Breaking news from the blog break

Ha ha. :)

It's been a WHILE since I posted last - yikes - over a month! I knew we'd been busy, but how does a month fly by....you're having fun!

I'll start off by saying we REALLLLLLY have been enjoying the ice cream maker we got this past summer. It's a cheapie, but it works just fine - we got it at Wal-mart and it's a lovely shade of orange (yes, Miss E is thrilled with it!). So far we have made the following flavors:

blueberry (with the blueberries we picked before July 4th just north of here in Sadler, TX) at the blueberry patch
strawberry
dark chocolate
coffee
peanut butter

I think that's it...so far :)

In order of yumminess:

coffee
peanut butter
chocolate
strawberry
blueberry

Miss E says peanut butter was best....thankfully we all get to have our own opinions and the rating above comes from me, chief ice cream maker! :)

So....I must share the fabulous recipes so you too can enjoy these yummy treats!


Last night we had peanut butter ice cream - inspired after catching the "info" for what the Take Home Chef was going to be preparing (I was later saddened to see on the TLC website that he didn't actually MAKE the ice cream, but simply bought vanilla and some peanut butter and mashed them together and refroze it - shocking!)

Peanut Butteryist Ice Cream Around

1 cup milk (we used 1%)
1 3/4 cup sugar (we've tried using Splenda before and it seemed to take FOREVER for the ice cream to thicken up....but if you have oodles of time, go for it and see how it works for you!)
1/2 tsp. salt (that's a tisp, you Sleeping Beauty fans know!)
1 cup half and half
1 Tbls. vanilla extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup peanut butter

(by the by, half and half and whipping cream have a pretty long shelf (fridge) life so don't be afraid to get these and keep on hand, I was pleasantly surprised to learn this!)

This recipe provided us with 6 nice ice cream scoops (1 for each of us :) ) and probably enough for about 2 more scoops left in the canister. Now, you ask, just one scoop!?! Are you mad??? NO! This stuff is RICH - I am not kidding :) Especially when you add to it some fantastic chocolate sauce on top! Yes, you know, you have to have chocolate with peanut butter! And, I've been watching too much Food Network at night after the children go to bed and the other night on Good Eats, Alton Brown did a whole show on chocolate! Yum! I modified the ganache recipe and ended up with a nice chocolate sauce that worked great over the PB ice cream.

If you're interested:

Chocolate Sauce

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I just used 1 cup bittersweet choc. chips, no chopping)
1 cup half and half (now, look here for the chocolate ganache, REAL recipe if you're interested)

Anyway, microwave the half and half for 3-4 mn. Pour over the chocolate chips and let sit for about 2-3 mn. Stir, whisk a bit and voila!


Now, on to the coffee ice cream which would put anything you can get at Starbucks to shame! That's saying a lot because I reallllly like their Mocha Frappucinos!

Coffee Ice Cream

2 cups milk (again, used 1%)
2 cups half and half
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbls. vanilla
2 Tbls. coffee (NOT not NOT instant!!!! We used Folgers, tried it w/decaf and the result is the same taste-wise if you're worried about the kiddos having caffeine!)

Pour milk and coffee into a saucepan. Scald milk/coffee until it bubbles from around the edge of the pan. Remove from heat. Strain once into a mixing bowl. (Yes, there will be a little bit of grounds left in the milk after straining, but think vanilla bean ice cream - the specks are a GOOD thing!) Add sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved. Stir in half and half, vanilla and whipping cream. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Pour into ice cream maker and begin (they're all different, for ours we put in 8 parts ice to 2 parts rock salt; usually end up adding a bit more ice/salt about halfway through and it takes nigh on an hour - just depends - keep an eye on it :) )

Ok, well, that's that! If you try either, I'd love to hear how it turned out!

Here's one pic of a satisfied customer from coffee ice cream night a few weeks ago:

Actually, this was chocolate ice cream - it's all good, as they say. Until next time.....