paint cut paste

is your mouth watering already? on a spring trip to harley farms in pescadero, ca, i tried the tastiest goat cheese i’ve ever had in my life – lavender honey goat cheese. this got me thinking that i should look into making some lavender honey ice cream in my ice cream maker at home. so we did.

we grow organic lavender in our backyard… the same lavender we have been using for lavender wands. it’s not technically culinary lavender (which i think you can get in a box at wholefoods?) but i figured it’s good enough. we grew it, we do not spray our yard, it’s organic. novi helped me to harvest the lavender as it is beginning to dry out, while we dodged the bees the entire time.

we hung a bit to dry in our kitchen for several days while i researched recipes. i found one on epicurious.com that seems to be quite universal, as it is repeated on so many other web sites exactly the same way. so we tried it out. here tiz:

ingredients:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 2 tablespoons dried edible lavender flowers
• 1/2 cup light honey
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

method:
cook the half-and-half and cream on medium heat until warm, do not let it come to a boil. turn off the heat, add the lavender to the pot, cover and let steep for half an hour.

after flowers have steeped, strain the liquid and discard the flowers. add to the liquid the honey and heat on medium low until honey has dissolved. again, do not let liquid come to a boil!

beat the egg yolks with the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt. stir into the eggs 1/2 cup of the warm liquid and then add the entire egg mixture back to the pot.

heat this on medium low for five minutes or until it gets slightly thick. you’ll know it’s ready when it coats the back of your spoon. (honestly, mine got a little curdy and didn’t stick to the spoon even after a long time heating, but i proceeded anyway.) cool in the refrigerator for four hours. freeze and churn according to your ice-cream maker’s instructions.

this makes a quart of ice cream… though i thought it tasted more like a custard than an ice cream. some people find the lavender taste to be kind of soap-like or incense-esque. admittedly, it is quite strong, but i enjoyed the super-rich treat! to be fancy, you can serve it with a drizzle of warm honey and a sprig of lavender. yum!

someone loved it... down to the last drop!

one of our favorite summertime rituals is making homemade popsicles.

july 2008: i'll never forget novi's first popsicle - totally messy homemade with fresh-picked blueberries

this week we made our first of the season – kid-friendly piña colada style! i saw the recipe on babble.com’s family kitchen and they had me at “coconut milk.” i also loved that no cooking was involved in these whatsoever (while some fruity popsicles require cooking the fruit and sugar to make syrup first.) so i gathered up some ingredients – all organic, of course.

you’ll need:

• 1/2 fresh pineapple
• 6 tablespoons 100% white grape juice concentrate (i used regular white grape juice & it was fine)
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup plain yogurt

then i threw it all into a blender and pureed.

poured it into one of our many popsicle mold sets… (or you could use ice cube trays and toothpicks or paper cups and popsicle sticks.)

we let them freeze for 6 hours (or overnight) and then we totally enjoyed them on an afternoon playdate.

mommy and daddy even got to have a summery little treat by adding malibu rum to the leftover blended popsicle liquid…mmmmm!

here’s to summer, and many more homemade popsicles to come – check out this link for over 50 of them!

we are anxiously awaiting WARM WEATHER over here in the sf bay area, and all of the fun things it entails… but i just could not wait any longer to make fresh squeezed lemonade with my little lady. i must forewarn you that this is a photo-heavy entry… lemons just provide so much eye-candy (and other senses, too!)

it was super-easy and fun to do! here’s whatcha need:

• 2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice (we did this with 12 lemons)
• whatever tools you wanna use to squeeze lemons dry
• 1.5 cups raw sugar  (we used organic raw turbinado sugar, so ours looked more like tea)
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 gallon cold water
• one sliced lemon & fresh springs of mint leaves for garnish

let your little one take sticker off of and wash each lemon.

have fun squeezing all of the lemons to get the juice out any way you can!

enjoy all of the sensory experiences that come along with lemons!

smell

taste

and pretending to pick lemons from a tree

in a 1 gallon container or pitcher, place the sugar and hot water and stir until sugar dissolves. add the fresh lemon juice and cold water to fill the remainder of the container or pitcher.

we cut some peppermint sprigs for garnish. (note the cute plant tag!)

chill the lemonade and serve over ice (uh, but we don’t make ice in our house, so we just had to chill it longer.)

nope, it's not tea. that's the color of the raw sugar.

i had a hard time parting with the lemon rinds, so i put them in some water with cinnamon sticks and cloves and simmered it on the stove to make the house smell awesome for the day.

then novi was inspired to make lemonade art…

i think we’re all set for a lemonade stand… if the weather would ever get outta the 60s and the sun would come out around here… come on memorial day weekend, bring it!

i was at the dentist office last week, and i was naughty and ripped a page out of their kiwi magazine on cooking with kids: making homemade pizza, april/may 2010 issue. (the iphone pic of the page wasn’t gonna cut it with the small text.) as evidenced by novi’s pure joy when we made homemade pretzels recently, i knew she’d be into anything involving creating dough and then eating it. so we embarked on the art of a pizza adventure!

here’s whatcha need: (i love to visit the bulk bins at wholefoods for the flours)

for dough:

• 1.5 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water
• pinch of sugar
• 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil (plus more for brushing)

for the toppings: (this is their recipe, but we altered it because i’m not a ricotta fan)

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp coarse cornmeal
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms (as local and wild as possible)
• 2 cups sliced asparagus (we didn’t do this part)
• 1 clove of garlic (i used 6 – we’re garlic people)
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese (i used a bunch of shredded mozzarella and also some sliced fresh mozzarella instead)
• i topped ours with parm, too

then here’s whatcha do… (words almost verbatim from kiwi magazine – i couldn’t find it online so i retyped it for you all. whew! hopefully this karmically makes up for the fact that i tore the page out of my dentist office’s magazine.)

parent & child: in a small bowl, ask your child to combine yeast, 1/4 cup warm water, and the sugar. set aside for 5-10 minutes.

parent: in a food processor, pulse to combine the flours and salt. add yeast mixure, remaining water, and olive oil, then pulse until shaggy dough forms

parent & child: knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minuts, until smooth and elastic. we had so much fun doing this together. during it, novi said, “we’re cooking together! now i can find out what it’ll be like when i’m a mommy!”

(thanks for the cute spring apron, aunt kim!)

child: lightly brush the bottom and sides of a large metal bowl with olive oil. place dough inside, cover with dish towel, and set is aside in a warm place for one hour, while it doubles in size

parent: preheat oven to 500 degrees

child: brush unlined baking sheet with olive oil and dust with cornmeal

parent: on medium heat, saute mushrooms and garlic (minced or sliced) until soft (5 min) then add asparagus (if you’re using it,) thyme, salt, and pepper. saute 5 more minutes and then set aside.

parent & child: on lightly floured surface, roll the pizza dough out from the center into a 12 inch circle. transfer to baking sheet and bake 10 minutes.

parent: remove crust from oven and let stand until cool to touch (just under 10 min)

parent & child: spread ricotta cheese (or whatever cheese you’re using) onto crust leaving a half inch border, then brush the border with olive oil. scatter on the rest of your toppings (or arrange into a face or get creative with the arrangement… we just scattered ours though.)

parent: put pizza back into the oven until cheese and veggies are heated through, about 5 minutes. then dinner is served! (sure, it’s labor-intensive, but it’s lotsa creative fun, too!)

this feeds about 4 people and is very filling and yummy! we paired it with a simple romaine salad (with sauted garlic, olive oil, and lemon on it… tho it didn’t make it into this shot for some reason. novi just had a bowl of green peppers and carrots on the side, as she dislikes the texture of lettuce… white wine for the parents, organic OJ for the little one.)

enjoy your artful dinner! we did, and novi was so proud, “i cooked dinner for you!”

we baked homemade soft pretzels on sunday morning!!! yeah, this is not a cooking or recipe web site, i realize, but this is an art, people! if you’ve not done this before, i really recommend doing this with your kids – novi loved it!

i was inspired by a lovely blog on the artful parent. after i read it, i knew i could not squelch my craving (not even with frozen superpretzels from the store) until we made our very own. one issue: i don’t own a stand mixer, and the recipes i saw online said not to attempt this without one. seeing as the uber-spendy stand mixer was the one item that we did not get off of our wedding registry all those sweet years ago, i borrowed one from my baker friend (big thanks!) and went to work.  we mixed.

we let the dough rise in a warm spot. (i may have taken this too literally. hee hee.)

rising by the fire

we rolled out some strips.

uh, we smelled?

we twisted.

we boiled.

we basted and salted.

we baked and cooled.

we ATE!!! (warm from the oven… we’re freezing the rest to heat up later but i’m sure they won’t be as delicious as these fresh few were! really, get em while they’re hot!)

when we sat down to our feast, i couldn’t help but hear jerry seinfeld’s “these pretzels are making me thirsty” in my head (though honestly, they weren’t. i didn’t overload the salt.) so i popped open a bottle of cream soda (a rare soda occasion for me – what a perfect combo!!!) and had some leftover sweet potato coconut milk sage soup from a couple nights ago. novi enjoyed her pretzel with lemonade… and some raw fruits and veggies. a great lunch!

this is the recipe we used:

ingredients

and now i sooo want a stand mixer, in pistachio please.

okay, so we don’t have any snow here in the SF bay area, but most of my east coast friends and family have been enduring the white stuff for weeks. i’ve gotten several requests for my family’s snow ice cream recipe, so i thought i’d share the ritual here that i’ve been enjoying since the 70s. it’s the yummiest snow activity i can think of! (hot cocoa is amazing, sure, but this is such a treat!) we made snow ice cream last march when we were living in virginia, so i’ll put those photos here for nostalgia’s sake.

first put a big bowl (about a gallon sized bowl) on your deck or porch to catch the freshly fallen flakes when it’s about to snow.

then bring it inside and stir one can of sweetened condensed milk into the snow. then add a one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

if you don’t have a can of sweetened condensed milk and can’t get to the store, you can always use vanilla pudding (my mom’s recommended substitute) or a cup of sugar and a cup of cream or milk… but NOTHING beats some good ol’ sweetened condensed milk, so stock up for the winter!

eat it immediately. if you don’t finish it, you can freeze some, but let it get soupy before eating it again. you can also add crushed pineapple (my mom’s fav) or other fruit, but i like mine straight up!

enjoy… and don’t you eat that yellow snow! now i’m counting down the days until my family can make snow ice cream in tahoe… sooon…