I have quite a number of recipes I want to share with you. This could be either a boon or a problem, depending on how I look at it. I feel like it’s a problem (I want to write and I don’t have time!), but I’m choosing to see it as a boon (I have lots of writing material for whenever I do get a chance to park my rear and wiggle my phalanges).

I know I promised you a rhubarb pie recipe, but I’m going to have to put that on hold, I’m afraid, in order to tell you about the ice cream we made last night.

I’m hoping you’ll forgive me the change in plans. Rhubarb is really the more important matter, considering that it is in season now and you need ways to use it up now, but come on, folks, it’s strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Priorities, schmiorities, right?

Besides, maybe you’re in the same situation I am and it is your priority to use up all the strawberries you still have in the freezer from last year (making jam, ASAP). Either way, strawberries will soon be in season and before you know it you’ll be inundated with the ruby fruits. Consider this a friendly service announcement: make this ice cream when you get strawberries! Or, if you don’t have time in the heat of The Berry Moment, crush up some of the berries and freeze them in two cup portions—then you’ll have them on hand when you do have a little more breathing space.

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Adapted from Jude’s blog Apple Pie, Patis, and Pâté

When eaten fresh, this is a very soft ice cream. We churned it before supper and then kept it in the freezer for the next hour or two till we got around to eating it. (I make it sound as if we were dreading the proposition—oh darn, I made ice cream and now I have to eat it—which wasn’t the case at all. We had company and were busy enjoying them). At that point it was still really soft, but a couple hours later (after the company left and the kids were in bed and the dishes were mostly washed) when I transferred the leftover ice cream from the canister to freezer containers, the ice cream was nice and firm. It tasted really good, too. (Why is it that ice cream tastes better at ten at night, eaten directly from the container?) My point is: make this ice cream ahead of time to give it time to set up.

Also, this recipe makes a lot of ice cream—small ice cream makers will overflow. If you do have a small maker, churn the cream cheese base and then dump it into a large bowl to stir in the strawberries.

Oh yeah, in keeping with my cream-loving nature, I changed the recipe to include more cream. The original recipe called for 2 ½ cups whole milk and ½ cup cream and I reversed that. You can flip it back to the lean version (ho-ho-ho), if you wish, or, if you’re even more cream-infatuated than I am, omit the milk entirely (and then tell me—I’d like to meet you).

1 pound fresh strawberries, crushed (or two cups crushed frozen berries)
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
3 egg yolks
2 ½ cups cream
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 pound cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice

Stir ½ cup sugar into the crushed berries and refrigerate till ready to use (the berries need at least half an hour to macerate, so don’t do this step at the last minute).

Pour the cream into a saucepan, add the salt and 3/4 cup sugar, and heat over medium-high heat. While the cream is heating, beat the egg yolks. Temper the yolks by whisking in a half-cup of the hot cream a little at a time. Pour the tempered yolks into the saucepan, whisking furiously. When the cream has thickened slightly (do not boil), remove it from the heat and whisk in the half cup of milk to stop the cooking. Add the vanilla. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, cool to room temperature, and chill thoroughly.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese, remaining ½ cup sugar, zest, and lemon juice. Gradually beat in the chilled cream mixture. (I added my cream while it was still quite hot and had no problems). Chill the ice cream base in the refrigerator, or, if you’re like me, you can speed-chill it in the freezer for a little while.

Churn the ice cream. When it’s done, add the strawberries and churn for another couple minutes. For (very) soft serve ice cream, eat immediately. For hand-dipped ice cream, freeze for at least four hours.

Update, August 17, 2009
Variation: Use mashed peaches in place of the strawberries for some delightful Peaches-and-Cream Ice Cream.

It’s rhubarb season! So far I’ve made a rhubarb pie (with strawberry juice), a rhubarb crisp (but I don’t think it counts since it was made from last year’s frozen rhubarb), another rhubarb pie (which I will write about shortly), and rhubarb jam. It is the jam I want to talk about now.

This jam is oh-so-simple to make—just toss four ingredients together, simmer them for twenty minutes and ta-da!—you have yourself some tangy, punchy jam. (Because this jam doesn’t call for any of the traditional jam thickeners such as Sure-jell, the end result is less gelatinous and more like thick, blob-y fruit preserves.)

While the original recipe calls for rhubarb, sugar, candied ginger, and lemon zest, I did a little research and have come to the conclusion that you can make any number of variations on the theme and the recipe will be none the worse for it: when I was digging around in my cupboard for the candied ginger, I found some candied orange peel which I then decided to add in place of the called-for lemon zest. The chewy chunks of fruit gave the jam a marmalade-like flair—a good thing, in my book.

Some variation suggestions: Add fresh, powdered, or candied ginger, lemon or orange zest, candied lemon or orange peel. You may want to add other fresh or frozen fruits, too, though you might need to adjust the sugar and cooking times accordingly. I read one recipe that paired red raspberries with rhubarb, and that got me to thinking about fresh cranberries… And now that I wrote the words “fresh cranberries” I’m wondering about dried—I bet craisins (golden raisins? sour cherries?) would be quite tasty and in keeping with the marmalade theme.

Anyway, as my rhubarb comes in I plan to cook up little batches of this jam. Each recipe yields a pint of jam, so I think I’ll hot-pack it in half-pint jars as I go along. That is, if we don’t eat it all up first.

Rhubarb Jam
Adapted from Epicurious, a recipe from the July 1997 issue of Bon Appétit.

The original recipe called for 1 1/4 cups of sugar, but I cut it back to one cup. Depending on your preferences, you may want increase the amount, or even decrease it some more.

The recipe doesn’t call for any water, but I added a couple tablespoons because the mixture seemed impossibly dry and I was afraid it would scorch. I needn’t have worried though, because as soon as the rhubarb started heating up, it wept copious amounts of water. If you, like me, want to add a little liquid to appease your qualms, I suggest using only a couple tablespoons of water or fruit juice (orange, grape, or apple would all be delicious, I think).

(See the body of the post for the other recipe variations.)

4 cups rhubarb, cleaned and chopped into ½ inch pieces
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons candied ginger, chopped
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Mix the ingredients together in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling steadily, turn the heat down to a high medium so that it still bubbles pleasantly, but not at break-neck speed. Once the mixture has thickened (it will mound up on a spoon and briefly separate when you cut through it with the stirring spoon) it is done. Note: Stir the mixture quite a bit at the beginning and end of the cooking time to prevent scorching, but in the middle you can relax a little, checking on it once every two or three minutes.

Either hot pack the jam in jars, or cool it to room temperature before transferring it to the fridge or freezer.

Serve the rhubarb jam on toast, muffins, scones, add it to yogurt, serve warm on top of vanilla or strawberry ice cream, use as a fruit filling for shortbread cookies and coffee cakes, or drizzle over cheesecake.

Updated, May 8, 2009
The second time I made this jam, I added about a third cup of frozen cranberries and they turned the jam nice and red (the variety of rhubarb I have in my garden tends to be mostly green with a few red stalks, resulting in a pinkish jam).

For that batch of jam I used lemon zest and for the next one I used orange zest. Both were delicious.