coconut milk ice cream

I own some kind of odd kitchen appliances, both because I sometimes splurge and buy things for special cooking projects, and because my dad, who also loves to cook, likes to buy me fun things like an ice cream maker. I recently tried some very tasty ice cream that was made with a coconut milk base, and I thought it would be interesting to try it out at home. I used the following recipe:

2 cans coconut milk
3/4 cup undutched cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar (to taste, I didn't want it too sweet and this turned out well)
1 tsp vanilla extract

I whisked the cocoa powder in with a little bit of coconut milk, then mixed in the remaining ingredients in no particular order. I poured it all into my ice cream maker and watched as it turned to delicious ice cream before my eyes. The texture, upon coming out of the mixer, was perfect, like frozen yogurt. After being re-frozen, however, it was more difficult to scoop and crumbled a bit--but was still absolutely lovely. I want to experiment with other flavors, and see about maybe adding a little soy milk next time, to see if that makes it less crumbly for scooping.

Molly Moon!

I went out for ice cream with Anna and Spidermike last night in Wallingford. After a lovely walk from the U-district and an equally lovely dinner at Sea-Thai, we decided that it was perfect ice cream weather.

Molly Moon should be around the corner from my house. Or maybe it shouldn't be, because I would go all the time. I had strawberry balsamic ice cream and vivace coffee ice cream, and was pretty much in ice cream heaven. It was so delicious. I have had strawberries with balsamic vinegar together before as a wine pairing, and loved it then, so I knew I had to try this ice cream and it was so good. I wanted to buy a pint to take home, but had self-control. Luckily.

In addition to the scoops of ice cream I had, I got to try my friends' ice cream--honey lavendar (so delicious and refreshing), salted black licorice (very salty! not sure if I liked it as much, but I don't love licorice), and maple walnut (what I call an "old man" ice cream flavor). I tasted two of their sorbets--pomegranate curry and chocolate mandarin. The pomegranate curry was so interesting and zesty, though I don't think it was a flavor I'd really want a whole scoop of. The chocolate mandarin, however, almost made me change my order... it was that good.

I just have a whole lot of love for Molly Moon, right now.

bread, bread, and more bread.

This is the massive pile of bread my roommate and I brought home from the Essential Bakery bread dumpster. Faced with such a daunting load of carbohydrates, we decided that there was only one thing we could do--make bread pudding. Not just any bread pudding, but whole wheat bread pudding! This is something I have never done. Technically, it is two things I have never done, both the bread pudding making and also with whole wheat bread. I kind of wished I had some rum in the house, but as it was too late to go to a liquor store, we stuck with milk, eggs, butter, raisins, brown sugar, and some tasty spices--cinnamon and nutmeg.

The resulting product, while not being especially beautiful to look at because it is, after all, bread pudding, but was delicious, warm, and a wintry treat that kind of made me wish I had a hot toddy to go with it. Again, next time.

We still had a lot of bread, which we continued to consume in a variety of ways, including a favorite... dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The morning after the bread pudding experiment, we made french press with a most amazing Stumptown coffee, and I made french toast with a sourdough fremont loaf. French toast is something I don't make often, but every time I do, I wonder why it has been so long. I want to experiment with another french toast recipe in the near future that I found that had anise in it. This time, however, I made rather traditional french toast with a little vanilla and nutmeg in it.

Another important thing I learned over the couple of days that followed is what a difference it truly makes to have a good bread knife.