Mint Ice Cream

Okay, I have the official report back from the fresh mint ice cream.

Yum!!!

It was really really good. And not green at all. Imagine that! :)


It ended up with a really nice subtle real mint taste.


Brenna didn't care for the amount of mint that was in it, but Gavin loved it. Here he is eating both his bowl and her bowl.


Fresh Mint Ice Cream
- makes about 1 quart (1 liter) -

Ingredients
1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream

Pinch of salt

2 cups lightly packed fresh mint leaves

5 large egg yolks

chocolate chips; optional(I used 1/2 cup, but next time I would use more. Maybe 3/4 of a cup? and honestly something not quite as bulky as chocolate chips would be better...like chocolate shavings...)


1. Warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup of the cream, and salt in a small saucepan. Add the mint leaves and stir until they're immersed in the liquid. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

2. Strain the mint-infused mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan. Press on the mint leaves to extract as much of the flavor as possible, then discard the mint leaves. Pour the remaining 1 cup heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top.

3. Rewarm the mint-infused mixture. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mint liquid into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

4. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

5. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add the chocolate chips per manufacturer's instructions.

CSA, 5/26

GREEN! That is what our CSA share looked like this week. We got buttercrunch lettuce, rainbow chard, scallions, broccoli and mint.


I was intrigued with the mint and it really got my creative juices flowing. I am not a tea drinker and wasn't really interested in cooking lamb. So after some searching, I decided upon ice cream! How can you go wrong?? So I making some fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream as we speak. I will report back on the progress! After cooking it down it had a lovely subtle mint flavor so I think it will be good.



I looked up some recipes for the chard but decided to just incorporate with the buttercrunch for my salads this week. The broccoli I will just serve with dinner some night.

The scallions were a bit of a stumper too. If you know anything about me, you know that I detest onions with a white hot passion. So I probably will not use the white parts of the scallion, unless I throw them in a stir fry or something where I can cook them down. I decided to make some cheddar garlic biscuits and incoporate the green part of the scallions. So I will be doing that sometime this week.

CSA!

Our CSA started up again last week! It is great to have wonderful produce in the house again.



This week we got red sail lettuce, rhubarb and a whole chicken.


I made this rhubarb bread pudding from a cookbook that I had gotten for my 30th birthday from my good friends Loretta and Audry.



It was delish!



And topped with a little fresh whipped cream. Seriously, do you know how much better fresh whipped cream is than cool whip? And it is not hard to make at all.


Rhubarb bread pudding

8 slices of toasted bread (I used whole wheat)
2 cups milk
2 tb butter
3/4 cup honey (I didn't have honey, so I used 1 cup sugar. If you use sugar instead of honey, you need a little bit more than how much honey the recipe calls for)
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups diced rhubarb
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Topping

2tb brown sugar
2tb instant oatmeal
1/4tsp cinnamon
1/8tsp nutmeg

Cut toast into cubes. Place in a medium sized bowl. Heat up milk (do not boil). Take off heat once it is hot and add butter, sugar and vanilla. Stir. Pour milk mixture over bread and allow to sit for 15 min. Preheat oven to 325. Add eggs, rhubarb, cinnamon, and salt to bread mixture and stir carefully until well blended. Pour into greased 2 qt casserole. Mix topping ingrediants and sprinkle evenly over top. Bake, uncovered for 45-50 min or until firm.