Mint Julep Ice Cream

I recently checked a book out of the library called Crescent City Cooking by Susan Spicer, a restauranteer in New Orleans. I thought I didn't care much for Creole cuisine, but this book intrigued me, and I was pleasantly surprised. So far I've tried two recipes, both of which I've been happy with. This is called Mint Julep Ice Cream, and I decided to make it in honor of the (rather depressing) Kentucky Derby this past weekend.


First, we start with fresh mint from the porch. This is already an improvement on the Fresh Mint Ice Cream recipe I tried before, because it doesn't call for stemming the leaves, which saves a LOT of time. Plus, I didn't have to steam and cool multiple times - only once. I must say that there was slightly less mint taste to this recipe than the other one

While the mint and cream/half-and-half mixture is cooling, I whisked the sugar and egg yolks together.

Here's the mint and cream mixture, ready to be strained and have the sugar concontion added.

Now the hardest part: you have to cook the custard until it coats the back of a wooden spoon, watching it carefully to make sure you don't overcook and wind up with minty scrambled eggs.

Ready to go in the ice cream freezer...almost there!

The finished product, with shaved semi-sweet chocolate mixed in the last few minutes.

The recipe description states, "My rule of thumb is, 'If something tastes good, it will taste even beter if you turn it into ice cream.'" I tend to agree! Homemade ice cream tends to get even better as it ripens in the freezer, but I'm afraid it will disappear before it reaches its' peak! The bourbon gives it a wonderful flavor and keeps the ice cream soft, but next time I may reduce it just a bit to make it firm up a little more. And I should also mention that I halved this recipe to make 1 quart, because I don't know anyone who has a home ice cream maker that makes 2 quarts. Mmmmmm...

Fresh Mint Ice Cream

I decided to try my hand at making a custard-base ice cream. I don't think I've ever had one before (with having egg yolks in them, I don't think this is the type you can get in ice cream shops), and my peppermint plant on the porch has been growing like crazy, so this seemed like the answer for a lazy Sunday afternoon. The newest Star Wars book came out recently, so Mike was occupied while I spent most of the afternoon making ice cream :)

The recipe entailed steaming cream, milk, and the fresh mint (which was a pain to pick apart!) and letting it cool several times, then straining out the peppermint and cooking the cream/milk mixture into a custard:

In my ice cream freezer, calling my name. I'm so glad to be using my ice cream maker again...in the apartment, I didn't have the storage to make the box easily accesible, and I most definitely didn't have the room in my freezer to store the part that needs to be in there. Now, we have lots of cabinets, a chest freezer...life is good!

I decided to use chopped dark chocolate, but once I got it all chopped up, I was about two ounces short. The remainder of the Andes Candies baking pieces leftover from Christmas baking fixed that :)

Ohhhhh la la..........

I don't think I had quite the amount of mint the recipe calls for, so I'm glad the Andes candies lent a little more mintiness to the ice cream-y goodness. The custard base made it taste a little different than regular ice cream, but man, it was indulgently good! It took a long time, and I don't know how soon I'll do this again, but it was a new experience.

In the Garden


We're still getting some growth in the garden, depsite the full onset of summer here in sunny Florida!

My banana pepper plant continues to surprise me with how well it's doing. Clickity for biggity to see all the babies on that plant!!

Snap beans - waiting for a trellis! :)

In the background is the basil, which I've been religiously pinching off to encourage bushier growth. I swear, one day I trim it down and the next it looks exactly the same! The mint in the foreground isn't quite as fast a grower, but it's starting to spill down the sides of the pot! Time to make more Mint Ice Cream!

My Patio Princess tomatoes. I've been thrilled at thier production! They produce a fruit that's a little bigger than a cherry tomato. I got these from Burpee before I decided to grow mostly heirloom and open-pollinated seeds, but I've been so impressed with them that I planted the rest of the seed packet I had! I am also starting some Brandywine (heirloom) and Salsa tomatoes, which are specifically for making one of the very favorites foods. Mmmmm...salsa!

This morning I re-potted this orange tree into the tub you see here. I got the tub on sale, and although it's not really for growing plants, I put a layer of river rocks in the bottom for drainage and I think it will work just fine. Much cheaper than the other options I was looking at! It will make a fine home for this Page orange until it's big enough to go in the ground.

The bounty for today!



All washed up. The banana and bell peppers and the carrots will go into a stir-fry for tonight (stay tuned!) and the tomato will most likely go into Mike's mouth before I can do anything with it :) Our bounty is small this year, but hopefully next year we will have enough to really make a dent in our grocery bill and health goals!

Howie the guniea pig was more than happy to take care of the carrot tops for me. Gardening benefits us all!!

Mike and I spent the weekend in Fort Lauderdale, and while I definitely would not want to live there, the city has some GREAT food!! Mike and I went to a great restaurant called the River House, which was two old houses that were connected and converted into a restaurant. I would like to apologize in advance for the poor picture quality, they were taken with Mike's phone, since SOMEONE lost the digital camera.

First up, a raspberry mojito. This was my first mojito, and I thought it was pretty good. I don't think I'd like a traditional mojito, though; I need the fruit to take the edge off.





Next up, I had crabmeat-encrusted black grouper with a creamy sweet corn sauce and truffle-infused yukon gold mashed potatoes. This was WAY fancier than anything I would make, but I would like to try my hand at the corn sauce, as I think it would make just about anything taste better. The crab-grouper combination was delectable. The potatoes were tasty as well, but I couldn't pick out the truffle taste. I was excited to try them, because I've never had truffles before. For dessert, Mike and I split a Bailey's chocolate-mint cheesecake. It was plated beautifully, and I wish I'd had room to enjoy it better. I couldn't really tase the Bailey's or the mint, but I suspect I was too full! The River House was the most romantic restaurant I've ever been to, and I'd recommend this restaurant if you're ever in Fort Lauderdale. I hope that we can take my parents there next year and I can show you more pictures!

Feeling better, Krishna Lunch, and meatloaf recipe

I’m finally starting to feel better, so hopefully I’ll be able to start posting regularly again. I do have a few things to show you, however. First is the awesome soup Mike made for me while I was sick! If you want to know how he did it, go here. I must say it wasn’t the way I would have made it, but it was extremely tasty, especially with the grilled cheese to go with it.



I also ate the Krishna lunch for the first time recently. The Krishnas area religious group that is prominent in Gainesville. Some think of them as an offshoot of Hinduism, but for years they’ve been serving vegetarian lunches to students on campus. I’ve never had classes near the library where they serve, but this semester I do, so I decided to give it a try. For $3.00 I got white rice, a vegetable curry, spaghetti, a salad, and this pineapple-y cake stuff. Everything was great! I don’t think I’ve ever had vegetables this way, but I want to see if I can find a recipe somewhere. The salad had a mild, lemon-y dressing that was tasty, and my favorite part (of course) was the cake! It was very moist - the guy used an ice cream scoop to serve it. They also had a delicious mint-flavored lemonade. I got a lot of food for what I paid, and I plan on going back often. I must say they were also some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.



I was asked by someone recently how I made the individual meat loaves, so if you’d like to know, here’s the recipe. It’s actually not so much a recipe as a guideline….they’re more like guidelines, anyway (name the movie!)