Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Homemade Ice Cream!

Last night Matt and I went over to visit some of our friends who are getting married this summer. We've been trying to schedule a get-together for some time now but could never find a time that worked so when we saw eachother on Monday night and found out we all had the next evening free we jumped on it. When we got to their place we found out that they were making ice cream for us! They had picked up an ice cream maker at Value Village and had been playing around with different recipes lately. They said it only took half an hour to make if the bowl it gets made in is good and frozen and man, it was fantastic! They made just plain ice cream, so no chocolate or chai or anything like that, but it was sooooooo good. So now, I'm going to go find an ice cream maker! I have loads of recipes for gelato and ice cream that all require an ice cream maker and I've always loathed those recipes because they look so good but I can't make them, so I'll get an ice cream maker and I finally will make them!
Today I need to do some baking. A few months ago I decided to try out a recipe from a magazine. The article flouted them as being the world's best cookies so I was hopefully that they'd be pretty good. When I finally had all the ingredients (there's a few things in them that I don't typically keep in my house) and made them, I was a little disappointed. For one, they were not the world's best cookies. They weren't even the best cookies I had made that day. And they were a bar, not a cookie anyway. So we ate them all up, I ranted for a couple days about what a let down they were and that was that - I thought. Turns out the magazine did lie about what they were. They said they were the world's best cookies, but actually they are the world's most addictive cookies. I crave them all the time now! I've figured out what it is too. It's the umami. There used to be only 4 tastes that people were supposedly able to recognize: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Lots of people didn't see the gaping hole that was savoriness, so a few years back now they named that gaping hole "Umami". Anyway, sorry about that little lesson. Back to my story: the umami flavours in the "World's Best Cookies that Weren't" were from the dark brown sugar (that smokey taste from the molasses) and the almond extract in it too. So now I make sure that every month or so I have dark brown sugar in my house, along with sliced almonds and almond extract so that I can make these addictive cookies. Aside from those today I also need to make Matt some monster cookies with mini M&Ms in them.
I have a victory to report: Gabe has officially slept through the night 3 nights in a row! Unfortunately, it apparently takes humans 12 days to make anything a habit, but whatever, this is a victory for me.
Yesterday Matt came home early from work so I took the opportunity to go grocery shopping without Gabe. I must confess, it was a lonely chore without him. I must also confess that I bought so much I wouldn't have had room for him in the cart. It was Co-op's Warehouse sale so I bought a bunch of canned fruit and vegetables and something I never get: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts. With chicken it is almost always much, much cheaper to buy Bone-in and skin-on, even when you factor in the weight difference of the bones. But yesterday was an exception. They had their 4 kg boxes of the chicken breasts on for really cheap and it was cheaper to buy that then it was to buy all the breasts with all the bones attached. When I got home I quickly found that my fridge was too full, as was my freezer. So I cleaned out and organized both of them. Matt sure was happy about that.
May I again, just say how much I love ClubHouse? Yesterday while walking down the spice aisle I noticed some more ClubHouse mixes: Chipotle Pepper Chicken Marinade, Baja Citrus Marinade, Pad Thai mix... I picked up a few different ones and tested out the Baja Citrus on some of those chicken breasts last night. It was really, really good! Next time I'll bake some asiago on the chicken too, but that's really the only thing I would change.
I am so excited for my vacation in a couple of weeks, although everything that needs to be done before then is starting to weigh down on me. But when I'm all done what I need to do and I finally get to go on vacation, it will be fantastic! Swimming everyday! Playing tennis with my husband! Going on hikes with my family! Whole days spent sitting around a lake fishing... Man it's going to be amazing. It is every year :)
Well, Having just complained about how much I need to get done, I suppose I'd best go do it, eh?

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment

I would love to know what you think of my recipes, or even of my antics! Let me know!