Friday... time to make ice cream

A tea cup is perfect for serving ice cream and now I have the
perfect  excuse to buy more beautiful little tea cups.

So we started a very sweet tradition here, making ice cream to welcome the weekend. 

Of course, I know that lots of the ice cream at the supermarket is absolutely fine for a gluten free diet, but I stumbled across the most simple and delicious ice cream recipe on Pinterest.  I'm not linking to one particular version here because there are so many of them.  Instead, I'm sharing my version of it. 

It starts with just two ingredients, a 300ml pot of double cream (not the extra thick stuff, just regular double cream) and a standard 397g tin of condensed milk.  Don't stress if the ones you buy are a slightly different weight/volume.  This isn't one of those precise recipes.  This is a what-have-I-got-in-the-cupboard kind of a recipe.

Whisk the double cream to soft peaks.  Mix the condensed milk with your other liquid ingredients and then mix that gently into the double cream.  Add your other ingredients and mix gently.

Resist the urge to eat more than a little scrape of the bowl and spoon it all into a plastic tub.  Freeze for at least 6 hours.  You can churn it if you like and you have the equipment, but it doesn't add anything except perhaps to speed up the freezing.

Now for the best bit, adding flavour.  So far, we have made peanut butter ice cream, Nutella ice cream, lemon meringue ice cream and mint choc chip ice cream.

For peanut butter ice cream:
Add about a cup of peanut butter and a tablespoon of golden syrup to the condensed milk.  Add a couple of chopped up Snickers bars (chop them quite small) and some chocolate chips at the end.  We added in Cadbury Caramel Buttons too and it was beyond delicious.

For Nutella ice cream:
Just mix about a cup of Nutella with the condensed milk.  That's it.  If dietary restrictions allow, I imagine this would be incredible with smashed up Ferrero Rocher in it.  We can't have them but I like to think of someone out there scoffing it on my behalf.

For lemon meringue ice cream:
Add about half a jar of lemon curd (I used Sainsbury's Taste the Difference) to the condensed milk.  Add smashed up meringue (I used 4 regular nests from the supermarket) at the end.  Put a third into your tub, swirl over some more lemon curd, repeating twice more with the remaining ice cream.  Sprinkle over another smashed meringue.

Lemon meringue ice cream, ready for the freezer.

For mint choc chip ice cream:
Add 1 tablespoon of peppermint essence to the condensed milk.  If you like it green, add a few drops of green colouring as well.  Add a couple of crumbled Flakes and about half a box of finely chopped mint Matchmakers at the end.

And please, don't be limited to the flavours we've had time to try.  If salted caramel hits the spot for you, stir some in.  If you crave chocolate ice cream, melt some milk or dark chocolate as preferred and stir in the condensed milk.  And don't forget cookie dough, vanilla choc chip, honeycomb... so many flavours to try.  Up next for us is raspberry ripple and Bounty bar coconut and chocolate.  Yum.

My grandma was a WAG

I've been looking through some old stuff that I wrote and I found this post on an old blog that I wrote briefly when I was working as a freelance audio typist and virtual assistant.

My company name, Vera and Bess, is the name of two nans, both very creative and skilled at many crafts.  They were both amazing too, loving, funny, strong, clever, kind.  I miss them both.

This is what I wrote:

Yesterday was my nan’s funeral.  She was a week shy of her 94th birthday and she died quietly, in her sleep.  It doesn’t stop those of us who loved her from feeling bereft, from mourning the loss of the woman who’s been in every day of our lives.

As is traditional, during the ceremony at the crematorium, we heard about her life, about the woman she was.  And as I listened, I realised two things: that I only knew her as my nan, that our relationship was that of a child to a grandparent; and that we had more in common than I ever imagined.  I knew that my nan could sew and knit and made beautiful patchwork cushions, that I had inherited her cake baking skills (although I will never, ever be as amazing with a whisk as she was).  I didn’t know that she adored Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, as do I, one of many little details of her life that were shared with us.  I didn’t know that she was scared of thunderstorms, that she loved motorbike racing, that she was once a WAG.

My nan was my nan.  And sadly, looking back now, I can see that I never got to know her as an adult, I only knew her as my nan.  I was always a child in our relationship, despite being 43 now and a mum of three myself.  I never made the leap from you’re my nan, I know who you are, to who is Bessie, the woman who is my nan.  I so wish I had.  I think we would have been good friends.

Why am I telling you this?  Because it might not be too late for you to look at your nan, or your grandad, or your aunt, or your dad, and say who are you?  It’s not to late to get to know your family as people, individuals.  You’ll be surprised, delighted, intrigued.  And your lives and relationships will be enriched, I promise you.

As for me, I’m going to dig out my Ella Fitzgerald CD and remember the amazing woman that was my nan.

Craft (in)sanity

There's been a lot in the news this last week about knitting (and other crafty endeavours) being good for your health, but I think the craft community already knew that, didn't we?

I make stuff for a couple of reasons, although they're kind of the opposite sides of the same coin so you might call it one reason, or not.  I make stuff because if I don't make stuff - if I'm forced to focus on non creative, non making for too long -  I go a little bit crazy.  And I make stuff because that creativity, that all consuming focus on yarn or fabric, takes me away from the stress and craziness in my life and stops me losing the plot all together.

To really calm me down, whatever I'm working on needs to be challenging enough to completely absorb me.  The granny stripe blanket for my son that I work on in the evening whilst hubby and I watch Lucifer, although relaxing and useful for keeping warm on a chilly night, doesn't quite hit the spot.

The backpack I made myself at the weekend, with no pattern, no instructions and just a vague idea that I wanted lots of pockets, that's the kind of making I'm talking about.  Working out the order in which each piece of fabric needed to be attached to the next piece of fabric, which pocket would go where, when to insert the zip, how the straps would work...  for me, that required complete focus.  I was astonished when I lifted my head from the sewing machine for the last time to realise that five hours had passed.  I was very hungry; I forgot about lunch because it wasn't a pocket and therefore didn't need my attention.  I was also much more relaxed than I had been at the start of the day and I had regained much needed perspective on all sorts of things, but especially the things that I was tying myself in knots about unnecessarily.

Designing is the same.  Focusing on each individual stitch, row, round and element of a design takes all of my conscious thought.

For those times (and they are many) that I sit in waiting rooms at hospitals and clinics, keeping my hands busy with a simple, repetitive piece of crochet can be a godsend.

And remember, when challenged on the size of your stash or the amount of money spent on yarn, the appropriate reply is "It's yarn or madness and I choose yarn."