Category Archives: mint

Jun10

My First Onigiri, or Rice Balls

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My First Onigiri, or Rice Balls

Tonight we had such a yummy dinner, and the kids really enjoyed helping out. First, we picked up our initial organic farm share of the season. The box was about half full, since it’s been a slow start for gardening this spring. Next week promises to have a full to busting box with kale and lots of greens, but this week we got butter lettuce, spinach, arugula, scallions and a generous quart of the sweetest strawberries around.

Then we came home, and I let my 4 year old pick out what would go in the rice balls, using leftovers and fresh picks from the fridge. We decided to make 4 kinds, one of each for each person. We used two cups of cooked pink Madagascar rice to encase the following:
roast chicken with neufchatel
pan-fried whiting with tamari and dulse flakes
raspberries with fresh mint
and adzuki beans with white miso and a little nutritional yeast

My favorite was the roast chicken, followed closely by the raspberries. My son adored the raspberries and the fish. And my 16-month old daughter devoured it all. YUM!

The pink rice is not really the right kind of rice to make onigiri, but it sure was pretty. I am looking forward to receiving my new rice molds, which should make the process even easier — and less messy.

We served it dinner on small plates with butter lettuce underneath, and had fresh strawberries for dessert.

Mar15

Leprechaun Cake — St. Patty’s Day Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake

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Leprechaun Cake — St. Patty’s Day Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake

This ice cream cake was a huge hit at our “Leprechaun Party”, and early St. Patty’s day celebration last weekend.

Not only was it super easy to make, but it was relative low-calorie (for an ice cream cake) and most importantly: de-lish!

Here’s the how and the what:

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Chocolate Cookies
Multi-grain Waffles
Dark Chocolate Chips
Milk
Green Sprinkles

Line a 9 x 5 x 3 bread pan with saran wrap, and take a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the freezer to soften. I used Edy’s slow churned version which has 1/2 the calories of regular ice cream, without artificial sweeteners.

Now take melt 2 cups of Hershey’s Special Dark chips with a 1/4 cup of milk over low heat in a sauce pan to make a ganache. Remove from heat.

Crush up 4 chocolate famous amos wafers cookies (or any cookies you think would be good). Rolling pins and mortar/pestles both work well for this.

Now for the fun part:

Pour 1/3 of the ganache into the pan.
Spread 1/2 the ice cream on top.
Sprinkle in half the cookies.
Lay in two waffles.
Pour in another 1/3 of the ganache
Spread the rest of the ice cream.
Sprinkle in the rest of the cookies.
Lay in two waffles.
Pour in the last 1/3 of the ganache

Fold over the saran wrap to enclose the cake, press gently to ensure there are no air pockets in the cake, and freeze overnight. Remove from freezer 10 minutes before serving. Unwrap, cover with green sprinkles, slice and serve.

YUM!

Note about the waffles: You can use any regular cake or lady fingers or cookies instead, of course. Waffles just happened to be all that was on hand, and I was doubtful about using them but they were actually really great with the cake….