May is flying by, which means our fruit and vegetable shares will start up again soon. I've got a few things left over from last year's harvest that I want to use up before we get back to filling up the deep freeze. At the same time, my little C had a wicked cold last week, so he didn't drink nearly as much milk as he usually does. When I went to pick up our dairy share on Thursday, I realized that I had 3/4 of a gallon of whole milk still in there, and I was about to add another gallon. When you pay almost $10 a gallon for the most amazing milk on the planet, you don't throw it out. However, it's low, low, low level pasteurized, so it doesn't last as long as grocery store milk.
Enter fruit ice creams and freezer ready mac and cheese.
I grabbed a few pints of heavy cream at the market and decided to give them a try. The recipe below is for the strawberry. To make the peach ice cream, substitute (exactly) the peaches for the strawberries.
You need:
1 pint strawberries, stemmed and sliced (or 1 pint frozen strawberries, thawed)
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup super fine sugar
1 c. whole milk
2 c. heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
In a small bowl, mix the strawberries with 1/2 c. of sugar and the lemon juice. Allow to macerate for about 2 hrs. If you are using frozen, 30 min will do because they are already pretty darn juicy when they are thawed. When the time is up, strain the berries, reserving the juices. Mash or puree half of the berries.
In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer to combine the milk and remaining sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the heavy cream, reserved juice, vanilla, and mashed berries. Add to your ice cream maker for 20-25 minutes. Five minutes before the time is up, add the remaining sliced berried. Put in an air tight container and freeze.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
OOPS! About those resolutions....
I was chatting with a friend of mine, who follows this blog, about how I felt I was doing regarding my 2014 kitchen resolutions. She replied, "What resolutions? You mean last year's for food waste?"
Oops! About those resolutions...I forgot to post them! Does it still count if you blog about them in MAY? I mean, let's be real here. Anyone can make New Year's Resolutions. It takes a creative mind (she tells herself) to make Mother's Day Resolutions.
We aren't much of a prepacked, prepared meals kind of family. Mostly, it's because I have food sensitivities to preservatives. However, I have always taken shortcuts with cakes, brownies, ice cream, and other things that tend to be lower in preservatives. This year, A and I decided to see if we could tackle a new frontier. By December, could we try, even if just once, to make every type of food we eat from scratch?
Here are our rules:
1. Ice cream: One of my favorite kitchen items is my ice cream machine. I've had it for over ten years, and it is going strong. I always make ice cream during the summer, but we've taken store-bought ice cream off of the menu for 2014. Unless it comes from the local ice cream shop (where they make their own from scratch as well), we won't buy it. So far, we've made some amazing batches of vanilla, mint-chocolate chip, and chocolate. Today, we're making strawberry and peach.
2. Cakes and Brownies: We haven't gotten there yet. I will convince you that the reason we haven't is because I am so drop-dead tired most days that when I have to make brownies for A's school or cupcakes for a party, I just want to add eggs, oil, and water and call it a DAY. Of course, if I could get off my rear end more often and even take a nice long walk, maybe I'd be less tired. But that would be another blog entirely. Needless to say, we haven't gotten there. This summer, I promise we'll try at least one of each before the end of August. I promise.
3. Pasta: The year I got married, my great-aunt and my grandmother chipped in and bought me a pasta maker for Christmas. They passed away in 2003. I'm celebrating my fifteenth wedding anniversary this August. Ask me how many times I've used it. NEVER. This year, it is happening. I don't know when. Anyone want to make pasta with me?
4. Soups: This has been the winner. Once a month I cook a whole chicken, use up all the meat in various dishes, and make amazing stock that lasts for all of my recipes. I still haven't made a beef stock. I'm getting there. Everything else has come from scratch. This is easy. And the sodium levels are 884,399 percent lower than the stuff in the cans and cartons.
Our last rule is more of a request. I think there are about five people out there who follow this blog. But we want a challenge. Can you think of anything else we should try from scratch? If we've already done it, we'll post it. If we haven't we'll try it out.
Happy Mid-Year!
Oops! About those resolutions...I forgot to post them! Does it still count if you blog about them in MAY? I mean, let's be real here. Anyone can make New Year's Resolutions. It takes a creative mind (she tells herself) to make Mother's Day Resolutions.
We aren't much of a prepacked, prepared meals kind of family. Mostly, it's because I have food sensitivities to preservatives. However, I have always taken shortcuts with cakes, brownies, ice cream, and other things that tend to be lower in preservatives. This year, A and I decided to see if we could tackle a new frontier. By December, could we try, even if just once, to make every type of food we eat from scratch?
Here are our rules:
1. Ice cream: One of my favorite kitchen items is my ice cream machine. I've had it for over ten years, and it is going strong. I always make ice cream during the summer, but we've taken store-bought ice cream off of the menu for 2014. Unless it comes from the local ice cream shop (where they make their own from scratch as well), we won't buy it. So far, we've made some amazing batches of vanilla, mint-chocolate chip, and chocolate. Today, we're making strawberry and peach.
2. Cakes and Brownies: We haven't gotten there yet. I will convince you that the reason we haven't is because I am so drop-dead tired most days that when I have to make brownies for A's school or cupcakes for a party, I just want to add eggs, oil, and water and call it a DAY. Of course, if I could get off my rear end more often and even take a nice long walk, maybe I'd be less tired. But that would be another blog entirely. Needless to say, we haven't gotten there. This summer, I promise we'll try at least one of each before the end of August. I promise.
3. Pasta: The year I got married, my great-aunt and my grandmother chipped in and bought me a pasta maker for Christmas. They passed away in 2003. I'm celebrating my fifteenth wedding anniversary this August. Ask me how many times I've used it. NEVER. This year, it is happening. I don't know when. Anyone want to make pasta with me?
4. Soups: This has been the winner. Once a month I cook a whole chicken, use up all the meat in various dishes, and make amazing stock that lasts for all of my recipes. I still haven't made a beef stock. I'm getting there. Everything else has come from scratch. This is easy. And the sodium levels are 884,399 percent lower than the stuff in the cans and cartons.
Our last rule is more of a request. I think there are about five people out there who follow this blog. But we want a challenge. Can you think of anything else we should try from scratch? If we've already done it, we'll post it. If we haven't we'll try it out.
Happy Mid-Year!
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