Original subtitles

Jeff: Today on "the kitchen" family style,"

we're cooking up summer favorites with a twist,

with a smoky new spin on a barbecued rib sandwich,

fresh and flavorful grilled corn and tomato salad.

Gz's spicy kick for flaky fish and chips,

new refreshing ideas for the juicy summer watermelon.

It's a delicious plate full of our summertime faves.

Today on "the kitchen: Family style."

hello and welcome to

"the kitchen: Family style edition."

[ laughs ]

it is summertime and today's show

is all about our summer favorites with a twist.

All right, well, jeff's up first.

Jeff, what are you gonna make?

I am making my mac daddy mauro barbecued boneless rib burger.

You guys are gonna love it.

I am outside in my outdoor kitchen for the first time.

Live here on "the kitchen: Family style edition."

you can hear the cicadas buzzing in the background.

That means summertime is here.

So I am gonna combine two of my summertime favorites.

That is burgers, of course, and barbecue ribs.

Nothing better, right? Sweet and sticky.

Right off the bone. You love it.

As always, my lovely camera operator and wife,

sarah, is there.

Let's get cooking, shall we?

So good, fresh ground pork.

It's usually ground shoulder or nice fatty pork.

And this is what we're gonna start with.

Next is a barbecue rub.

Whatever is your favorite. This is my homemade rub.

You can find it on the food network kitchen app.

It's got granulated garlic, smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne,

and my secret ingredient, turbinado sugar,

which kind of gives it that low and slow caramelization

and that big pot of sugary sweetness.

So we're gonna add about a tablespoon

directly into the mix here.

And this is gonna give it sweetness

and smokiness throughout.

I got my grill, super high heat preheating here.

We're at about 650, 700 degrees.

We want that beautiful char and caramelization

on the outside. All right.

So we're just gonna lightly mix this, right?

We don't want to over-compress it.

But I'm looking at my buns.

I'm looking at my patty, and I'm matching it up.

All right. We'll do one right there.

And we got lorenzo's.

And then we got -- that's right --

mac daddy mauro's.

My burners are on high. I'm gonna wash my hands.

Always great to have a nice soapy water dish here

if you don't have an outdoor sink.

And that is one plain thing I did not

since we live in the midwest and we have to deal winters,

I didn't put a sink out here, but I put everything else,

like my custom pizza oven that I use all the time,

not only for pizza,

but for roasted chicken, vegetables, everything.

It's so much fun to build a fire in there.

I got nice local wood. You build it.

I got this thing up to 1,300 degrees,

which cooks pizza in about 90 seconds.

Of course, I got mac daddy mauro's

daddy beer fridge.

My pellet smoker, where I do all my smoking out.

It's super easy just to throw some pellets in there.

Let's take a look at the grill here.

Sarah, we're starting to get a nice char.

So once you kind of set one side,

we could start whipping and creating that bark.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's all we want.

We want to set it and flip it.

So now I got my favorite barbecue sauce.

I prefer a pretty dark, sweet, slightly smoky barbecue sauce.

And this creates a nice little bark on there.

And we're gonna cook these to about 165, 170.

The carry over cooking will finish it.

You flip them again, then you baste them.

You do this about every three minutes

till the interior is about 165.

While those are caramelizing, let's work on the burger.

I'm gonna shut it just for a second

to keep that heat going. Right.

The longer you have your lid open,

the more surface area heat you're gonna lose on your grill.

Next, I got, right, appropriate sized bun,

just whatever steak rolls or deli rolls.

But I got some softened butter and we're gonna do

crust-to-crust is a must.

This is gonna get that layer of crunch

and golden brown delectability

we look for on our bread.

We've got our bread ready to go.

Throw these on kind of the cooler side of the grill here.

So right there. Right.

We're gonna keep an eye on that bread.

Just getting kind of golden brown.

Turn it, if need be.

And again, we are gonna shellac that other end.

That's why every couple of minutes, you flip

and you get a little bit more caramelization

on the outside of that rib burger.

Lorenzo! Lorenzo: Yes?

Hey, buddy, can you grab me the instant read thermometer?

The yellow one, yep.

Now, what are the odds this kid's

gonna come back with the instant read thermometer?

Sarah: We're at 50/50.

Oh, no.

Come on. He did it. He did it.

Thank you so much.

All right. We're gonna look for 165 on this.

Look at that. That's exactly where we want it.

I'm gonna build one for me, for the mac daddy mauro supreme.

Look at that. Look at that edge.

Look at that 'zation. That's short for caramelization.

We're calling it 'zation now.

Oh, man.

Oh, it shrunk up a little bit.

But I ain't hatin' it.

Now a little bit, just a little bit

of thinly sliced red onion on top for a little bite.

And then I like one of those long sandwich style pickles,

kind of sliced pickles sphere's.

Maybe two.

All right. You can always hit it

with a little bit of your favorite barbecue sauce on top.

Just a little bit. You can always add more.

You can't take it away.

And now you shutter.

We look at it. And then we cut it.

Nice, beautiful bias cut.

Ready?

Look at that.

That is pure, juicy, glistening, dare I say, glowing, pork.

It's so reminiscent of that fast food sandwich,

but in burger form with burger juice.

Onion helps give it a little bite.

Pickles gives it a little brininess

to cut through all that richness.

And the bread has been perfectly treated.

Oh, man.

Sarah, you got to try it.

You have to. Are you ready?

I think so.

Oh, that's the mac daddy mauro bite right there.

That's a rib burger, kids.

Oh.

What's that?

It's delicious.

Up next, we have sunny with a special ingredient

in a classic tomato salad. Whoop, whoop.

Oh, hey!

That's right. I am in my new jersey backyard.

It's beautiful out.

The birds are chirping,

little squirrels running around

hanging out with my dogs outside.

I got the grill ready to go.

And I'm gonna share with you one of my summertime favorites.

It's my new jersey, or excuse me,

my garden state salad.

Super simple. It's a lot of stuff

I love about the garden state.

So I want to start with one of the most famous ingredients

you can find in new jersey. It's the pork roll.

If you don't know about the pork roll,

you need to know about the pork roll.

It was started in like the 1800s.

This guy's last name was taylor,

and they were calling it taylor ham for some time.

But really, you just go into a spot and say,

"give me some pork roll."

they know what you're talking about.

So I'm just gonna make two kind of really thick slices.

Maybe like three quarters of an inch to an inch.

There's a little bit of a casing.

I'm gonna make a really quick kind of glaze to brush over it

and get this right onto my grill.

I've got the grill at like 350, but you could go as high as 400.

Now, here, you see that was kind of the oxidized side.

When you go to cut it open, so pretty and beautiful.

I've got in my bowl here some honey.

This is wildflower honey.

And I'm gonna add to that some liquid smoke.

There's so many different scents or flavors, if you will.

I'm using hickory

mostly because it's gonna be over the grill gas.

And I really still want that smoky flavor

that's gonna really work well with the pork roll.

So I'm just gonna brush.

Oh, it's hot out here.

Let me get this.

Ice water.

Okay.

Grill is on.

Screaming hot.

Get this right on the grill.

And close it up.

Gonna look for grill marks, you know, flip it.

Now, another thing I love about new jersey is the corn.

New jersey corn is fabulous.

And actually up the street from me,

there's a little farm stand. It's like an honor bar.

You just go and you put your money in a little bin.

But I wanted to show you what it looks like

when you're picking out your corn.

You're gonna look at the top of it.

You're gonna say, "let me peek in.

Just want to peek at that top right there."

you want these top kernels to be really plump and juicy.

You don't want to see, like, this dry top

with just the cob and no kernels.

If you see that, it's good to go.

So you just open it up and just look at this beautiful corn.

Come on.

Just a little bit of olive oil.

That's gonna go directly onto my heat.

[ birds chirping ]

those birds are just chirping, huh?

Yeah, I like that fire when it licks up like that.

'cause we're going for char.

All right. Let's make some dressing.

Got everything out here.

Really quick.

I'm growing some herbs.

In my pot, I've got basil, cilantro, thyme,

even mint is hanging out

and playing fair and some oregano

that held on over the winter.

Remember this? I love this.

We did this on one of our tool takedowns.

You put it through. And you stem.

And it goes right in there.

You make your case, but I'm taking this home.

Just a few sprigs,

you know, for me, I find when I grow stuff at home,

like way better than the grocery store.

Just come through it.

Give those a nice chop.

It's a little bit of a high chop.

I'm on my bistro table outside, but you get the picture.

Now, I like to save just a little pinch to the side

and sprinkle that over the top.

But the rest is gonna go into my bowl here

and I'm gonna build the dressing.

So the dressing is really simple.

Deli mustard.

Get that in there.

I like to add to that...

Nice pinch of salt and pepper.

Yes, I did lick my fingers because I'm gonna eat this.

Now, we have olive oil.

Little bit of apple cider vinegar.

And then I've got a clove of garlic here,

but I almost lost it. [ laughs ]

just grate that with a rasp right into the bowl.

All right. Just whisk this up.

It's gonna marry really well,

with that sweet corn, that apple cider vinegar

is gonna cut through the fat of the pork roll.

Speaking of pork roll, let's take a look at it.

Oh, now, come on. All right.

I'm gonna take a pork roll off

because it's gonna have to cool down

just a little bit for me to get into it. Look at that.

[ laughs ]

like I said, you can do corn fresh off the stalk.

We're just going for some color, for some char.

Now, I want to get into the game plan.

Another new jersey ingredient for you, beefsteak tomatoes.

What I truly love about new jersey tomatoes

is they're just so sweet and luscious.

So I'm gonna get into these tomatoes.

And seed.

Ooh, juicy.

A lot of times people ask, why do you take the seeds out?

I just find I don't like the texture.

They're also a little bit bitter.

If you kind of taste the seeds by themselves,

you'll know what I'm talking about.

I just want that good old flesh.

Just like that.

So very simply, I just went through here,

got all of the seeds out.

And I know people that make like a tomato jam.

Save the seeds and all the liquid for that.

That's some good stuff.

I just like to make quarters and just kind of go from the end

and slice through both of my tomatoes.

Seeded.

Now I'm just gonna run my knife through them

and get nice little chunks.

You know, I think about it like this when I chop down.

I want to get everything onto my fork or spoon

at the same time.

This is great next to chicken.

It's a nice side salad to even a burger.

There's that end.

Okay. Push that over there.

Now that I can handle this pork roll.

Come on. Come on, new jersey.

Jersey, stand up. Stand up, new jersey.

Mm. Mm-mm-mm.

Charred. Delicious. Got that honey on it.

Come on. Come on, taylor.

Look at that. All piled up, ready to go.

I'm gonna get the corn off the grill

and get it into this bowl.

Little trick.

We've kind of showing you this before.

It's a lot easier if you're trying to get the kernels

off of your corn.

Close this up so it's not just blowing my back.

Mm-mm-mm.

Corn in the bowl.

Knife.

Shave down.

And everything into the bowl.

We've got the pork rolls, the tomatoes.

Look at that.

Mm. Well...

[ laughs ]

so good.

And then right over the bowl.

That dressing.

This is great, too, for summertime cookout.

All right.

Don't have to worry about it being mayo-based.

You could serve this cold or room temp.

Just get that in there.

Making a mess like usual.

Top it off with those herbs I had.

Little cilantro and thyme.

Look at that.

It's my garden state salad.

So simple.

Now, I'm just gonna eat out of the serving bowl

because this is my house.

[ laughs ]

mmm.

It's sweet.

That mustard comes through and hangs out.

The pork roll's delicious when you grill it

with that brush of honey and just a light hint

of hickory smoke.

Pretty darn good, garden state.

All right. Give this a go.

Up next, I hear --

is gz frying?

Is he doing fish and chips with a twist?

Okay, iron chef, let's see what you got.

We are back.

You know, our family loves seafood in the summertime.

I'm from massachusetts.

I ate seafood my whole life growing up,

especially in the summertime.

Steamed boiled cod, scrod grilled.

We're doing lots of grilled bass here.

My wife and all my family.

Anytime this fresh fish, we throw it on the grill.

But today, I'm bringing the boardwalk, or "fish shack" back

with my crispy fish and chips

and my twist on a spicy tartar sauce.

So what I have here is my mise en place, and I have cod.

The fish I'm using today is cod.

Now, if you notice the size of this cod,

it's about four ounces, which is plenty.

But more importantly, it's about a half inch,

three quarter inch thick.

You really don't want to go any thicker than this.

What this does for you is it assures you that

when the crust is brown,

the fish is cooked perfectly, okay?

Really important. It's fresh.

Amazing. It's patted dry. Ready to go.

We have some beer that we use in the batter.

And also I took a couple of sips because I just want to make sure

the beer was good, you know.

Regular flour. You can use self-rising flour.

I've never worried about it. We have salt.

We have turmeric. Turmeric is very interesting.

A lot of chefs use turmeric and saffron and curry

in their pastas when they're making fresh pasta

to give it that yellow color or they add extra egg yolks.

That's one of the secrets. But I love turmeric in the flour

because I think it's a real beautiful fragrance.

And also it really gives a pop of color to the crust.

And we have a little bit of baking soda,

which is gonna help give a nice, crusty puffy skin.

Real neat. Okay.

So over here, we have two egg whites.

This is a little secret that I whipped up.

I'm whipping it up now.

And it just gets that dough

and help us get really beautiful puff.

What you want to have happen is you want that crust,

the outside, to puff up and the fish steams

and everything just works perfectly.

So the first thing we're gonna do

is we're gonna get our fish breading station ready.

What do I mean by that? We're gonna take some flour,

a little bit more turmeric and a little salt,

and we're gonna put it on the side.

We're gonna actually dredge the fish

in this before we put it in the batter.

So just leave it here. That's done.

Next, we're gonna take the fish

and make sure that our fish is seasoned on both sides.

We're going to put salt on the fish.

The reason why we salt it now is because the fish is never

gonna see any seasoning unless we do it now,

because we're gonna dip it in the batter.

So you have to really make sure

that it is completely seasoned perfectly.

And I am putting it right into the flour here like that,

letting it sit in the flour,

and we're just gonna let it hang out

while we make our batter.

Very important step to make sure

that you have everything correct is the oil.

I have my oil 350 degrees.

And you want to make sure --

we're gonna shallow fry today, so we're not gonna deep fry.

We're gonna actually shallow fry,

which means very little fat.

Now we're gonna make our batter.

We're gonna put in our baking soda.

We're gonna put in our turmeric for the flavor and color,

a good amount of salt. Don't be bashful with the salt,

because remember, this fish needs

as much flavor as it can get because once you cover it

in this batter, you only can salt the outside.

So you want the fish flavorful, as well.

We're gonna stir like this

and just gonna add the beer as much as you want.

You want it to be like a pancake batter,

sort of a thin pancake batter.

And just be careful when you're doing this by hand

because you can get it all over you.

Now, if you run out of beer,

because either you've been drinking too much beer

while you're making your fish and chips

or you just only have one, you can certainly

add a little water.

See how nice that color is?

A touch more beer.

And just a touch more water.

There we go. It's looking really, really good.

Now, a lot of people use corn starch,

as I said before, but you don't have to.

I think corn starch can get a kind of sticky gluey flavor.

So you really want to mix this up?

It's really important that you mix up really, really good.

And we have our fat.

Just want to make sure our fat is on 350 degrees

your batter, now, if there's a couple of lumps in there,

totally fine.

So it should be just like that.

You can see how good that is, just like that.

All right. Now, next step.

I did this a little ahead of time.

I actually had my daughter madeline do this.

She's really good at this. She loves making souffle.

Just gonna pour that in there.

And that just gives it a little extra lightness.

And we very simply, at this point...

We want to take our fish

and our batter to the frying station.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna take the fish.

We're gonna make sure we get all that flour off.

Really important to get the flour off.

Just pat it. A little bit like that.

We're gonna drop it just like that.

Make sure it's completely covered.

Really important.

And then we're gonna drop it away from the camera person

and everyone else. The reason why we do that

is we don't want to burn the camera person.

We don't want to burn anybody.

So I always like to drop it away from the stove.

And you can see how nice that color is.

And we're just gonna go with a shallow spoon

and just give it a little baste like that.

So this takes about three or four minutes.

But it's really already has a beautiful color to it, right?

It's like floating.

And that is one gorgeous looking piece of fish.

So we're gonna come over here

and quickly start our tartar sauce.

What we have here

is just very simply mayonnaise from the store.

Nothing wrong with mayonnaise from the store.

I love it.

We can make your own. Not a problem. A lot of dill.

I'm a dill lover. I love dill.

Chopped capers.

Right. Some lemon zest and the juice of a lemon.

Some pickled hot banana peppers. So good.

And, of course, sweet relish or diced pickles.

And that is a kick.

But tartar sauce that's spicy.

So we're just gonna put this in our little dish here

and get ready to finish our fish frying.

The first one looks like it's about done.

Looks to me like it's just gorgeous.

I just want to take a look at that. Can you see that?

Did you get close? Maybe we can hear the crust.

Can you hear that? That's a delicious piece of fish.

Okay. So that's gonna come out.

I'm gonna put it on a paper towel.

And when you put it on the paper towel,

you want to salt it right away.

Really important because listen,

remember I told you, when it's salted inside,

it's the only place that's gonna get seasoning.

Flip it and salt it on the other side.

So no fish fry or fish and chip,

of course, is gonna work without chips.

So what we have done before is I have some fresh french fries.

We've made them by taking a baking potato

or roasting potato, wash the skin,

cut them into wedges of eights or whatever they are,

soak them in water for about an hour, dry them,

and then blanch them in hot oil,

which is about 300 degrees.

Take them out on a rack

and then turn your fat up to 375 degrees

and then cook them again

until they're nice and crispy, salt them,

and then hold them in the oven.

Look how delicious those look.

Oh, boy.

So we're just going to put on that.

And that is a real chip.

They have the skin on them, as well.

You don't need to take the skin off.

I love the skin. I think it's one of my favorite

parts of the fish and chip, is the skin of the chip.

I'm gonna take my beautiful first piece

and then I'm gonna take a lemon and just sort of

cut off the side like that.

And that way you sort of avoid most of the seeds, right?

Look how beautiful that looks.

You always say you can eat with your eyes.

I think this looks particularly good.

Margaret, you want to have a bite?

Come on, let's have a bite. Let's get right in there.

So let's take a little --

squirt of lemon.

Alright.

Try a chip.

See how nice that is? Can you see that?

Can you get, madeline, in there?

Look at that. You see how it's steamy.

It's soft, but the crisp, the crispy crust is right out there.

Its surrounding everything.

Oh, my gosh.

Anna: Can I taste some?

Come on in.

So this crust is thick and crunchy all the way through.

Sometimes when you get fish and chips,

you know, it just falls right off.

Kind of like wet, it falls off.

This is really nicely adhered to the fish.

Yeah. When I take the piece of --

really great.

...With the crust, it doesn't...

It stays.

More summertime favorites with a twist when we come back.

Welcome back to our summertime favorites show.

Of course, we've got to showcase

that number-one summertime fruit.

But what is that number one summertime fruit, alex?

Well, thank you, jeff.

You know, it's not really summer to me without watermelon.

And I'm shaking things up with a cocktail.

I know gz is the resident cocktail king,

but I'm here for you today, gz.

I'm making something super juicy and watermelon-y.

You are not gonna be able to get enough of this.

At butter, my restaurant in new york city,

we call it the calamansi, named after the calamansi lime

because it's super tart.

It starts with watermelon ice cubes.

Now, that sounds complicated, but it really isn't.

All I do is I take two cups of fresh watermelon,

remove any seeds and just put it right into the blender,

add one tablespoon of honey

and one ounce of fresh lime juice

and blend on medium speed

until the watermelon is completely smooth.

Fill your ice cube trays, and as you drink the drink,

these watermelon ice cubes melt in and mix.

So you can see now when we drop these in the glass

how cool you're gonna look to your friends.

And then just a few

really simple ingredients to put this together.

So I'm gonna put four ounces of fresh lime juice

and to that I'm gonna add the same exact amount

of my simple sirup. Four ounces.

This is a double recipe. We're gonna need it.

Jeff, it's summertime. I know katie is not drinking,

but all of us are having a cocktail out on the lido deck.

And then to that, we just add eight ounces of vodka,

which I am gonna measure.

Now at this point, I'm gonna tear some fresh mint leaves

and then just tear them up a little bit right in there.

Smells good. The lime, fresh mint, the vodka.

Give that a little bit of a stir.

Some sparkling water or some club soda.

I don't put too much. Just a little bit.

I start with a little splash and then I see how it goes.

You might want to add a little bit less club soda

if you have the in-laws over and a little bit more

if you're having friends.

So you can walk out.

You could put these, for example, on a little tray.

It's kind of cool.

And they're all different heights, right?

It's got this kind of mix and match look.

You know what? I'll throw another glass in there.

Just for a little drama's sake.

And then, oh, come on. Look at that.

You could see that little fizzle from the club soda

as you make these drinks.

So summertime.

All right. So I think we're ready to taste.

Michael, do you want to come in and give it a try here?

I'd love to.

Wow. When I make dinner, you don't come this fast.

Watermelon ice cubes.

Choose wisely.

I'm gonna go classy.

I'm gonna go kind of bougie.

Cheers to summer.

Cheers to summer.

That is summertime. The watermelon, the fresh mint.

That bit of vodka. Not too much.

It's sweet, but not overly sweet.

That's so drinkable. And then the watermelon,

bit by bit from the cubes, spills into the drink

and makes it kind of blush and beautiful. Right.

That's what this is.

Like beautiful and just immediately

just deliciously refreshing.

This is the perfect summer cocktail.

And you can actually make this without the vodka.

Just add a little bit of extra sparkling water and lime juice.

And the kids can join you for that summer drink.

Make it a family affair.

Katie, I know you're making something with watermelon,

but what do you think of mine?

Ooh, alex, that looks good.

And I'm gonna spice up this watermelon with an

l.A. Fruit stand inspired fruit salad.

So we lived in l.A. For about a year.

One of my favorite things to get for lunch was to stop

at these little roadside fruit stands,

dust it with a little chili lime salt,

squeeze of lime juice.

And it was like five bucks for this big quart

of fruit salad.

So let me show you what goes in it.

We've got our watermelon, of course, papaya chunks,

pineapple, mangoes, oranges,

and for a little surprise, cucumber, some coconut flakes.

And we're gonna squeeze the juice of a lime on there.

And, of course, add the chili lime seasoning.

All right. So let's get started. Makes some of this fruit salad.

And excuse me if I sound out of breath,

I'm out of breath at all times [laughing] these days.

Everything's exhausting.

Okay.

Our watermelon goes in.

I'll do a few cups of each one.

I always think of cut-up fruit as a luxury.

It takes so much time to do it.

So I love it when somebody else does it for me.

But when I've done it in advance

and put it in all my containers,

it's great to have in the fridge.

Okay. Papaya.

I really like papaya because it has this creamy mouth feel to it

and it's totally different. And it has this kind of mild,

almost kind of like a melon flavor.

If you can't find a papaya, just use some cantaloupe.

You can really play around with the combinations in this.

Fresh pineapple. Love my fresh pineapple.

Of course, you can go to the produce department

and buy the kind that's already cut up,

if you want to make it a little easier.

And the mango. Put that in there.

I love mango.

And our orange slices.

And cucumber.

Now, the cucumber sounds a little different,

but I really like it.

They always put this in in those l.A. Fruit stands

and they usually put some jicama, too,

but I couldn't find any.

So I'm just going with the cucumber,

and it just adds this really refreshing note to it.

And they usually have fresh coconut chunks.

I couldn't find any of those,

so I figured that dried coconut flakes would be great.

My mom always puts dried coconut flakes in her fruit salad.

And now the lime.

So what I like to do is just push on it a few times

so that it kind of releases the juices in there.

And cut it in half.

Put it in my little citrus juicer.

I use this thing all the time. I love having these.

You get all the juice out and no seeds.

This is...

[ laughs ]

that lime's tough.

And the other one.

It smells so good.

And I'm just gonna stir it up

and we'll put our seasoning in.

Look how bright and colorful that is.

So the l.A. Fruit stands are in the mexican tradition

of chili line salt on fruit.

I love it.

Some people even put hot sauce on it.

It's just different. And it kind of changes up

the whole taste, gives a nice fresh twist to a fruit salad.

Okay, I'm gonna put it in a pretty bowl.

It looks so good.

I'm going right for it. I forgot a fork,

but that's never stopped me before.

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

When I was a kid growing up,

we always put salt on watermelon.

But having the chili lime salt is just next level.

I love spicy, sweet, salty.

It is delicious. It hits every note.

And it's such a good combination of tropical fruits.

It tastes so summery and refreshing.

Just cool you off on a hot day.

♪♪

so good. I'm gonna keep eating this.

And when we come back,

we're making cupcake versions of ice cream truck treats.

How 'bout that?

Stay tuned for more summertime favorites.

Welcome back. I'm here with my kids.

Were enjoying our ice cream truck favorites,

but if you missed the truck, don't worry,

you can make cupcakes inspired

by your favorite ice cream treats.

My buddies, jeff and katie

each have a cupcake based on their favorite truck treat.

Jeff, you're up.

That is right, gz.

One of my favorite ice cream treats growing up by far

are those strawberry shortcake, ice cream barkers

you got from the local deli or the ice cream truck, right?

It's red. It's crispy. It gets gooey.

It starts melting instantly.

But it's got that super sweet strawberry vanilla

ice cream flavor we love.

So this is something we love doing here

in the mauro casa kitchen, baby, and that is a little spin

on a classic strawberry shortcake ice cream bar.

But using that ice cream.

Oh, no.

Using fresh cupcakes we got from our favorite

bakery in the neighborhood.

Beautiful vanilla buttercream.

Vanilla cake.

We'll get to that in a little bit.

All you need is your food processor here.

Then some shortcake or whatever kind of cookie --

vanilla wafers, vanilla ice cream cookies.

But I love the buttery shortbread.

These are just so flavorful.

Okay, then we've got some freeze dried strawberries here.

We love this freeze dried fruit in our house.

And then, of course, the puff rice cereals.

Got a little melted butter and a little salt.

And that's all you need. And we're gonna top these

deliciously moist vanilla cupcakes

into strawberry shortcake cupcakes.

Food processor, here we go.

We're gonna get these kind of gravely.

So we're gonna start with our shortbread

'cause it's the heartiest of the ingredients.

And we'll give these a nice buzz right in the food processor.

What are you laughing at? Come over here.

Help out the family once in a while

and pitch in.

Okay. Okay.

Grab these freeze dried strawberries.

Put him right in there. How many?

Is this good? The whole thing.

Throw them all in there. That's all our strawberries.

And the bowl, too?

Lorenzo...

There we go.

Alright, throw those in there, lorenzo.

Puffed rice cereal

for that big, light, airy, poppy crunch we love.

A little melted butter

and this kind of helps bring it all together

and a little bit of richness in there.

So about a tablespoon of that.

And viola, a pinch of salt in there.

How about that?

The salt makes everything better.

Sweet, savory, spicy.

We're learning so much during these times, right?

Mm-hmm. That's good.

All right, good.

Can you bring these to the sink for me?

And then wash my car, too, on the way back.

So helpful.

He'll do anything for a $20 allowance these days.

And we'll turn them right on a plate.

So easy.

And we're gonna take it and just ro-tato it

all the way through till you get full coverage.

Lorenzo!

You can't have it yet. We got to make them all.

And then a little straw-berry on top.

Not a cherry on top.

[ laughs ]

it's a little bit of that beautiful

dehydrated strawberry there, freeze dried strawberry.

I think that looks beautiful.

All right, lorenzo, the time is now.

Take a taste.

Yes!

Conserve all that crumpled topping

by eating over the place.

Smart.

What do you think?

It's just a classic cupcake, but this is...

It's like sand sugar.

Mmm.

Oh. That is good.

Katie, what do you think?

Jeff, those look good.

You think maybe you could overnight me one?

I would like to try it.

I'm gonna make my favorite ice cream truck treat inspired

cupcake for one of those nutty chocolate cones.

So I just made chocolate cupcakes out of the box

and put a little vanilla frosting on them.

And then I've got sugar cone that crushed up.

And some peanuts that I chopped

and some of that chocolate magic sauce.

So this stuff you need to just shake up for about 20 seconds

so that it gets nice and liquidy.

Little tip.

If you want to make your own magic chocolate sauce,

all you have to do is melt down some chocolate

and a little coconut oil, and the recipe's on

foodnetwork.Com or on the food network kitchen app.

All right. This feels good.

I put the cupcakes in the fridge

so that they get nice and cold before I put the sauce on.

That really helps them to harden up.

Just let it drip down the side and then working quickly,

because that will start to harden,

just put a couple pieces of the cone in there.

And let's dust it with some of the peanuts.

I loved this when I was a kid

and the ice cream truck would come.

Actually, in our neighborhood, at about 4:00 every day

during the summer, there was an ice cream truck.

So there's my cupcake. What do you think?

Pretty, isn't it?

I've got some right here, and it already...

You can see how that chocolate magic sauce

just gets nice and hard.

And if it's a hot, humid day,

put them back in the fridge and they'll set up like that.

Now, I didn't think it was really fair

that y'all asked the pregnant lady

to choose between ice cream and a cupcake.

So I'm having both.

I'm home. I can do that. [ laughs ]

so I've got my vanilla ice cream here.

And I'm gonna just have a scoop of it.

Tell me not to, I dare you.

All right. Let's try this thing.

Oh, my gosh. Yes.

What's better than cake and ice cream, anyway?

I feel like you can't go with just one.

Mmm. Mmm.

Yes.

Mmm.

I mean, that tastes like I got my money from my mom,

I ran out to the truck and flagged him down,

and I got my cone.

And it's even better 'cause there's cake in there, too.

Chocolaty peanut and crunchy cone.

So good.

Gz, back to you.

Katie and jeff, those look delicious.

Right girls? Both: Yep.

The zakarian sisters approve. We'll be right back.

Hey, guys, welcome back.

We've got a lot of fun to look forward to this summer,

but I thought maybe we would

take a little walk down memory lane

of some of our favorite

"kitchen" moments of our summer games,

most of which involve us making fools of ourselves.

I can't wait for this. I can't wait.

Take a look.

It's bottle bowling!

[ cheers and applause ]

got one down!

Get higher!

Oh, no. We're knocking over the soda.

Yeah, katie! Come on! One more!

[ cheers and applause ]

you cannot use your hands. You cannot kick over the bottle.

Yeah, come on, girl!

You cannot use your hands. You cannot kick over the bottle.

Oh, it is a barn burner.

It is a barn burner!

Come on, katie! Yeah!

[ cheers and applause ]

are you serious?

All right, so jeff's in his stool.

Throw those bean bags into this bucket.

I do this in the name of lorenzo, his son.

Oh, he is gonna love this.

Can I say some last words?

I don't agree with this one bit.

[ laughter ]

[ cheers and applause ]

this is all I have to wear.

We have a slippery slide here.

But what we did was have water in it.

Good. That helps.

And a little soap, too. Helps to glide.

Oh, that's a great idea.

Are you ready? I'm ready.

I always wanted to ride a hot dog down a slippery wet slide.

Here we go.

Go, katie!

[ laughter ]

[ cheers and applause ]

oh, my god.

We don't look like that anymore.

[ laughs ]

I believe that was like the second take.

The first take, you went like halfway.

Yeah, the first time, I just like skidded to a halt.

Yeah, jeff, that was a lot of water.

That bucket was coming down

whether sunny got anywhere near it or not.

That bucket was coming down.

Geoffrey, what did your hair stylist say?

I mean, it took you like a week to recover, no?

No, it was a bad day for me.

Actually, it was a bad two days.

Jeff: She quit.

The best part of that video is right when the game's over,

gz couldn't wait to take that thing off of his head.

He could not. He was at it.

Oh, well, we hope that all of y'all out there

are having as much fun as we were in those clips

with your families.

And if you want any of the recipes from today's show,

you can do to the food network kitchen app.

It's all there. And we'll see you next time.

Bye, guys.

Toodles.

♪♪