Welcome back!

Welcome back the Falders to the blogosphere. Approximately a year ago Tricia was keeping a very interesting and regular blog. Then due to personal reasons (That's the reason celebrities give for quitting something. I think she just got to busy.) she quit posting and shut down the blog. This morning I received an e-mail that said they are BACK IN BUSINESS! The Falders have now gotten top billing on my friends list (on the right) and on my Netvibes page (my RSS reader). Check out their blog here.

Mocha Chip

This weeks ice cream is Mocha Chip. A few things went wrong with this one, but it still turned out pretty good. First the recipe called for a coffee concentrate that you make with a coffee toddy. I didn't have a coffee toddy so I just made a batch of REALLY strong espresso roast coffee. I added that to a basic sweet cream base. I wanted a little bit richer taste, so I melted some semisweet chocolate chips (about 1/2 cup) and added that tot he mix. Into the the machine it went.

Towards the end I thought I would add some chocolate chips. I wanted them to be smaller though, so I chopped them up in the blender. I made smaller chunks than what I really wanted. After the allotted 30 minutes in the machine what I really had was an ice cream soup. The ice cream is never "ready to eat" right out of the machine. It always needs a couple more hours in the freezer to firm up like I like it. But this was soupy. I consulted my Ben & Jerry's book and they said that whenever you add a liquid (like coffee) to the sweet cream base, it is going to affect your consistency and freezing time. I had a small cup (above) at lunch today and it is pretty good. It takes like a very rich chocolate with chips. With all the extra chocolate I added, I lost some of the coffee flavor. Amanda suggested that I leave out the extra chocolate next time. I think she's right.

Higher Call Quartet

I have been listening this morning to the CD from the quartet that Amanda's mom Shirley plays with. The name of the group is Higher Call. We went to the Minnesota State Fair to hear them sing last year and really enjoyed it. Shirley really enjoys playing for the group. You can check out more about Higher Call at their website. Also, watch the video below. Unfortunately this was before Shirley began playing with them.

Blueberries and Cream Ice Cream

Welcome to my first blog post exploring my exploits in homemade ice cream. I am hoping to make this a recurring part of the blog. First, a little background. I received my ice cream maker, the Cuisinart Automatic Frozen Yogurt/Ice Cream/Sorbet Maker for Christmas from my mom. I have made many different ice creams so far. My favorite is Chocolate & Peanut Butter, but I have enjoyed them all. Also for Christmas I got the book Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book from Brad and Sarah. This was an essential piece in the great ice cream puzzle. The ice cream maker came with a small recipe book, but it left out what I found to be an essential ingredient: eggs. Ben & Jerry's recommends a least one or two eggs in each batch. The eggs seemed to really affect the consistency of the final product. I hope you enjoy this ongoing subject.

This past week we got a huge box of blueberries from Costco. I thought ice cream would be a good way to use some. I used approximately two cups of blue berries in my blueberries and cream ice cream. In my Cuisinart recipe book there is a recipe for strawberry ice cream that say to combine 1/3 cup of sugar, some lemon juice and berries and let stand for two hours. I only let the berries and sugar mixture stand for a little more than a half hour. This gave me more of a blue berries and cream taste than a blue berry flavored ice cream. It was very good though and I am finishing of the remainder of it this week.

Last night I made some "mocha chip" ice cream that I will write about next.

Boys+Gigi+Alpena=GOOD TIMES!

My mom spent this past week at our house. We had a good week of spending time together. She came over to see us and to pick up the boys.

This morning we sent Ben and Caleb off to Gigi's house for five days. This will be the longest time that the boys have been away. I am praying for them and for my mom. I think they will have a ton of fun. They plan to go ride go-carts, play on the beach, play in the woods, watch TV, eat junk food and play on the beach some more. I was home at lunch and Matthew already misses his brothers. Amanda and I are sure going to enjoy having him and Molly all to ourselves though this week. If you like the picture above, see more of the three boys here.

Dutch Oven

Carrie Gammons' sister Elizabeth recently started a new food blog. I found it today when I was rolling through my blog list. The title is "Dutch Oven". Her motto is "Welcome to my adventures in cooking. I'm no professional, I just wanted a place to organize my thoughts and recipes, and share with others who may be interested. Enjoy!"

Scrolling through the recipes and pictures, my mouth began to water and my stomach gurgled. It is always great to see someone who is interested in putting together a family meal. Dinner time at our house is one of the most important and meaningful times of my day, thanks in no small part to the work that Amanda puts into it. Elizabeth's husband Bill is a lucky man! If you're looking for some good recipes that look like they are pretty easy to pull together, check out Elizabeth's new blog.

Weekend highlights

Here are a few highlights from the past weekend. You can find all of the photos here.