Happy Monday Everyone!
I’m kind of dragging today so I’m glad the first day of the work week is over and done. I had a nice and relaxing weekend, so I should have been a little more upbeat today, but that just didn’t happen. Steve and I spent most of our weekend watching Dawson’s Creek episodes and enjoying the nice weather. We actually never watched the show when it came on over a decade ago, so it’s been fun jamming along to the awesome ‘90’s soundtrack and reminiscing about our middle/high school dances and generally just feeling very old. I’ve also learned that I definitely want to name my first born son Pacey. Not only does it rhyme with my name, but I (and dare I say Steve too) have a major crush on Joshua Jackson’s cute-as-a-button character, and the name Pacey is just so fun.
We got our CSA from Atherton Market on Saturday and along with the usual veggies, we picked up some homemade butter and a gallon of strawberries.
I haven’t used the butter yet but I’m interested to see how differently it tastes than the much less expensive butter we normally buy from the grocery store. I’ve been eyeing the butter for a while now but have been put off by the $4.50 price tag for a half pound since that’s what we normally pay for a full pound of organic butter at Earthfare or Trader Joe’s. I like that I can talk directly to the farmer and find out about the cows environment and diet, and I was finally swayed to try it out when the farmer told me about how the cows were grass-fed and led a super happy life. I admit it, I’m a sucker for buying eggs/milk/butter, even if they are more expensive, if I can know for sure that the animals are happy and treated well. I’ll probably continue to buy butter from the farmer’s market regardless of the cost. Maybe it will encourage me to use less butter and voting with my dollars and supporting local businesses is always a good thing in my book.
On Sunday afternoon, Steve and I went to see The Five Year Engagement so that we could snatch up the cheaper price of the matinee ticket. I remember when movies used to be $7, and now a regular showing at our local movie theater is $10 or $11 (hey, that’s over a pounds worth of farmers market butter!). Being the poor couple that we are, we went to the 1:00 showing and got in for $7.50. It’s always a bit odd coming out of a movie theater in the middle of the afternoon. There’s just something inside my brain that expects it to be night time when I leave so I wasn’t ready for the blinding sun when I stepped outside. The movie was awesome, but then again, we both love anything with Jason Segal in it. I generally love going to see a comedy with Steve because he pretty much laughs at everything and always laughs significantly louder than anyone else in the theater…yeah, he’s that guy, and I love him for it!
I did a bit of baking and ice cream making this weekend too. I made whole wheat snickerdoodles, which were okay, but not nearly as delicious as they look in the picture. I need to try them again before the recipe is post worthy.
I also made some whole wheat banana nut muffins since my bananas were about to go bad. The most delicious item of the weekend was the strawberry ice cream that I made from the gallon of strawberries we bought at the farmer’s market. A gallon is a lot of strawberries, so we’ve been in strawberry heaven all weekend, and I’m actually munching on a few as I type this (my keyboard is turning a nice shade of pink).
This is the first time I’ve made strawberry ice cream, so I do have a few changes I’ll make next time around. This ice cream was really good right out of the ice cream maker, but once we froze it overnight it was frozen solid and nearly impossible to eat without sitting it out on the counter to thaw for 15-20 minutes. Steve says that it’s probably due to the water content in the strawberries, so next time I’m going to drain the juice from the chopped strawberries and just pour in the actual strawberry pieces. We still have some strawberries left so I think I’m going to try out a recipe I found that uses coconut milk and roasted strawberries (this should take care of the water excess issue). I’ll let you know how it goes but in the meantime, here’s the recipe I used for my first shot a strawberry ice cream. You’ll notice that the recipe uses maple syrup instead of a refined sweetener like sugar. I used this Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker where you make the ice cream in a freezer bowl.
Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream
Adapted from 100 Days of Real Food
Ingredients:
– 3/4 cup heavy cream
– 3/4 cup full-fat milk
– 2-3 tablespoons maple syrup (add a tablespoon or two more if you like your ice cream on the sweeter side)
– 15-20 fresh strawberries
Directions:
1. Combine the heavy cream, milk, and maple syrup in a measuring cup and mix together
2. Chill in refrigerator for at least a few hours
3. Chop strawberries according to how chunky you like your ice cream
4. Pour the milk mixture into your ice cream maker, then add the strawberries (if you’re eating your ice cream right away, pour it all in. If you plan on freezing some for later, strain some of the excess juice out of the strawberries)
5. Once the ice cream reaches your desired consistency, turn off the machine and enjoy. For me this took about 15-20 minutes
I was too excited about the yummy ice cream to try to snap a good picture, so hopefully this picture will entice you enough to give it a try!
I think that’s all for the day, especially considering I came home to this note:
And here’s what I found:
life write now 