Sunshine and Ice Cream

It is beautiful here right now and has been this whole week. The forsythia and cherry trees are in full bloom, the Portland streets are lined with flowering daffodils and tulips. Yesterday it was 75 degrees and sunny. You can smell the fragrance in the air. I couldn't stand being inside yesterday, so I left work at 3:30 and headed home. Everyone was outside. I've never seen the streets so busy with people just walking about. It was wonderful. Did a little gardening when I got home and poured myself a glass of pinot grigio -- sat on my rocking chair on the front porch and read a magazine. Hughes came out too. That cat loves the front porch. He knows not to walk down the stairs or go outside of the railing else he has to go back inside. So we both relaxed outside for two hours and watched everyone come home from work.

Since I got home early last night, I got to play around the kitchen a bit. Made dinner and while the chicken was in the oven, I made ice cream (whole milk and eggs were on sale this week at the grocery store). Made a double batch of sweet cream base (have linda's recipe from the restaurant - yum) and then divided it into thirds to make three flavors:

1. Orange -- use the microplane zester and allow just the zest to steep in the warm ice cream base. It picks up a really subtle, wonderful flavor. Kind of like a creamsicle. I've done the same protocol with lemon before and the result is even better. Kristen, I bet your meyer lemons would rock in this recipe.

2. Caramel -- I have issues with caramel. I looooove it in all its slendor -- sauce, chews, filling inside of chocolate as well as cajeta, that awesome mexican caramel made out of goats milk that I put on apples, tortillas, in my coffee or just eat by the spoonful out of the container. (Um, unless you find that repulsive because then I don't... especially if we were in mexico together. Note: if anyone goes to mexico again, pretty pretty please pick me up a container of that cajeta and mail it to me. I will trade you oregon coffee or other.) Kyle, I still dream about your caramels too. You did such an awesome job on those -- what a great consistency. Anyway, I have a hard time making caramel since it always tends to crystallize on me or I overcook it. I added some water this time as well as some acid, both of which seemed to work in preventing crystalization. I did overcook it a bit yesterday, but it was still fine. Let it cool just a bit before carefully stirring in the base (caramel can be 350+ degrees. water in the milk boils at 212. you can envision the wild eruption that can take place if you're not prepared for it). Turned out well (at least tasting the liquid form); am freezing this batch tonight.

3. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough -- used linda's sweet cream base and then dropped in small chunks of fresh homemade cookie dough when I transferred the ice cream from the machine to container. Read Ben & Jerry's recipe; they recommend waiting until the end else everything becomes a sticky mess. Made this last night and am allowing it to fully freeze before we dive into it.

All in all, yum.

Now it's friday and still sunny! Hooray!