Restaurant Wars 2013 - Dairy Queen

I've been slacking on my 2013 challenge.  It's funny really.  Since I've been unemployed I have had more time to complete the challenges, but I haven't finished one since May!  Today marks me getting back on the horse and starting the second half of the year with a delicious bang.

Today's challenge is perfectly timed with this hot weather that has been blanketing the country.  It's ice cream related.  My challenge restaurant this week is Dairy Queen!

The vast menu of DQ gave me lots of options to choose from for my challenge.  From Blizzards to Peanut Buster parfaits, waffle bowl sundaes to Dilly bars, most of treats are made from soft serve ice cream and different inclusions.  What I usually order when I head to DQ is a vanilla cone, dipped in cherry red shell.  Simple, delicious.  Love it.

There are lots of recipes out there for chocolate magic shell.  Simple combine chocolate chips with some coconut oil and you've made yourself magic shell.  Cherry magic shell is a little bit more tricky.  I had to make a few batches to get this one right.  I started out with white chocolate and coconut oil, with cherry extract.  That batch tasted like coconut magic shell.  Not quite what I was going for.

Batch two I swapped out the coconut oil for grape seed oil.  Grape seed oil is perfect for this because it lends no flavor to the magic shell.  It wasn't there yet, because the cherry flavor wasn't strong enough.  That red stuff from Dairy Queen really tastes like cherries.  Well, fake cherry flavoring actually.  I decided to swap out the cherry extract for cherry candy oil.  It's a much more potent flavoring and matched with a little vanilla extract, made for just the right combination.  I threw in a big dash of red food coloring and I finally came out with magic in a jar.

Now I don't need to drive halfway across New Jersey to get myself a DQ vanilla cone.

Key Lime Pie on a Stick

Way back in the spring of 2004, Boyfriend and I went on our first cruise. At this point in our lives, I was in Grad school in Madison, WI and he was working in Miami, FL. You can imagine that I spent as much time as I could get away with visiting him during the winter months. As we’ve discussed before, winter is not the best time to visit Wisconsin. It’s a little cold and frigid and blustery. For the entire month of February 2004, the temperature didn’t rise above 15° F (we’re talking -10 degrees Celsius here!). The trip to Miami was a welcome break from the ridiculous temperatures.

After arriving in the Miami airport I began to shed my layers of warmth. First, the Northface jacket (basically a down comforter with sleeves) was bundled into a ball and tossed into the back seat. My sneakers and socks were shed in favor of flip flops, allowing my pale feet their first bit of sunshine in months. Finally, I was warm enough to change from my lab uniform of jeans and a t-shirt to a cute sundress. I began to embrace the warm weather and slather on the SPF 50.

Our five-day cruise was sailing out of the port of Fort Lauderdale the next morning, so we enjoyed a seaside dinner on South Beach. If it’s still open, you should head to Rendevous, they have an amazing flatbread pizza. Boyfriend and I took a stroll on the beach and I got lots of sand in my shoes. Let it be known, I love the beach, I hate sand.

The next morning we waved goodbye to our car and sailed away into the bright blue ocean. Our first port of call, Key West. Although we were making other ports while on our cruise, this was the one that I was most excited about. Why? I love Key limes. If you ask my mom, I would ask for Key Lime pie for my birthday. Love that tangy-sweet flavor. My mission while on Key West was to eat some pie. And oh boy, did I.

While walking our miles and miles around Key West, Boyfriend and I stumbled upon Kermit’s Key Lime Shoppe. A haven for all things key lime and therefore my new favorite place in the world. I stocked up on key lime juice (oh the days before the 3 ounce rules), key lime taffy and cookies.

Something that caught my eye was sitting quietly in the freezer with a simple sign - Frozen Key Lime pie on a stick. Think of the combination of tart key lime pie and dark chocolate. The tangy, sweet and bitter flavors played off of each other so well that it was hard to keep myself from eating more than one slice. Years later I found myself wanting to reminisce on Key West. I leave you with an amazing recipe and a suggestion to head to Kermit’s and buy one of the original.