Ice Cream Follies

Last night's experiment in ice-cream making was not an unqualified success.

We started with the peach ice cream recipe in the Moosewood dessert cookbook. It's more of a sorbet recipe, but it looked good.

It called for 3 cups of pureed peaches, one to one-and-a-half cups of sugar, a cup of peach juice, a cup of half-and-half, and a bit of vanilla. The yield is about a quart. Sounds good so far.

We found a bag of frozen peaches in the freezer, but it was only 2 cups. So we added some frozen plums we found next to the peaches. We had no peach juice, so we substituted orange juice.

The mixture seemed like way more than would fit in the machine. I guess that makes sense when you think about it -- 3 cups of fruit and 2 cups of liquid and a bunch of sugar is by definition more than a quart. That was easy enough to deal with. We did most of the batch, transferred it to the freezer, then did the rest of the mixture and blended it with the first batch. Since the fruit came from the freezer, it was very cold and all of it became ice cream easily.

The big surprise came when we tasted it. We have re-created the flavor of children's chewable aspirin! I suppose it's an orangesicle flavor. The kids didn't really notice, since they've only had the liquid stuff. For the adults, it was quite disconcerting. I think we'll cross this flavor off of our make-again list.

Recipe Corner: Holiday Punch

EE's family has been making this for decades.

Holiday Punch (aka Christmas Punch)

The Christmas punch recipe was intended to be made in a percolator, but I have just made it on the stove -- it works better that way -- the percolator clogged up from the pineapple juice pulp. It also works great in a crockpot.

9 cups of cranberry cocktail
9 cups of pineapple juice (unsweetened)
1 cup brown sugar

Put into cheesecloth bag, drop into punch:

4 teaspoons whole cloves
4 sticks cinnamon (broken into pieces)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat to desired temperature, stir and remove spice bag.

Make a half-recipe for smaller groups.

Recipe Corner: Key Lime Pie

My mother used to make this recipe. It's probably originally from the 1950's or early 1960's. I have no idea where she got it from. As the years went by, the recipe no doubt evolved a bit. That's why many of the ingredient amounts are rather vague. This was one of my father's favorite desserts. We used to have it for special occasions such as his birthday.

The version here is based on a verbal description my mother gave me, along with my memories of how we used to make it.

Key Lime Pie

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (about 13-15 ounces)
3-4 eggs, separated (I usually use 3)
lime juice to taste (usually about 1/2 to 1 cup)
lime zest (optional; we hated it as kids buy I like it better now)
green food coloring (optional)
a pinch of sugar
1 baked, cooled pie crust (graham cracker or regular)

Separate the eggs.

Beat the egg yolks until straw-colored and thick. Add the condensed milk slowly (while still beating), and then the lime juice, lime zest, and food coloring. The amounts of lime juice, zest, and food coloring are to your taste.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff but not dry. Use a clean bowl and clean beaters for this. Towards the end of the beating, add a pinch or two of sugar, and, if desired, a bit of lime juice and/or zest.

Pour the filling in the pie crust. Pour the meringue on top. Swirl the top decoratively with the spatula, making sure the meringue is at the edge of the pie crust (to make a good seal).

Bake the pie in a preheated 350F oven until the meringue is golden brown (but not too brown). This usually takes about 15-20 minutes.

Remove from oven. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate.

Then eat it up, yum.

Recent photos

Today is less busy than many of our recent busy days. So I'll inflict photos on everyone.

Here is our yard after a recent snowstorm.



I had mentioned ice fog earlier. That's when ice crystals condense out of the fog onto everything. Here is a photo of the ice fog on Douglas fir needles.






Here are some recent flower photos. I'm sure you'll recognize the striped geranium that has been featured in other photos this past month.

The solid pink geranium is still blooming away. I won't inflict more photos of it today.

We have another geranium blooming -- a dark red one with a slightly different flower form. I can't remember the variety name. The colors don't come out right on any of the photos I've tried taking. It's not really orange or pink, honest! Since I don't feel like playing around with photo-editing software to adjust the colors, I'll skip the photos for now.

This other photo is another holiday cactus. This is a variety called Nicholas. It's the first bud to open on this particular plant.

The color is a rosy red, closer to red than the other zygo cactus flower I shared. The petals have less white on them than the other one.

The last few zygo cacti are on sale at the local grocery store. I've been resisting, though I'm not sure why.

That's enough photos for now!

Our cat is at the vet this week. We already miss him. Our other cat goes around looking for him every now and then. I will be glad when we can bring him home, and I will be delighted if the treatment works.

Christmas

Christmas was a couple of days ago (I know you guys probably know that but...) we went over to our grandparent's house and one of our aunts and one of our uncles were their. On Christmas, we stayed home but the day after Christmas we went over to our grandparent's house because they live close to us. One of the things I got was Bone by Jeff Smith it is a graphic novel and it is REALLY good!

Winter Break begins

School is out for the winter break. This is good. I'm hoping that we can catch up on sleep and relax for a bit. That's probably delusional.

Three family members got new glasses last week.

A family cat has been diagnosed with feline hyperthyroidism.

The roads are icy, the temperatures are low, and the wind is wicked. We haven't had snow for a few days, but there's some in tomorrow's forecast.

Even though we are taking a break from school and music lessons, our social schedule is still heavily booked. People keep heading off to sleepovers and parties. It's fun but not good for catching up on sleep. We're still in the throes of various school-transmitted viruses.

We've added an electric ice cream maker to our household appliance collection. It doesn't require salt and ice. The bowl goes into the freezer for a day or so. Then, one takes the bowl out of the freezer and puts it in the machine, fills the bowl with ingredients, and turns on the machine. Twenty to thirty minutes later, a semi-frozen concoction is the result. One can either eat it immediately or let it harden in the freezer for a bit.

Our initial results were very acceptable. The machine makes about one to one and a half quarts at a time. We made a basic vanilla ice cream. There were no leftovers. It took less time to eat than to make.

We have grand plans for mango or raspberry sorbet, green tea or chai ice cream, and many other interesting flavors. No doubt we'll post the successful recipes to this blog.

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The cat thing is going to be interesting. Apparently, the best treatment for hyperthyroidism is an injection of radioactive iodine. It destroys the over-active parts of the thyroid while leaving the rest of the thyroid untouched. The cat stays at the vet for a few days and then comes home after its radioactivity levels have fallen.

We are told that we'll be needing to use a special cat litter for a week or two and that we'll flush the results. I don't think that will work with our septic tank. I wonder what the other options are?

We also have to be careful about how much time we spend with the cat for a week or two as the radioactive iodine continues to decay. It's OK if the cat spends time with other cats, though.

I hope that the treatment is successful. From what I've found on the internet, it works as a cure 90-95% of the time.

Here is a photo of our cats. The one with the thyroid problems is the black one. They're both around 6-7 years old now. We got them from a local animal shelter a few years ago.

Kid #3 holiday concert

Here she is...in the green, dead center. And the whole spread.