Monday, November 8, 2010

Beans

I love beans - much to my boyfriends disgust - he doesn't really dig my hippy bean meals.  I love that they're a cozy pantry staple, and can be a meal on their own, or an accompaniment.

Last Saturday I had some friends round to enjoy our shade dappled backyard with drinks and nibbles.

I made some home made hummus and another bean dip.  Now I'm sure everyone knows how to make hummus, but this was the second time I'd made some and I was really happy with the results.

Hummus - my style
2 cans chickpeas
5 cloves garlic chopped in half and skinned
A few springs of rosemary
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Pour out the juice from one can of chickpeas and leave one can with about half the juice.  Pop in a food processor.
Get a heavy based pan going with the oil, garlic and rosemary.  Cook the garlic till it starts to go brown and squish it down a bit to make sure it's nice and soft.
Pour this into the food processor and blend with additional oil till you get your desired consistency.
Don't forget to season.

Borlotti chilli dip
2 cans of borlotti beans
1 chilli chopped
Teaspoon of sugar
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Do the same as above with the beans - and pour into food processor.
Fry off the chilli in oil then stir in the sugar and continue to fry gently for a bit.
Throw into the borlotti beans mix and combine.

Bruschetta
French bread
Olive oil
Pastry brush

Cut the bread into 1-2 cm wide chunks and place on a tray.
Turn on your grill.  Warm the oil in the pan you've been using for the above.
Brush the warm oil over the bread and grill till lightly browned.
I only did one side, as I found this made the bread crispy, but still had a softness so it didn't shatter when you were trying to eat it.

I served the above with a bowl of rocket dressed with a little oil, red wine vinegar and lemon juice.

I sadly have no pictures - but next time I make it I will take some and include fun cocktail recipes to quench your thirst.

xx

Friday, September 24, 2010

Best french toast

This french toast is soft and velvety and almost like big thick pancakes.  It uses crumpets, cos I was addicted to them for about a month during winter.

4 crumpets (your general store bought kind)
1 egg
milk
cinnamon
vanilla
1 T sugar
pinch salt

Mix together the egg, and all the other ingredients except the crumpets is a shallow wide bowl.

Start soaking your crumpets. the longer the better, both sides. 

Get you pan nice and hot and drop the crumpets in, bubbley side down, cook both sides till golden.

Drop on a plate, and serve with bananas panfried in butter and golden syrup.  Goes with all your usual french toast bits and pieces too.


Tuesday, September 21, 2010

On the cake decorating missions

Yeah so I'm nannering it up, baking cakes then decorating them.

Here are some pics of what I've been up to.  All rather beginner at the mo - but I'm well inspired and will be completeing another this week.

PS sorry the blog looks ugly.  Must fix.

Final cake decorating class cake


Abel's third B'day cake
Cake wrapped in chocolate with chocolate sea shells


Tony's B'day cake






If anyone needs a cake made let me know!  Ingredient cost only.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Apple pie wontons
And no posts lately - I'm learning how to cake decorate.  It's freaking hard.  Might post some stuff up at some point.  Right now I'm trying to complete a giraffe shaped 3d cake.  More later...

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Another post on chocolate

Today I happened by Kokako cafe in Parnell.  Jacquie and I were off to the museum for the Kai to pie exhibition and we stopped by the cafe for coffee beforehand.


While I was waiting for my coffee I noticed their boxes of hot chocolate - which I had only heard good things about. So I picked up a box for Jacquie and I at the modest price of $7.50 each.


This evening, after dinner, I whipped William and I up a batch.


In a large mug combine 1 T of Kokako hot chocolate, 1/2 T of sugar and a little hot water to combine.  Fill with milk and microwave (sorry I know evil - I was feeling very lazy though)  once hot throw a layer of marshmallows on top.


It was definitely enough sweetness for dessert.  However perhaps I'll try a less sweet version next time - to try and get some more of that deep chocolate flavour I was hoping for.



Friday, July 9, 2010

Best chocolate cake

This is the very best chocolate cake recipe ever.  Fullstop. Can't believe I'm sharing this little beauty.  I've had it for over 10 years and it never fails to impress.
Enjoy.


Best chocolate cake


125 gms butter
1c sugar
2 eggs
2 T golden syrup
1t baking soda
2c flour
1/4c cocoa
1t baking powder
1c milk
1t salt


Cream butter and sugar, make that butter white.  Add golden syrup and eggs, try and keep all the ingredients at room temp - to avoid curdling the batter.  In a separate bowl sieve the flour, cocoa and salt.  Warm the milk and add the baking soda.  In batches add the flour mix and milk mixing gently in between.  Finally stir through the baking powder.


Don't over mix. Pour into a greased pan and bake at 180 for 45mins.  Or until the cake springs bake lightly.
Don't forget the cake will continue to cook with its latent heat once it's out of the oven, so don't overcook.


Favourite butter icing


I also made proper butter style icing for the first time.  Totally worth it.  Get your beater out again and get 50gms of butter all creamy.  Add a cup of icing sugar and 1/4 cup of cocoa, large pinch of salt and some vanilla.  Keep beating as it will combine to a creamy texture after awhile, it will look like it's not going to happen but keep beating. You can then add milk a teaspoon at a time til you get the required consitancy.  This mixture is forgiving, add more cocoa or icing suar or milk to get the consistency you want.  Do not leave out the salt, the juxtaposition of it and the chocolate and sugar is mouthwatering.


Wrap that icing around the cake in a delicious chocolatey hug.


Slice up and delight your friends and family.


xx

Monday, May 17, 2010

Another musing

Mmm earl grey tea ice cream, with some sort of crispy apple thing, or perhaps the ice cream is with a caramellised hazelnut and pastry tart.  Add a spoonful of apple compote on the side.


Seared tuna on a deep fried sticky rice ball.  With either a tomato consume or a pea sauce.


Fried circle of polenta with juicy roast chicken and onion gravy piled on top.


Teriyaki tofu with a crispy coating, on fluffy rice and asian greens.


Thats all for now.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Friendly coffee

Waste, I hate it.  Whether it be food, rubbish not recycled properly, stupid packaging or blatant wastage of disposable items.


When I worked in the film industry plastic and paper cups were de-rigor.  Because we would often be shooting on location, so no kitchen facilities were available, plus when you're on set it's a hazard to have drinks around.  Which basically means dishes and personal cups are hard to work with so disposable it is.  It was the bins chocka full of disposable cups which made me sad, those cups were made of materials purged from our earth, punched into shape by some factory in a far off land with Co2 belching from its chimneys.  Then placed in a boat chugging across the ocean.  For a meager minute life span, filled and drained then tossed away.


So how does this relate to our everyday lives, those of us that don't work on a film set, and who diligently reuse our cup at work and home?  Well how about take-away coffee? we all love it, and many of us will have a good couple a week.  The chunky cups which sit cosily in your hand have become a trend in themselves, check the gossip pages filled with pictures of undersized trend setters toting over sized coffees.  All of which get biffed in the bin after a single use.


So any way we can re-use is a friend of mine.  Specially when we can do it in a stylish way as well.  My work mate brought in one of these this week.  A cute, chubby re-usable coffee holder.  Still got the trend factor as well as being kind to the environment.  Plus you can use it for whatever you like!  To friends and family you're a long black swilling beat nick - but little do they know your cup actually holds a rare chinese tea blend.  Too cool.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Green soup

It's dark as outside.  The rain has started - it's really bucketing down.  And it's only 630.

Perfect soup weather.

Weekend just been, popped into my head was a picture of a soup - a bright green puddle in a bowl.  
To avoid the browny coloured soup that you'll get with kumera, meats, or too many coloured ingredients - everything in this soup is bright green.  You could probably try anything green in this. But keep the celery and the peas.  With a toasted bagel and cheese this soup is filling, the flavours taste fresh, sweet and almost spring like while you will feel good, clean and revitalised inside (probably due to eating straight veges, you'll be getting a good cup or two of them per serving).


Green Soup
2 onions
5 cloves garlic (I like garlic - use however much you like)
1/2 celery
1 kg pack of frozen peas
1 brocolli head
Big handful of spinach
1 l beef stock (this is what I had, another stock would be fine)
Herbs (I used bay leaves, a bit of rosemary, and a bit of italian mix I had in the fridge)

In a large pot with oil add onions, garlic and celery.  Can be chopped fairly roughly as it's going to get blended at the end.
Cook through till translucent.  Add broccoli, including the stalk, finely chopped.  Add stock and bring to a simmer.  Quickly add the peas and spinach.  Once it gets back to the boil remove from heat straight away (we don't want mush) and cool for a bit.
Blend in a processor till really smooth.

Return to pot and bring back to a simmer before enjoying a bowl with crispy toast as pictured or cheese on bagel.  Delightful.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Risotto - I made some



My lovely fiance William, best friend Jackie and I went out to Pakiri on sunday to help another friend Claire at a Child Cancer Foundation BBQ.  On the way back I was enticed by the many fruit and vege stalls on the roadside.  We stopped at one and I grabbed some squash, onions, courgette and some aborio rice (we were at the last one, closest to town, so there were a few fancy pants ingredients too).

At home I have a whole cook book about rice, and it has a section on risotto. I had a quick read of this and got the basic idea down.  Luckily we had some homemade chicken stock in the freezer so after defrosting it, it was time to start making dinner:

Caramelised squash and courgette risotto
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 sticks celery
1 small green capsicum
1/2 a small squash, cubed
2t golden syrup
1 courgette sliced maybe 1/2 cm think
1 litre of chicken stock - the best you can get. This is the flavour of the dish
1 c aborio rice
Some herbs - basil, thyme, sage, parsley


Get your stock to a simmer in a pot on the stove - you want it hot to add to the risotto as you stir.

Cube your squash and chop your courgette.  Steam the squash till al dente in a heavy pan.  Pour off the water and add some butter or oil to crisp it up, part the way through add the golden syrup.  Once this is done add courgette, turn the pan off with the lid on.


In another heavy pan heat some butter and oil and add your finely sliced onion, garlic, celery and capsicum.  Fry down till soft - don't brown.  Add your rice and cook for a couple of minutes, you want the rice to start turning translucent and be covered in your oniony, buttery mix.  Do not toast the rice.

Start adding your stock by the ladle full.  Stir till the liquid is gone, add another ladle, and keep stirring, wait till the stock is almost gone, and keep massaging the rice.  You want to get all that starch out so you get a delicious soft saucey risotto at the end.  The risotto should be simmering.  After about four - five ladles check the rice for doneness and start seasoning with salt and pepper.  

After awhile you should really see a thick sauce building up around the risotto.

When the rice is soft you're at your last ladle.  Add your squash mix, herbs and final stock. Once this stock is combined you're done.

At this stage you could add extra butter or parmesan cheese, but we didn't have any cheese, and I kinda felt that I didn't need the extra fat of the butter - the risotto was already wonderfully creamy.

I love.  Will be keeping aborio and stock on hand - as it's an excellent 'what's left in the fridge?' dinner idea.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Ice Cream again - and getting there

 My very first blog post was about making ice-cream. As part of my on-going quest to make my own food, preservative free - as natural as possible. And that way I can eat more of the naughty things - right?

So I tried two recipes - one the traditional custard way.  It turned out like a flavoured iceberg.  possibly due to a churning schedule I couldn't keep to.  The next recipe was basically a frozen chocolate ganache, recipe here. Very delicious, but not a real ice cream and thigh bulgingly full of fat. So I tasked myself to buying an ice cream machine. Off to trusty Trademe I went and after a good amount of researching and umming and ahhing bought myself a machine.

I've used it twice so far, the first recipe from the premium ice cream section of the recipe book that came with the machine.  This was a custard based version, with silver top milk and cream.  It was good, very rich and chocolatey.  I've just made my second lot, this time banana and chocolate - and can I say it is phenomenal.  Made using a lighter recipe, this one doesn't leave a layer of fat in the mouth and tastes so fresh with the fruit.

Chocolate and Banana ice cream
1.5 cups milk (I used trim)
1.25 cups cream
1 banana
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar (castor is best)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
pinch salt

Warm 1/2 cup of milk and add the sugar to dissolve a bit - don't make the milk too hot, or you will have to wait for it to cool before adding to the mixture.
In a food processor, blender, hand mixer or whatever, blast all the ingredients. Pour into a jug and chill.
Churn in your ice cream maker to the manufacturers directions. Mine always comes out super soft, so needs extra freezing after.

Now thats gotta be a health tonic in comparison to the store bought stuff.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I deleted a post and I take it back

I had a post here - it was about losing my favourite healthy cookie recipe.  It was banana, oat, date goodness. And it was lost.  I couldn't find it on the net again. But, I did find a similar one.

I made the recipe I'd found.  When they came out of the oven I thought they tasted gross, and quite frankly looked like little poos. So I put them on a plate in the kitchen, and promptly deleted my post.  

The following day I picked one up and tried it.  Delicious.

Dunno what happened, perhaps I was too close to the ingredients so I couldnt taste them properly.  Whatever it was, I take it back and here is the recipe again, adapted for my own tastes.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies  
1 egg
1 cup oats 
1 cup white whole wheat flour 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 
1/4 cup raisins and add nuts or anything you like to add texture
1/2 teaspoon vanilla 
3T golden syrup/honey
3T peanut butter
1 banana, mashed 
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice 

Preheat the oven to 180.   
In a bowl, mix the oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add the raisins.In another bowl combine golden syrup, vanilla, mashed banana, egg and lemon juice.
Pour into the dry mixture and stir well but don't overmix. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto a baking tray. Flatten each cookie slightly with a fork. Bake for 5-10 minutes - watch them, so they don't over cook.



They look like little poos - don't they!  I'm going to dip in chocolate next time.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Love pie

My boyfriend made us pie.  In the shape of a heart.  It was delicious, and is a taster of all the winter treats to come.

Jamie Oliver - Steak and Guinness pie
olive oil
3 medium red onions, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
30g butter, plus extra for greasing
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, trimmed and chopped
4 field mushrooms, peeled and sliced
1kg brisket of beef or stewing beef, cut into 2cm cubes
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 x 440ml can of Guinness (no lager, please!)
2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
200g freshly grated Cheddar cheese
500g best-quality ready-made all-butter puff pastry (we used the sheet kind)
1 large free-range or organic egg, beaten


Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. In a large ovenproof pan, heat a glug of olive oil on a low heat. Add the onions and fry gently for about 10 minutes – try not to colour them too much. Turn the heat up, add the garlic, butter, carrots and celery and scatter in the mushrooms. Mix everything together before stirring in the beef, rosemary, a pinch of salt and a level teaspoon of pepper.

Fry fast for 3 or 4 minutes, then pour in the Guinness, stir in the flour and add just enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan with a lid and place in the preheated oven for about 1½ hours. Remove the pan from the oven and give the stew a stir. Put it back into the oven and continue to cook it for another hour, or until the meat is very tender and the stew is rich, dark and thick. A perfect pie filling needs to be robust, so if it’s still quite liquidy, place the pan on the hob and reduce until the sauce thickens. Remove from the heat and stir in half the cheese, then season carefully and leave to cool slightly.


Do your thing with the pastry fill with mixture then brush the top with beaten egg. Bake the pie directly on the bottom of the oven (hmmm we cooked low but not right on the bottom, otherwise your pastry will be become super hard) for 45 minutes, until the pastry is cooked, puffed and golden. Delicious served simply with peas.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Bread

Branching out further into dough's after my food processor did such a good job of the pasta dough, I decided to make my very first bread.

I know. I'm excited again just typing this. I decided to make the smallest recipe I could find to start. because again I didn't want a huge doughy mess if it didn't work out and, as I'm making it in a food processor the machine can only do one batch at a time.

This recipe is adapted from the back of the Edmonds yeast packet, and makes one small loaf.

Bread
500gms Edmonds breadmix (I used high grade flour)
1 sachet 8g of dry yeast
1/2 t sugar
300ml water
Whizz it all up in a food processor - dry stuff in first then drizzle in the water.
Knead for 5mins, proof for an hour, knock back by punching the risen dough and proof again.
Bake at 200 for about 30mins or so.

This really was easy, and the bread tasted so different from the store bought stuff.

I don't eat a lot of bread really, and this beautiful natural stuff, free of preservatives doesn't last long.  I may try slicing and freezing it next time.



Monday, February 1, 2010

Pasta success

I won a pasta machine on trade me last night. Hurrah - quite a good brand at a good price.  That's what I love about trademe.

Anyway so we were back from Keri Keri after the long weekend, and I have a big bunch of basil left over from the Farmers market.

All this has got me to thinking what delicious dishes I could make with home made pasta!

Of course there is good ole pesto - which I think I'll make this afternoon, and this wee little tasty treat which I'd call- 

Pasta with Two Sauces.
  • Grab some fresh fettucine
  • Make some rocket and walnut pesto - a fairly thin mix as per The new Penguin Cook Book
  • Fry down a mixture of mushrooms, they will start getting a bit wet as their juices come out - but keep frying till this is also fairly dry, add some milk to the mix and some herbs like flat parsley and basil.
  • Mix the pasta through with the pesto and divide into bowls. Pour over the mushroom cream, and top with parmesan.

Sounds bloody delicious - and yet again lives only in my head...


Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Food musings

I like thinking about food. Sometimes ideas just pop into my head and sometimes I have to think harder about a certain ingredient or half a dish I have going on in my head and try and find the match for it.

While I was ohmmmming at the meditation course I had a while to think about food - and definitely got a few good bursts of inspiration there.  

Dinner tonight was parmesan scrambled eggs and baked beans from a can.  It got me thinking about making my own baked beans - which is certainly not a new idea.  Suddenly I visualised the finished meal in my head:  
Chickpeas (cannellini beans? kidney beans?  cannellini and broad beans? - maybe any bean) cooked with tomatoes and herbs (thyme, parsley,basil, lemon juice) with a poached egg and parmesan cream sauce.  Sounds divine. May have to cook it this weekend.

The dishes I created in thought form only while away over New Years are:
  • Tuna Ravioli with a pea sauce
  • Smashed potato, haloumi and quinoa stack, with green beans on the side and a tomatoey sauce.
  • Won ton soup -nothing new here, just would lie to make one. However it will need to be vege now.
  • Mango chicken - probably also a no-go now, but still keen on the coconut rice and salad with walnuts and lime dressing
Ohmmmmm tasty  ;)

Monday, January 25, 2010

Corn

Just had my first fresh corn cob for the summer.  Will be a staple lunch item I think.

Fresh corn
Chop of the stem end and steam in skin for 5 mins. Leave in the skin till you can touch it, then pull off the green outsides and threads. Roll in some lemon juice and salt you've put on a plate. Delicious - and butterless.  

God I love wee healthy gems like this.  Mother earth at its finest.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Breakfast


One of my favourite meals of the day - especially weekend brunch.  I've had this 'woddles' waffle maker for ages, the waffles come out like little penguins, and hadn't made any yet.
So the other evening I remembered all about it - and that I had some left over cream in the fridge plus some strawberries that would go deliciously.  So I went off to happy dream land with waffles on my mind.

Next morning a delicious breakfast story unfolded in the shape of Oatmeal Waffles

Oatmeal Waffles
1c flour
3t baking powder
4T melted butter
1c rolled oats
1t salt
1c milk
1 egg beaten
1 T sugar
1/2 c raisins -optional I didn't use these, but would have been a rad inclusion

Sift flour, sugar, bp into a bowl.  Add rolled oats, and raisins if using.  Add the egg, melted butter and egg. Mix together lightly - don't over mix.  
Drop into your waffle iron.  Top with whatever you like - my boy likes golden syrup.

Simply magnificent - will make again.
xx

Avocados


mmm delicious.  Avocados are one of my favourite foods, and right now is avocado season.  Since I've also been rocking the vegetarian tip I've enjoyed this warm salad style dish a few times over the weeks - featuring a soft poached egg to sauce it up.

Grab and avocado and slice it up. I cut mine in half as you do - slice length ways while still in the skin then grab a spoon and scoop out.  Clean and prepare a handful of asparagus, a couple of button mushrooms and some thinly sliced onion.

Get a fry pan hot with some grape-seed oil (well thats what Im using at the moment) and start a small saucepan with water boiling.  Get your onions frying, just soften them up and get them shiny.  Add the mushrooms and fry those down a bit - I'm using a fairly med/low heat now, I don't want the veges to be steaming hot, just cooked.  Then chuck in the asparagus and give that a quick warm through.  At the same time poach your egg in the saucepan - don't forget to add a splash of vinegar to the water. The key with all the ingredients is to keep the freshness, you don't want anything overcooked.

Take the pan off the heat and squeeze over a lemon, plus salt and pepper the vegetable mix.
Plate up some of the avocado, add some of the pan mix, layer up some more avo - you get the idea.  Pour over any juice left in the pan, add a bit more oil if there isn't much there.  Gently place your soft poached egg over the top and enjoy!  

You can also add some toasted walnuts and some parmesan if you wanna be a bit flash here too.


Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Scary bbq

You would think 10 days of meditation would be easy. Lolling about thinking happy thoughts and seeing if you can touch your inner self.  Not quite.  10 days of extreme training more like.  Up at 4am with solid meditation all day practically till 9 at night.  Tiring and far too intense for me.  

What did I learn? - well I did meditate for the first time, which is quite an awesome feeling, but one I'd rather do when I am ready and willing to do it.  And...... I have decided to become a vegetarian. All the food there was vegetarian, and delicious.  What? you might think - meat too is delicious, which it is (although I have almost forgotten...) but one of the rules you abide by while you are on the course, and to take away with you into everyday life is - you shouldn't kill anything.  So whilst on the course you must let those freaky spiders and pesky ants roam free, and eat good vegetarian fare.  I guess it struck me the final day, that no, I did not want to kill any other creature who happens to be going about its life on the planet with us.  It too deserves to get on with living much as we try and do.  

And thats the way I see it.  So far I have been eating delicious straight forward food - no freaky ingredients insight.  And Ill see how I go.  Although I am almost fearful of my next bbq....

Xmas

As Xmas and New Years happened I didn't have much time to play on the blog.
So time to catch up things.

Xmas was great - I shouted myself two older versions of Jamie Oliver cook books - which between them have got some great basics like dressings and stocks, bread making and so on.  Once you have these basics you are set really to experiment and get your own creations happening.

For Xmas food we had our usual sea food bbq, with King Fish steaks this year.  Seared quickly on the barbie they were nom nom.  Also did our crostini on the bbq, which was really efficient and I would recommend you do it like this when ever possible.  On this we had pesto, walnuts and feta - which was quite simply amazing.  Then dessert, being the utter sweet tooth that I am I have always been the dessert maker in the house.  From 12 when I used to make the family fruit cake, a good month or two in advance so it could marinate and age in alcohol, to the moist everyday cakes I would make later on.  Anyway this year I decided to make pavlova, although this absolutely makes my thighs quiver at the thought of all that sugar and cream - I have decided it cant be all that bad for you.  I used the Edmond's cook book recipe and didn't take any photos - what a retard - because it was absolutely magnificent:

Edmond's cook book Pav

4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups of caster sugar
1 t white vinegar
1 t vanilla essence
1 T cornflour (tip here is to add one more teaspoon full for more marshmallow inside chewy outside action)
1/4 t cream of tar tar (my addition as most other recipes have this)

Beat egg whites till stiff.  gradually add the sugar, the mix will become all thick and glossy at this stage -mmm.  Add the other bits and pieces making sure not to over mix.  Draw a 22 cm circle on some baking paper and pile on the mixture.  Place in an oven at 150c and bake for 45 mins.  Then turn the oven off and let the pav cool in there.  Cover in cream and summer fruits.

Was sooo good, even though I did get side tracked and let it cook for 20mins more than suggested!

Ice cream part 2

Well after I returned from meditation, with more than a little trepidation, I got ready to make custard ice cream.  
Sometimes I get nervous before I cook something that seems hard.  I have never made an egg custard before, so this was what was making me feel a bit edgy.
I used the recipe for vanilla ice cream from 'The new penguin cookery book' by Jill Norman.  And adapted it to be vanilla, almond and raspberry flavour.  Delicious flavours.  However as I started making the ice cream a bit late in the day, and our freezer freezes things slowly it was bedtime before it really even got to the first churn stage.  Therefore, although I studiously mixed as often as I could before bed the ice cream did form ice crystals.  Was a bit of a failure really. But I will try it again, and if all else fails - the most delicious cream version that I first made will definitely get the thumbs up from all that taste it.

Right at this moment I have the most delicious blueberry sorbet from Omaha blueberries to console me. If you haven't tried I suggest you do so.