Picnic in the Park

  My day didn't begin as planned as my youngest woke me up around 5:30a.m. telling me he was sick. "i'm really sick, Momma."  Indeed he is really sick, poor baby.  So that nixed him from playing in his soccer games today to finish out the Galaxy Shootout in Hickory, NC.  I was sick 2 weekends ago, and by gosh, I thought that nasty bug has finished in my house, but I guess not!  
  I gave some thoughts to the day and thought a picnic would be nice since the weather would cooperate quite nicely with us. However, the hubby & I couldn't leave a sick child at home. So, I called Jules and asked her if she and Grace would like to go on a picnic with Emma and I.  Since it only took her a breath to say yes, we began our preparations.  Jamey had picked up some ham, cheese, Ritz crackers and grapes to take with us for the breaks between Michael's games, so I swiped that from the fridge to take for our lunch and headed over to pick the other girls up.
We decided to head to Dan Nicholas Park in Rowan County.  We have been going to the park since we were young and have seen it change over the years, but find that it is just as good as it has always been.  We walked around awhile visiting the animals, let Em & Gracie ride the train and Haden's Carousel.  The smells of grills made us wish we had the hot dogs and hamburgers for our lunch instead of what we brought but then we remembered the work involved in creating such yummies at the park.  But the smell was so good, licking the air could have brought the taste onto your tongue. 
 We settled in a shaded area beside the lake for our lunch. 
It was filling and quite satisfying as we people watched - as the front their paddle boats dipped precariously close to taking on water with the unbalanced weight.  We laughed at the boaters and then came up for reasons that the tree above us would randomly drop water. The most creative reason was there was a body in the tree above us and their thermos was leaking and at anytime the water would turn to blood and then the body would fall and Booth and Bones would have to come check it out because the body would that of a federal agent  Then we began playing with the Talking Tom 2 app on Jules' iPad making it say things it shouldn't which made us cackle that I am sure people on the other side of the water could hear us.  We had an extremely fun time and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Confessions of a Cookbook Addict?

I think I have a problem.

 I picked up three more cookbooks in the past couple of weeks. I the first one, I made a post on April 15 about my Awesome Flea Market Find post.  These next two I grabbed while at one of my favorite hometown stores: Consignments Plus.   Miriam is an awesome lady and runs a great small business.  No, I am not saying that because our son's play high school soccer together or I am trying to get free stuff, but because she is! When I was out of work several years back, she would let me hang out during the day looking through everything she had to offer plus I organized what I was looking through! If you ever pass by our small town, stop and take a look at what she has, you might find that dish you need to complete your set or something extremely unusual. As for right now, she is one of my enablers as she encourages me when purchasing from her store!  Now, I just need to get a new bookcase. :)

  Now, for my spoils. I paid $2 for Our Fair Ladies Recipes; University of Florida Medical Guild, Gainesville, Florida.  From my research online it is from 1985.  The page with a date is missing but by the description on Old Growth Books, 1985 is correct.  There are many seafood recipes included from Oysters Rockefeller to 'My Father's Bouillabaisse' but then again, Gainesville is between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.  I haven't decided which recipe to make first, but with my weekends beginning to become free from soccer shortly, I think either Rachel's Fudge Cake or the Risotto alla Milanese will be made first, but then again, I just might go to Grandmother's Jam Cake and skip over the others!

I paid $1.99 for The Modern Family Cookbook by Meta Given.It is copyright 1953 and is in superb condition. I haven't had time to sit down and make a list of "To Try" yet, but I believe that the Potted Meat recipe on page 492 would interest my Dad since he likes that nasty stuff from the can. Joey I am sure of would enjoy the Bacon Muffins on page 97.  I do believe that this cookbook will make the rest of us happy when I take the time to sift through what it has to offer.


Time to dive in and find a dessert for tonight supper!

I am a cookbook addict and/or hoarder.

I will admit it. And honestly, I seriously

doubt I will ever stop because I do not see 

a reason I should. 

I scream, you scream.....

We all scream for ice cream! 

Our friends, the Gray's were nice enough to let us borrow the ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer to see if we liked it enough to purchase one of our own. Like so many other kitchen gadgets, they have one purpose and then get pushed to the back of the cabinet and end up forgetting about it. Knowing we have limited space in our house on post and whenever we move, all these kitchen gadgets and appliances have to come with us. Hence, why I was excited to try this attachment versus a standard ice cream maker that's the size of a 5 gallon bucket. Also, there's no ice cream salt to buy and you store the bowl in the freezer to keep it ready to make ice cream on a whim. The attachment is composed of four pieces, the dasher (paddle for churning), drive assembly, adapter ring and the freeze bowl. Not a ton of parts and they can be easily stored in a container with the rest of my attachments, like my dough hook, meat grinder and whisk. 

So, I did some research on the attachment, looked for some recipes and turned to the honest reviews on Amazon.com. Surprisingly, most reviews kept praising a dessert cookbook as a great companion to go along with the attachment. 

Who would've thought Ben & Jerry's ice cream could be duplicated at home? I had my doubts at first, but not anymore. Sadly, Amazon didn't show any recipes on the "look inside" feature of the book, but I did some internet recon and found their basic chocolate ice cream recipe that a dessert blogger had made from her copy of the book. 

Grace from La Mia Vita Dolce did a great job in making my mouth water with her pictures of chocolate ice cream and lead me to the discovery to a great ice cream recipe that I will gladly make again and again. 

Here's the mixer in action....

There was one change I made to the following ice cream recipe. Apparently I had a brain fart while at the commissary and thought that cocoa powder was used in the recipe, since it did in fact call for "unsweetened chocolate". However, I failed to read the directions and miss the part where you melt the chocolate in a double boiler, add the milk slowly and whisk until smooth. Well, I ended up figuring out that 3 Tbsps of cocoa powder plus 1 Tbsp of butter was equal to 1 oz of unsweetened baker's chocolate. So, 12 Tbsp of cocoa powder and 4 Tbsp of salted butter made their way into a small sauce pan to be whisked together with the milk. I skipped the fine sieve as well and proceeded as directed from there. I had a couple of glitches with the dasher, but after some troubleshooting I discovered that I had the speed set higher than needed. If you do use this attachment, remember to keep it on stir!! Please, don't let not having a standmixer and this attachment stop you from making this ice cream. If you have an old-fashion ice cream maker, all the recipes from Ben & Jerry's dessert book can be made in it.


Ben’s Chocolate Ice Cream

(from Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Dessert Book)

*Special Equipment:  Ice Cream Maker

Makes 1 quart

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup heavy or whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt

1. Melt the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water.  Gradually whisk in the milk and heat, stirring constantly, until smooth.  Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve into a small bowl. Let cool, about 10 minutes.
2. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.  Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more.  Add the cream, vanilla and salt and whisk to blend.
3. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the cream mixture and whisk to combine.  Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 1 to 3 hours, depending on your refrigerator.
4. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions.

I transferred it from the ice cream bowl to a freezer safe container and let it ripe for a couple hours. I scooped some of it into a coffee cup and forgot to take a picture before I enjoyed it. It was delicious and I hope you have a chance to make some too!

Backup Plans

  Several weeks ago, one of my co-workers were selling the Little Caesars Fundraising Pizza Kits to support her son's preschool.  As it had been years since I had purchased a Pizza Kit, I gladly did so when the form landed on my desk. I purchased this for the sole purpose as a back up plan for dinner.
  It's always good to have a backup plan for dinner.  I had to use mine tonight.  Emma soccer game got rained out and all the normal food stuff was frozen or I didn't have 1 or 2 ingredients to make something else. So, to the BACKUP PLAN!
  The Pepperoni Pizza Kit made a wonderful meal tonight and tasted terrific! (Yes, we are having Cheerwine with the pizza for dinner!)

  Of the 3 pizzas in the kit, I made one just cheese, one double pepperoni and the third a supreme.  The supreme consisted of pepperoni, ham, red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers, red onion, extra cheese and sauteed onions.  The sauteed onions were an addition because I opened the container they were in when searching through the freezer and when I applied pressure to the lid to seal it, the lid cracked. So, I defrosted them and applied them to the pizza.

  I am saddened by this picture...only because the pizza tasted awesome and there is no more!  
  Oh, well time to make a new BACK UP PLAN!!

Flea Market Awesome Find!!!

Today I went with my hubby and daughter to the Webb Road Flea Market in Salisbury in search of a video game.  I don't mind looking at all the different stuff and it's a great place to watch people.  I also look for cookbooks. Yeah, I know, like I don't have enough anyways. But I want to find those OLD recipes that nobody makes any more and try to bring them back.  In one of the stalls, I found the Woman's Home Companion Cook Book copyrighted 1942,1943.  The condition was okay for 69-70 year old cook book.  The asking price was $12.  It has 952 pages and weighs several pounds and thought it would be a great addition to my growing (insert - in severe need of new shelving for my collection here) collection.  I have flipped through it and found somethings that I want to add to my too try listings.
Curiosity lead me to do a Google search on the cookbook just to see what I could learn from it.  Basically, I have learned I have a gem in my collection.  The going price for this cookbook starts around $40 on Amazon for a 1955 edition and goes up to $100 on other sites depending on the condition and the year.  If it wasn't for the little kid scribble on the inside cover it would be rated pretty darned high on the $$$ scale. But that's okay. I am going to use it for what it is made for and to me, it will become priceless.