Zucchini Ice Cream

Zucchini is always so abundant in the summertime!  I struggle with making it fun to eat.  And to use it in creative ways.  Recently, I have wanted to make everything into ice cream.  I think it is because I have a great, wonderful, delicious vanilla ice cream recipe that I can use as a base and safely add almost anything I want. (I'll let Chris come up with something un-appetizing to add to ice cream.  He's always good at that. :-)

Here is my zucchini all grated up and my homemade vanilla in an old frank's bottle.  and some vanilla spilled on the counter.  :-)

My vision was zucchini bread as ice cream.  I love zucchini bread and I love ice cream.  and I love eating them together.  So, this must be a perfect match!

I came up with my recipe by poking around a bit on the internet. (Actually, I googled "zucchini ice cream" and clicked on the first link that came up.) I looked at the recipe, took away what I needed to know, and came up with my very own version.

Zucchini Ice Cream
1 egg yolk
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
1 TBS arrowroot, tapioca starch or cornstarch
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup (or so) zucchini
2 TBS alcohol (I used brandy, and I quite like the pairing with the cinnamon and raisins.)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup raisins

Mix all ingredients except zucchini and raisins. add in zucchini and raisins.  pour into ice cream freezer.  stand impatiently by until it is finished. (or go read something, or do the dishes, nurse the baby, etc.)

One note about the alcohol-- you don't have to use it; it is to help the ice cream stay soft in the freezer.  You know how store-bought ice cream stays all soft and homemade gets hard as a rock?  Well, they put anti-freeze in ice cream to help it stay soft!  Alcohol does the same thing. And I personally would choose it any day over anti-freeze.  :-)

Things I would do differently: grate zucchini finer, use smaller raisins.  or maybe currants.

Enjoy!

Produce... from our garden

I grabbed some quick pictures of veggies that we picked out of our garden the other day. 

We filled a whole basket! Green peppers, tomatoes and even a habenero, a seven pot and a jalapeno.

Has anyone ever seen this happen to a pepper?  We haven't.  We think it might be lack of water?  We have been watering our tomatoes but not our peppers because the nursery where we got them said we should not water them much.

Look at this beautiful heirloom tomato we have this year!  Do you notice the evil bunny teeth right in the middle of the side.  The first time we saw the bunny in our garden, it was only palm sized.  Now it's probably twice as big. 

After we were done picking peppers and tomatoes, the boys dug our potatoes!  I think we got about 10lbs.  (but I didn't weigh them) This is a much better yeild that last year, when we only got about three too-small-to-eat potatoes.  This year, instead of buying seed potatoes from the internet, we bought real, organic potatoes from the store and planted them! 

Finally, here is some tomatillo salsa that Chris made.  It is fermenting on our counter. Remember when I talked about adding fermented food to our diet (Kombucha is fermented!)?  We are trying new ways.  I also made a fermented green pepper and zucchini relish earlier this summer.

Well, I am going to try to add posts more often; maybe just take a quick picture and post a little blurb about it.  I know the pictures I take aren't the greatest, but they are what I have to work with now.  I don't have a great phone camera, but I also would never post another picture if I had to take them with my camera and upload them to the site.  So, for now I am going with low quality pictures over none at all.  :-) 

Have a blessed day!

Tomato Update!

Well, I finished canning my forty pounds of tomatoes, and I got:

14 quarts
1 pint
and leftover sauce to make lasagna

Yay!

I used one of the quarts today (it didn't seal) to make a zucchini-beef bake that was supposed to be like lasagna but just turned out more like a casserole instead.

Tomatoes!

I just bought 40+ lbs of tomatoes for $10!!! 

So excited-- tomato sauce is in my future. 

Will update with the end result of quarts made and total cost breakdown.  :-)

How to make Bread

Or, a transcript of the last hour of my life.

 Add ingredients to the bowl for making bread.
 Run out of flour.
Grind more.
Ben informs me Sam peed on the floor.
 Go help Sam clean up pee.
Baby is crying.  Needs nap. 
 Ellie has to go pee.
 Leave baby on bed.
Help Ellie go pee.
Turn on water for Sam to wash hands. 
Go to put baby to bed.
Sheet needs to be changed.
Get sheet.
Ellie needs to wash hands. Turn on water for her.
Smells like baby poop in room-- need to wash diapers.
Go to start diapers soaking.
Change baby's sheet.
Shut off water for Ellie.
Put baby to bed.
Find one more diaper-- put it in the wash.
Admire Ben and Ellie's castle-- realize Ellie never put pants back on.
Tell Ellie to get her pants on.
Go put flour into bowl and let it knead.
Stop kneeding-- realize baby still crying.
Set timer so bread can rise.
Baby acting hungry.
Remember diaper in diaper bag from yesterday.
Throw it in the wash.
Give 'middles' phone to watch pictures while I nurse.
Baby takes few sips, not interested.
Middles fighting because they are touching each other.
Ben enters scene-- tries to resolve situation, to no avail.
Take phone away from children.
Sulking because 'didn't get to see enough pictures.'
Send three oldest to bed for ten minutes for whining.
Put baby in cow chair to try and finish typing. 
Baby still crying when put him down.
Type for a few minutes.
Baby crying.
Ellie comes running out of room-- "I have to pee-- I'm peeing!!"
Run to help Ellie maybe make it to the potty.
Too late.
Clean up pee.
Wash mine and Ellie's hands.
Baby still crying.
Have small freak out session.
Apologize to kids for loss of self control.
Give each child something to do by themselves.
Put baby to bed-- still crying. 
Finish typing (hopefully!)
Ahh, baby finally went to sleep.
Children being somewhat considerate. 

So, that's how you make bread.  Hopefully there won't be as many steps for the other things on my list today, because 'make bread' was only the first.  Still on the list:

Make sauerkraut
brew kombucha
clean shower
vacuum living room, dining room
scripture time with kids
quiet time for me
change table cloth, and wash table cloths
lunch
hard boiled eggs
make egg salad for dinner
(go to the pool)-- not going to happen, considering it's already lunch time and i only got to one thing on my list.
go out to dinner with my husband for my anniversary.

now, on to accomplish something great today!

Liquid Lunch

Today is so hot!  I wasn't particularly hungry at lunch, and we ate breakfast somewhat later than usual.  So, I took a tip that I got sometime last summer at Life In A Shoe, and I made us a smoothie for lunch.  I added things that I knew were healthy and would fill us up.

Yesterday we picked up our first CSA of the season, and I have lots of veggies to use now!

Our smoothie started with some beet greens (about a cup).  I have never used beet greens before, but I read someone's post on facebook who said she had sauteed them, so I thought, 'why not use them any way that I use spinach?' So, they went in our smoothie.  I saved some to saute too, because I want to try them. :-)

Next, I added ice cubes so when I buzzed it up, it would be cool and refreshing. Then I added two bananas.  They are filling and sweet, so I didn't add any sweetener!  For some staying protein, I added about 2TBS of peanut butter.  For deliciousness, I added a scant 2 TBS of cocoa powder, and I finished it off with about 2 cups of raw milk.

I swirled it all around, and it made about 4 cups of delicious smoothie.  I was worried the beet greens would make it unappetizing-- that they would have a very strong taste and the kids wouldn't go for it, but that didn't happen.

This was a great smoothie for a hot day.  I know my kids got some healthy things in them, and that they will not be hungry for awhile. I feel great after having greens for lunch-- not tired and ready for a nap-- at least not as much as I usually do!

What do you eat for lunch on a hot day?  Or do you just skip it all together?

School day

So far school days are a little bit hectic in our house.  hopefully in the fall we will have it all worked out. I want to work out the schedule for each child and goals for each child to do everyday and goals for each child for the whole school year.  This year we are kind of winging it and it is a little bit chaotic. But with a new baby it is just how our lives have had to go for now. Here is a glimpse of our table in the mist of the chaos!