Io Triumphe, or, Chocolate gone Nuts

Recently I wrote an email to someone because I thought they might be dead. They had done an extraordinarily good job of dropping off the face of the planet, and I wanted to be sure I hadn't made a birthday present for someone Hitchhiking the Galaxy with a towel around their shoulders, metaphorically or otherwise.

I mention this story because, obviously, I have also done an extraordinarily good job of dropping off the face of the ice-cream planet. But today, my friends, I have returned triumphant. And this time I am updating with a REAL RECIPE, not just a whining plea that you still read my blog when I hypothetically post on it again soon.

Yes, summer is rolling ever closer over the San Gabriel mountains, and my to-do list in life has been simplified to the following activities:

--practicing ukulele (currently I'm working on a Magnetic Fields song, a Weepies song, and a Justin Timberlake song. Get ready for the best summer of your life, Eagle Rock Trader Joe's parking lot.)

--reading at least 5 books at a time. (if I could link you to my account page with the library, I would. Let's just say I have 21 books checked out. In a manner of speaking.)

--making ice cream. making ice cream. making ice cream.

So yesterday was sort of a suck day. It turned on me over the course of the afternoon, and yadda yadda yadda at 5:30pm I found myself sitting in my room, writing in my journal, no lights on in the house, listening to music about car crashes. True story. Mmm. Yikes. BUT THEN! I got this phone call, and the miraculous being on the line was eating ice cream. Brief side bar: I wish we still said things like "I call you up/the line's engaged," which is a Beatles' lyric. I wish lines still got "engaged" in modern patois. Alas. The closest thing I can think of is when you go to update your twitter and it won't let you because there are too many tweets all at once. Gross. Let's move on. Anyway, my dear friend was eating ice cream, and I was in a terrible mood, and it became obvious to both of us that the answer was to make ice cream, quickly and in large quantities. So let's dive in.

First, thanks to B&J's, the reason for the season:

Light (in theory) Chocolate Ice Cream with Peanut Butter:

1 (in theory) oz. unsweetened chocolate (i used at least 4. i went a little overboard. like i said before: it was a bad day.)
4 tbsp cocoa powder
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup heavy or whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup (in theory) peanut butter (again, I used way more than was called for. Turned out fine, but I love peanut butter more than most humans.)

Alrighty. So to start with, melt the chocolate on a double broiler. You may recall that I do not have one of these. I worked in a regular frying pan. I'm bohemian. Whatever.
--Once melted, stir in the cocoa powder. If it gets clumpy, fear not. The milk in the next step will chill it out. (HA! Oh, I have missed having a vehicle for such jokes.)
--Whisk milk in a little at a time, until blended. Do this on low heat, to avoid boiling the milk.
--When all the milk is mixed in, remove from heat and let cool. At this point, probably because I don't have a double broiler AND because I was talking on the phone, my mix was still lumpy. Because they were lumps of chocolate, I let it go. But in general, it should be smooth. These lumps of unsweetened chocolate and cocoa, which made it all the way into my final product are, surprise surprise, unsweetened. Next time I will get off the phone earlier and mix completely-er.
--While the stovetop concoction is cooling, whisk the eggs into a fluffy lather. This will take about 2 minutes. Once fluffily lathered, add the sugar a little at a time, and whisk until completely blended.
--Add the vanilla and the cream. The cream is really pretty when you add it. It makes swirls.
--Add the (cooled) cocoa/milk/chocolate mixture to the egg mixture. Whiskify.

When a problem comes along, you must whisk it!

--Take about a cup of this mixture, and, in a separate bowl, mix in the peanut butter. Once completely blended, add back to the larger bowl.
--Cover and cool in refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
--Pour into ice cream maker, run for 30 minutes.
--Watch NCIS LA finale (G's about to find out who his dad is? WHAT?!) and enjoy.

countdown

HELLO FAMILY.

i have been experimenting with veganism for awhile, and have decided to stop experimenting on easter sunday. the things that i can never stop eating, it turns out, are fish (SUSHI IS MY FAVORITE FOOD), butter, and the muse of this here blog, ice cream.

so the countdown is on until april 4th, when i will return triumphant and come bearing blog posts and gifts. as if those weren't the same thing.

T-MINUS SEVEN DAYS.

now i am thinking about "the ring." creepy. icecreamicecreamicecream. there, i feel better.

love, katie

harder.better.faster.strawberrier.

To be read in the same voice you would use to read Goodnight Moon (incidentally the greatest children's book ever written besides Where the Wild Things Are.)

Hello, autumn.

Hello, sweaters and slippers and scarves and tea.

Hello, Netflix and excellent live music scene.

Hello, Ice Ice Katie.

I am back from a brief hiatus with a NON-ben & jerry's recipe for strawberry ice cream. I also have some sad news, which is this: my camera was dropped at precisely the wrong moment and in trying to fix it I broke it further and beyond repair. These were a few of the pictures being held hostage. I got the pictures eventually, but probably won't be able to post pictures again until I get a new camera. Which is pretty mah fan*, considering that i hate spending money.

*mah fan- "sucks," "annoying," "stupid," in chinese. I've been gone so long I learned another language!

No, no I didn't. Mah fan is some of the residual Chinese left from my trip this summer, where I did start to learn another language, but then I came back stateside and am slipping back into white America's homo-lingual, cradling arms.

Anyway. ICE CREAM! This recipe sent to me by Laura, with the following text before the link: "YES"

Laura, I agree.

A list of ingredients:

1 pound strawberries, trimmed, halved if large (I got mine from the ER farmer's Market!)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups heavy cream

You will also need:

A mashing tool

A blender

Here is a picture of some ingredients! (RIP, power-ranger-pink camera. I really loved you.)

Here we have the lemon, the sugar, the strawberries, the mashing bowl, and the little compost bin for the strawberry leaves. Yes, my family has started composting because we are the cutest hipsters you ever did see. Look, you can even see our natural surface-cleaner in the background of that picture. Shoooot. We so earth-friendly.

Start by mashing the strawberries. If you do not know what a masher looks like to check if you have one, here is mine:

Add the sugar a little at a time to the strawberries, along with the lemon juice and salt. It will look syrupy and sugary, like so:

Transfer half of this mixture to a blender, and puree with cream until smooth.

That might be the least glamorous picture I have ever posted on this blog. But, blenders are pretty un-glamourous appliances. And we are all one in the face of Ice Cream anyway.

Return the light-pink pureed frothiness to the ruby-red strawberry syrup (I reference color partly to be poetic and partly so you can make sure you have pureed and mashed satisfactorily).

Chill the mixture for 3-6 hours, depending on how cold your ice cream maker bowl is, and how cold your fridge is. Our fridge is not very cold, but our freezer (and hence ice cream bowl) is INCREDIBLY cold, so they balance out and I chilled ours for about three hours.

Add mix to ice cream maker, blend for 35 minutes.

Look this cute trying to eat ice cream. Do it. I dare you.

HAPPY FALL*.

*not the movie The Fall, although that movie is breathtaking evidence why movies should still be made in this age of terrible, terrible, terrible movies.