Bailey's Ice Cream

I love ice cream!  The Perfect Scoop is the homemade ice cream bible.  My favorite recipe is Vanilla Frozen Yogurt--deliciously cold and sweet, but tangy and not super fatty.  I even use homemade yogurt for the batter.  Mmm.  But today for a slightly more extravagent frozen treat, I modified some of the basic recipes (Vanilla Ice Cream + Eggnog Ice Cream) to create a Bailey's Ice Cream recipe.

BAILEY’S ICE CREAM

Ingredients:
2 Cups of Heavy Cream
1 Cup Whole Milk
½ c Bailey's Irish Cream
3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
Pinch salt

Whisk all of the ingredients together until the sugar has dissolved. Then freeze as you would normally freeze ice cream either in an ice cream maker.  Optional: Drizzle with Bailey's and serve.  Enjoy!

Smitten Kitchen's Flatbreads with Honey, Thyme, and Sea Salt

I have been sadly neglecting this blog, but not for any lack of experimenting in the kitchen.  I have been busy trying new recipes right and left, utilizing our delicious, fresh produce from the CSA.  Unfortunately may of the delicious recipes I've tried have been straight out of the Appetite for Reduction cookbook, so I can't share them here--but I would highly recommend the cookbook!  I'm beginning to really appreciate vegan cooking and the recipes have a lot of flavor (sometimes a bit TOO much flavor, but I'm learning to adjust the quantities of her spices).

A new adventure for this week is from the smittenkitchen.com blog: Flatbreads with Honey, Thyme, and Sea Salt.  Doesn't that sound amazing!  I'm also eager to try the smittenkitchen recipe for homemade ricotta cheese.

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

I LOVE fresh bread!  It fills the house with a homey aroma and is delicious slathered in jam or butter or with a slice of cheese.  It makes great sandwiches, a quick toast breakfast, or a simple snack.  I especially love artisan bread: peasant loaves, french bread, olive bread, and cheese breads.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day is a great, easy method for baking as much fresh bread as I want.  The basic idea is that you make a large batch of dough, mix it without kneading, let it rise once, let is rest in the refrigerator, and then pull it out and bake it whenever you have a fresh bread craving.

In using this cookbook I have learned to bake on a pizza stone, including the difficult task of sliding a fully dressed pizza off of the peel onto the hot stone.  One piece of advice: coat the pizza peel liberally with corn meal or flour.  You will be glad you did!  You can also freeze partially baked loaves and finish baking them at a later date for the treat of fresh bread straight out of the oven.

Improvisational Basil Pizza

In the midst of making pizza, I discovered I didn't have any tomato sauce!  So I improvised and used olive oil and frozen basil leaves instead.  The result was a delicious white gourmet pizza and a good use of our frozen bumper crop of basil from last summer.  Definitely something we'll have again!

CSA Week #4

This week from our CSA we received:

• beets
• sugar snap peas
• spinach
• Russian kale
• radishes
• hon tsai tai

Hon Tsai Tai is a type of flowering bok choi, a mild Asian green from the mustard family.  It has purple stalks, dark green leaves, and yellow flowers, all of which are edible.  We're excited to try it for the first time this week!

On the menu: Beet Bake from Cathy with couscous and Teriyaki Greens, Pasta e Fagioli from Appetite for Reduction, Hon Tsai Tai with Chicken & Peanut Sauce

How to Keep your Cutting Board From Slipping

Rolling out dough on a cutting board can be frustrating if your cutting board slips on the counter.  A quick fix for this problem is to place a wet dish rag or a rubber sink mat underneath the board.  No more slipping!

Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking

I just finished reading Kate Payne's Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking.  It's a fun read and chock full of tidbits of useful information and other book and internet resources.

A few things I am now inspired to do:
1) Bake a loaf a bread--I've gotten sadly out of the habit.  More on that soon!
2) Can a few things this season--tomatoes & applesauce are at the top of my list.  I just need to get my courage up while I wait for those things to be in season!
3) Ditch my toxic cleaning solutions and start using more natural products.  This feels like a bigger project, but one that I may be ready to tackle soon.
4) Shop at thrift stores, consignment shops, and Craigslist more often--you never know what you might find!