Happy Thursday, everyone. I’ve got a new recipe coming at you tomorrow, just in time for your weekend breakfast baking endeavors. In the meantime, here are this week’s links!
Heyo, Thursday. Have some links, would ya?
Hello, September? Is that you? Yeah, you can come over — just bring a bit of sweater weather and some of your ripest tomatoes, mkay?
Here, some links for this Thursday:
Have you made your own ice cream yet this summer? Fall is starting to creep up on us — darker evenings, more back to school sales, fewer sweat-through-your-shirt days — but there’s still time!
We’ll embrace knitwear/closed-toe booties and hot coffee soon enough, but now’s the time to savor a few things (not necessarily in this order):
Let’s talk about number five.
My friend Sarah introduced me to this particular mint ice cream — I was visiting her newly built cabin up on Lopez Island, and I had just put Calder down to sleep. I sat on the couch and she handed me a bowl of homemade mint chip ice cream. It was cold and perfectly creamy, studded with chopped Andes mints (how underrated are Andes mints, btw?!), and between the new-cabin-wood-smell, the salty island air and the fact that my child was sleeping soundly a few rooms away, it was, quite possibly, one of my favorite ice cream experiences to date.
You can have it too! It turns out that this treat is on the simpler side to make. It uses mint extract instead of fresh mint leaves (I know, I was skeptical too), eggs, and healthy amounts of half-and-half and heavy cream (among other things – see below). It makes a lot of ice cream, and a bowl piled high with the cool and creamy, chocolate chunk-laden stuff is a true delight, even without the smell of fresh wood or ocean air (or the relief that comes with the knowledge that your kid is finally – finally! – asleep).
It’s still summer! More ice cream, please.
Creamy Mint Chip Ice Cream…
Well, here we are, feet firmly planted into August. How has your summer been so far?
Besides a general theme of uncomfortable, sticky heat (yes, summer, hello, hi), mine has been filled with good things: popsicles, peaches, chubby toddler toes in public wading pools, ferry boats, merry-go-round rides at the zoo, cold wine, flowy shirts, bags of fresh cherries, Moana dance parties, grilled salmon, and a handful of rocky beaches. The usual, you know.
And we’ve only had two instances of toddler food poisoning, and just one semi-bad allergic reaction. Not too shabby!
OH, also, here’s a fun question: anyone know what happens when you accidentally run a (used, yes, ugh) non-cloth diaper through the washing machine?
I DO.
I don’t really want to talk about it – there is weird chemical gel involved – but let’s just leave it at GROSS, cool?
Let’s get back to the popsicles and the wine and the cherries, okay? Maybe in a bright, tangy baby kale salad with pops of sweet fruit and salty pistachios? There’s still plenty of summer left to grab.
Baby Kale Salad with Cherries & Pistachios…
More weeks, come and gone. Time for some LINKS, please!
Happy Thursday to you! What’s that you say? Our government are total assholes? YOU ARE CORRECT! Still, some links to brighten your day:
Ever since I first laid eyes on the absolute delight that is the Great British Baking Show (or Bakeoff, depending on where you live), I’ve been jonesing for some Victoria Sponge.
I’ve also been in a generally better mood, because as anyone who has watched this show can tell you, it’s the loveliest of lovely things to watch and, somehow, can make you forget (if only for an hour-long episode) that things like this are the truths we live with now.
Plus, there’s cake! Or sponge, if we’re being British about it. As far as I can tell, a Victoria Sponge (I really want to call it a “Victoria Sponge Cake” but isn’t that like saying “Victoria Cake Cake?” Help me, Brits!) is basically just two light and buttery pound-ish cakes, sandwiched with a thin layer of jam and a thick (beautiful, billowy) layer of lightly sweetened whipped cream.
SWOON.
I’d put it firmly in the category of snack cake, which as we all know is the best kind of cake — the kind you can just snack on all day long and it somehow feels appropriate. Not overly adorned. Lightly sweet. Snacky. You know?
Anyway, when I went to create my own version, I ran quickly towards Nigella Lawson, Domestic Goddess that she is, and she didn’t steer me wrong. (Also, Mary Berry’s version — and most versions, actually — calls for castor sugar, which is the Brit way of saying superfine sugar, which I didn’t have on hand. I eventually picked some up, though, because the cake — the sponge, I should say — really benefits from a final dusting of the stuff before serving). The final verdict on this thing is: SCRUMMY. Let’s eat cake.
…
Thursdays come and go so quickly this time of year. How about some links, hm?
