into a discussion with my friend Susan about those fried buffalo chicken wontons you can find at the Cheesecake Factory, and she was lamenting how she wasn’t able to eat them due to a special low-fat diet she’s been following. I immediately thought of some baked samosas I had made using brown rice wrappers, and started wondering if I could adapt the same technique to these buffalo chicken wontons. By the time we got to the summit I had already sweat off my sunscreen twice and downed two liters of water, but I also had mapped out a rough recipe for these in my head. The air was hazy and so the view from the summit was unspectacular, but I got a payoff afterall.

Shredded poached chicken breast gets combined with low-fat cream cheese, buffalo sauce, celery and carrots, to bring all aspects of a wing plate inside the wrapper, garnish and all. The wrapped pouches are brushed with oil and baked at high heat until crispy yet still slightly chewy, then they get dipped in a cooling yogurt sauce spiked with scallions. The result is a spicy, indulgent treat perfect for football season that manages not to blow your calorie intake for the day so you can have that extra sad or celebratory beer guilt free.

Better Buffalo Blasts

Inspired by The Cheesecake Factory and My New Roots

Makes 16

2 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
2 carrots, peeled and diced small
2 ribs celery, diced small
8 oz. low fat cream cheese
12 oz. Frank's Red Hot Sauce
16-32 brown rice wrappers
2 tsp olive oil, divided

Yogurt Scallion Dipping Sauce
8 oz. fat free greek yogurt
1 tsp rice vinegar
3 scallions, thinly sliced

  1. Preheat oven to 425. Poach the chicken breasts until just barely done. When cool enough to handle, finely dice or shred the chicken.
  2. While the chicken is poaching, saute the carrots and celery in 1 tsp olive oil until softened, about 3-5 minutes, then mix with the cream cheese until fully incorporated. 
  3. Stir the hot sauce into the cream cheese mixture until combined, then fold in the chicken until completely coated.
  4. To assemble, soak a sheet of the rice paper in warm water until it is pliable and lay it on a flat surface. Spoon 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture into the center of the wrapper, then fold the sides over to seal, starting with the left, then the right, then the bottom, then the top (like wrapping a present). See below for a step by step photo guide.
  5. Repeat with the remaining wrappers. You should have 16 little packages. If you want to double wrap them, repeat the process with each, using 32 total wrappers. I would recommend this since they can break at the edges in the oven when you flip them.
  6. Brush each packet with half of the remaining 1 tsp olive oil, then bake 30 minutes, flipping halfway through and brushing with the remaining olive oil. 
  7. While baking, make the dipping sauce. Mix all ingredients together and season to taste with salt and pepper.
  8. When hot and crispy, remove from the oven and serve immediately with the dipping sauce and extra celery sticks, if desired.