**REMINDER: BOOK GIVEAWAY ENDS TONIGHT AT 11:59PM PST! :]]**
HOORAY! I JUST FOUND MY NEW FAVORITE WAY TO USE UP EGG WHITES!
…and I had a lot of them. I should’ve taken a picture of the three cups of egg whites brimming over in my Pyrex. Kinda gross. Why so many egg whites? Because ice cream, my friend. Lots and lots of ice cream. Specifically, lots of “frozen custard,” which is just a fancy way of describing a method of making ice cream with egg yolks.
When I went to visit my third graders a few weeks ago, they kept asking me to sign their yearbooks. I usually try to write more personalized messages for my students, but it had been over half a year since I last taught them, so it was hard to come up with something meaningful. Which is why I fell back to good ‘ol middle school-lazy H.A.G.S: have a great summer!
One of the great things about teaching kids is that you get to be the first to introduce them to a lot of things, like the solar system and fractions and onomatopœias and… silly yearbook acronyms.
At first, they read it slowly, confused with my short message:
“…Hags…?“
“Yep! It stands for Have A Great Summer: HAGS!” I explain, pointing to each letter as I huff my H, Tony-the-Tiger my Gr-, and ssssnake my S.
“Oh… HAGS! HAHAHHAHA!! I GET IT! HAGS! Look, Diana, HAGS! Have. A. Great. Summer!” the child would cry out in delight, showing anyone in a five foot radius, “LOOK! Mark! Look! HAGS! HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!”
Again and again and again.
They crack me up. Aw I miss those little buggers!
Well, I DO hope that everyone Has A Great Summer! Summer officially began this past weekend on June 21, although in my head, summer starts at the end of May… or at least by the time school gets out.
Or maybe in my head, summer is in February, because apparently that’s when I started posting summery recipes like ice creams and berry tarts. Anyway I figure most people who come by this blog have not made it that far back in my post history, so I’m taking the liberty of re-sharing four of my favorite summertime recipes with you!
I know I always say this. But it’s true: this is hubby’s fav.
I’ve made so many ice creams– green tea, earl grey, strawberry sour cream, dark chocolate, mocha, salted caramel, coffee, vanilla bean, vanilla bean with roasted berries and streusel (brilliant, Lauren!), vietnamese coffee, honey lavender, blueberry creme fraiche, and… the list goes on. Sometimes, I will spend a whole evening creating a mess in the kitchen and proudly present my creamy creation to my husband: “TRY THIS.”
He obliges.
The house will smell of burnt sugar (when I missed the three millisecond window of perfection on my first batch of caramel for salted caramel ice cream) and the sink will be overflowing with more dishes than two pints should account for, and I will eagerly await his reaction… (DOYOULOVEIT?!?)
Hubby: Mm… it’s not bad.
Me: …
Hubby: I like your mint chip better.
Me: (Deflated.)
But only for a moment, as I consider how this is probably a good thing.
Do I really want my husband to love the ice cream that takes 20 dishes and 2 hours to make, or the one that takes one bowl and three minutes to stir together?
One of the highlights of attending UC Berkeley was the easy access to inexpensive good eats. One such place was Raleighs, on Telegraph. The first time I ate there, a friend ordered a huge hunk of mud pie. While it looked tantalizing (ice cream and Oreos– what’s not to like?), my first thought was, I could make that for a fraction of the cost! So… I did. The next day, I pieced together four simple ingredients and wowed my friends. It was just as easy as I had hoped, and it was one of the first recipes I created and shared (on Xanga, if you’re old enough to know what that is!). A crowd-pleaser with just four ingredients and a practically no-fail guarantee– what more could you ask for?
This photo will have to do for now 🙂
(I keep forgetting to snap one of the ice cream!)
My good friend David (I wish) has a lovely ice cream book
Ben and I recently went to an event at Smitten Ice Cream, the trendy liquid nitrogen ice cream spot that just opened up in Los Altos, and got to sample several scoops of ice cream, including generous portions of their Earl Grey with Milk Chocolate. Long story short, Ben likes my (er, David’s) Earl Grey with Dark Chocolate Truffles better than theirs. Done.
My favorite kind of truffle is simply a chilled ganache dipped in chocolate, so naturally I would enjoy a version of this as a chunky mix-in for ice cream! David Lebovitz has this great recipe that includes some alcohol and corn syrup, which helps keep them soft and pliable for scooping in ice cream. I like to drop these into his Earl Grey Tea ice cream, and imagine they would be good paired with other ice cream flavors such as coffee, vanilla bean, or anything else that goes well with chocolate!
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