Before I forget...
I meant to post a recipe for raspberry ice cream that I put together last weekend. I was happy with the result, but if I don't write it down I'll never be able to make it again...
Raspberry Ice Cream
-4 cups whole milk (I used Lactaid, which was fine)
-4 egg yolks
-2 cups sugar
-around 1 1/2 cups strained raspberry puree
-1 to 2 tsp. vanilla
-pinch of salt
-1/2 of an miniature bottle of Chambord (25 mL?)
-ice & salt necessary to freeze
1. Heat 2 cups of the milk to boiling (I do this in the microwave). Meanwhile, lightly beat the egg yolks in a 2-quart saucepan with the pinch of salt.
2. When the milk is boiling, slowly whisk it into the egg yolks. (If you add hot milk too quickly, the eggs will clump up...if this happens, just strain it.) Place over medium-ish heat, add sugar, and stir frequently until mixture is a little thicker and just starting to boil. Reduce heat a little and stir constantly for 2 minutes. You do not want the milk/egg mixture to stick to the bottom of the pan; lower heat if you need to.
3. Remove from heat. Stir in the rest of the milk, the raspberry puree, and the vanilla. Let cool or refrigerate until it is no warmer than skin temperature. (Cooler is better.)
4. Pour into ice-cream maker. Freeze. Once ice cream is frozen, stir in the Chambord and transfer to the freezer to cure for an hour or more before eating.
The Chambord is important; if you prefer, substitute another kind of liquor, but without the alcohol this will freeze more solidly and be harder to scoop (b/c it doesn't have as much fat as most ice cream).
...In other news, life continues much as usual. We're still kind of living under a rock, but the upside is that we're getting some things done around the house: the crap room is quasi-organized, ditto the dining room, ditto the living room, etc, etc. We gave up on our vacuum (just about a year old and incredibly wimpy) and bought a used Kirby vacuum off Craigslist. It's 10 years old, and a million times better than our 1-year-old previous vacuum.
Last weekend, we went fruit-picking (raspberries & blackberries, plus we bought some pre-picked peaches). It was a lot of fun, and it led to things like raspberry ice cream. Kim came over and we ate fruit crumble and ice cream and watched Madagascar II (thanks to the whims of Netflix), which was fun. This week we also went over to Jerry's, ate chicken curry and admired the new hot tub, which was also fun (albeit a very different kind of fun than the girls'-night-in with Kim). So I guess we aren't completely under a rock. Just mostly. :-P
My inner mature adult is relieved that T.S. Danny is shaping up to be absolutely no big deal; my inner troublemaking kid kind of wishes we'd gotten just a little bit of a tropical storm through here..... ah well. I guess it's not a good idea to tempt fate!
Raspberry Ice Cream
-4 cups whole milk (I used Lactaid, which was fine)
-4 egg yolks
-2 cups sugar
-around 1 1/2 cups strained raspberry puree
-1 to 2 tsp. vanilla
-pinch of salt
-1/2 of an miniature bottle of Chambord (25 mL?)
-ice & salt necessary to freeze
1. Heat 2 cups of the milk to boiling (I do this in the microwave). Meanwhile, lightly beat the egg yolks in a 2-quart saucepan with the pinch of salt.
2. When the milk is boiling, slowly whisk it into the egg yolks. (If you add hot milk too quickly, the eggs will clump up...if this happens, just strain it.) Place over medium-ish heat, add sugar, and stir frequently until mixture is a little thicker and just starting to boil. Reduce heat a little and stir constantly for 2 minutes. You do not want the milk/egg mixture to stick to the bottom of the pan; lower heat if you need to.
3. Remove from heat. Stir in the rest of the milk, the raspberry puree, and the vanilla. Let cool or refrigerate until it is no warmer than skin temperature. (Cooler is better.)
4. Pour into ice-cream maker. Freeze. Once ice cream is frozen, stir in the Chambord and transfer to the freezer to cure for an hour or more before eating.
The Chambord is important; if you prefer, substitute another kind of liquor, but without the alcohol this will freeze more solidly and be harder to scoop (b/c it doesn't have as much fat as most ice cream).
...In other news, life continues much as usual. We're still kind of living under a rock, but the upside is that we're getting some things done around the house: the crap room is quasi-organized, ditto the dining room, ditto the living room, etc, etc. We gave up on our vacuum (just about a year old and incredibly wimpy) and bought a used Kirby vacuum off Craigslist. It's 10 years old, and a million times better than our 1-year-old previous vacuum.
Last weekend, we went fruit-picking (raspberries & blackberries, plus we bought some pre-picked peaches). It was a lot of fun, and it led to things like raspberry ice cream. Kim came over and we ate fruit crumble and ice cream and watched Madagascar II (thanks to the whims of Netflix), which was fun. This week we also went over to Jerry's, ate chicken curry and admired the new hot tub, which was also fun (albeit a very different kind of fun than the girls'-night-in with Kim). So I guess we aren't completely under a rock. Just mostly. :-P
My inner mature adult is relieved that T.S. Danny is shaping up to be absolutely no big deal; my inner troublemaking kid kind of wishes we'd gotten just a little bit of a tropical storm through here..... ah well. I guess it's not a good idea to tempt fate!