flailing in my kitchen v3.1
How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
Before I had even moved into my new apartment, one of my friends gifted me an ice cream maker as a housewarming present. I'll admit that when I saw it, my first reaction was momentary panic because I had not planned for an ice cream maker to sit in my new (not-so-spacious) kitchen. But after my dad built me some shelves, I was able to find a spot for it to live.
It's a very thoughtful gift! Ga lemice cream is my favorite dessert, and I eat it three times a day.
...okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but I do eat ice cream pretty much every day. I don't think I eat that much of it, but it's nice to have as my breakfast, lunch, and dinner dessert.
I figured I should start with the most basic ice cream recipe, the "Simple Vanilla Ice Cream" that was listed in the manual. It was pretty easy to make and only had four ingredients: milk, heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla. I let it churn for about 25 minutes, and it thickened a bit and it was kinda cool!
So this Cuisinart ice cream maker claims to be able to make ice cream ✨ in under 30 minutes ✨ Except that's a LIE. First, you need to make sure the ice cream bowl has been sitting in the freezer for 24 hours. And even if you discount that time, you still need to freeze it for several hours after it's done churning in order for it to have a good ice cream consistency.
But that's okay. I'm living life slowly these days so I can wait a whole day for some ice cream. So after it was done churning, I tried a little spoonful and I put it in the freezer until the next morning. It tasted like vanilla ice cream! I didn't love the texture, but I thought it was a success.
You know what makes it even better, though? Oreos. I LOVE oreos in my ice cream. I bought a small pack of them and I crushed one up and mixed it in (just like Cold Stone!). I should crush up an oreo every time I scoop myself a bowl of ice cream.
So I decided that I would try making cookies 'n cream next. And it's basically the same as making vanilla, I just add crushed oreos to the churner for the last five minutes of it. I only used four oreos (because I had an individually wrapped snack pack), and I think it could have used one more. Recipes online will typically tell you to use a knife to chop the oreo into chunks, but I prefer to just put it in a plastic bag and smash it with something heavy enough.
I lied in this video! I actually only let it churn for twenty minutes! I don't think it really made a difference in the texture of the ice cream though. I enjoyed it, but I'll definitely want to switch up the recipe next time. I really want to try and create a creamier texture, and I think I want to try incorporating some egg yolk next!
Life is pretty good right now.
Work has been relaxing, but productive. Summer is approaching and I'm not getting anxious about it. I'm still cooking, but I'm doing it for fun--planning out one dish at a time, going to the grocery store four times a week, buying just the amount that I need, and not worrying about how much money I'm spending.
I planned to write a post like three weeks ago, but I bought a new laptop, and I had to put that together, and then I had to figure out how to move over all the code for this blog onto the new laptop.
But I did it! And now I have some food photos to share (:
I was at Aldi and I saw that their ground pork had $1 OFF stickers on them, and I learned that seafood and ice cream are not the only things I impulsively buy. It was one pound, so I used a tiny amount of it for some stir fry and saved the rest for dumplings.
It had been a while since I made dumplings, so I wanted to put my not-yet-published dumpling recipe to the test. I decided to buy thicker wrappers this time so I could try using the leftovers for scallion pancakes. I think I prefer the thinner ones though. And it turns out I pretty much used exactly one pack of dumpling wrappers for this, so I really could have just bought one pack of thin wrappers and one pack of thick wrappers.
...but I'll get back to the wrappers later. I think I spent about two hours prepping and wrapping and cooking, and probably another hour eating and cleaning. Yup. That was a Tuesday night. You may think that three hours spent on dinner is way too much time, but it was relaxing and it was delicious.
A few days later, I made the scallion pancakes at my friend's house. My original plan was to make them with her, but she was busy with work, so I did basically everything except make the dumpling sauce. Not quite as time consuming as dumplings, but still pretty time consuming. I really enjoyed it though. There is something so nice about working with your hands and being in motion and not having to think or stare at screens. And then I have something I can eat as a result!
The thicker dumpling wrappers were definitely a good choice for these. I thought they were delicious, and my friend thought they tasted pretty good too. I'll have to make these more often.
If I had the time and energy, I think I'd spend three hours cooking every day.
