Peach Frozen Yogurt

Last night we went to Perry Pizza (our favorite pizza spot, I think the owners are starting to recognize us) to try out one of their new pizzas.  Instead of using the normal mozzarella they experimented with brie.  It was wonderful, especially for a brie lover.  I'm totally inspired.  But back to the Yogurt, across the street from Perry was a little farmers market.  After dinner we walked over, it was around 7 and all the vendors were starting to close up shop but not before we grabbed some beets with their greens, carrots, sausage, and fresh peaches.  I had plans to make nectarine ice cream but last night when we were driving home I told Kam I could whip up some fresh peach frozen yogurt, and of course he said OK!!!  So that's what I did. Really basic recipe, but simply delicious!

What you'll need:
2 cups plain greek yogurt
1 cup half and half
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup sugar
4 or 5 peaches

Fill a medium large pot with water and bring to a boil.  Drop in peaches and boil for about 2 minutes.  Remove from water and allow to cool enough to handle.  Peel off skins, cut in half and remove pits. While peaches are boiling add remain ingredients into a large bowl and mix until well combined.  Set aside.  Add peeled peaches into a food processor or blender and pulse until pureed, but still a little chunky.  Add to base and mix.  Place in fridge until cool, over night is best. (I was in a hurry so I skipped that last step.) Once cool, place into ice cream maker and freeze according to instructions.

Not too sweet, wonderfully fruity and creamy.  Peaches and cream more or less.  Like I even have to try and sell it.  I love making ice cream at home because the first night you get to eat it straight out of the ice cream maker when its like soft serve, then the second night you get the solid ice cream.  Enjoy!

Avocado Ice Cream

So weird, I know.  Here's the back story on this one.  Way back when we worked at Roche Harbor, during the summer months about 80% of the employees were there on working visas.  We would go from about 50 local employees in the 3 other seasons to about 250 employees in a mater of weeks for summer.  So we met a lot of people from around the world.  One summer, I spent a lot of time with a few Brazilians.  One of my Brazilian buddies made friends some someone who worked at the ice cream stand.  One evening he shows up with a green milk shake.  Come to find out it's an avocado milk shake and he is in heaven. Huh and weird I thought.  Apparently, avocado treats are really popular in that part of the world.  So lately I have noticed recipes for avocado deserts, quite a few being just fresh avocado drizzled with honey.  It was time, I had try it.

What you'll need:
3 Avocados (not too overly ripe, no brown)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 plain greek yogurt (or sour cream)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

Slice avocado, remove the pit, and scoop out flesh.  Place everything in a food processor and pulse until well combined and smooth.  My food processor is tiny so I had to pulse the avocado in stages.  Then I used the hand mixer to blend everything.  You could use a blender too.  What ever you have will work.

 Freeze in your ice cream maker.  That simple.

So my thoughts.  It was good, but definitely not going to be on my top five.  When you first taste it, it seems a little awkward.  But once your pallet adjusts to it, its actually really good.  That avocado creamy flavor that we all love really comes out.  It's actually really rich, which surprised me.  I could even finish my little bowl.  I also made a chocolate honey sauce to go on top.  I just felt that the plain avocado might need some sort of contrasting taste.  The chocolate honey sauce was amazing!

What you'll need:
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla

Place chocolate chips in a bowl, set aside.  In a small sauce pan, heat cream and honey over medium heat, stirring until combined.  Once cream is just about to boil, add vanilla and pour over chocolate.  Let sit for 2 minutes for chocolate to melt. Whisk until combined.  Store in fridge.

I found ketchup and mustard bottles for $.99 so bought them.  Didn't know when exactly they would come on handy, but they eventually did!

I cut the top off a strawberry and filled the inside cavity with this stuff.  I didn't regret that decision. Enjoy!

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

This ice cream isn't messing around.  I have never bought or I'm not even sure tasted mascarpone, but I have now.  I didn't know what to expect, but I liked it.  Thick and creamy, the perfect addition to an ice cream base.

What you'll need:
1 small container mascarpone cheese (I think its 6oz)
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup strawberries crushed
1 cup sugar divided
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
Shortbread cookies

Combine first 5 ingredients and 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl and mix until almost doubles and looks more like whip cream, about 5 minutes.  Freeze according to ice cream makers instructions.

In a medium pan bring water, other half sugar and corn syrup to a boil.  Add strawberries.  Continue to boil for another 5 minutes or until has a syrup consistency.  Pour through mesh strainer into a small bowl and press with a spatula until just strawberry seeds and goop (not sure what you jam makers call that) remains.  Cool syrup in fridge or freezer to speed up.

Break up short bread into pieces.  You will want 2-3 cups depending on how small you crush your pieces.  Once ice cream is done, fold in cookies.  Don't add your strawberry sauce until it is completely cool.  Layer ice cream and syrup.  Let sit over night before serving, usually ice cream is really good fresh out of the ice cream maker when its more like soft serve.  I think this one defiantly needs to be solid.

I finally remembered to show you my Mini Yum Yum Machine.  Thanks Mom!

Good thing these recipes don't make a large batches.  Other wise I would never fit into my wedding dress.  Kam keeps telling me I need to stop cooking.  He doesn't mean it, at all. Enjoy!

Carrot Cake Ice Cream

This is a 2 part recipe.  Below is the recipe for the carrot cake.  I had mainly made it with only the intentions of using it in this ice cream, but the thing was so moist and wonderfully delicious, I just have to share the recipe for that too!  So this will be the ice cream recipe followed by the cake.

Now, lets talk about this ice cream, which has been now referred to as the best I've ever made by my #1 taste tester.  The actual ice cream base is more like a cheese cake flavor, very rich with that sour tangy flavor that you get from cream cheese.  Combined with chunks of extra moist cake that is somewhat mixed into the the ice cream with large chunks throughout.  It was so decadent, and rich and wonderful.  My mom made the request for carrot cake for Mother's Day, so I decided to take it one step further.  Success!

What you'll need:
Carrot Cake (recipe here)
1 box cream cheese softened (I used the 1/3 fat, I don't think it made a difference)
3/4 cup plain greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
Zest from 1/2 a lemon
2/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons vodka (I used whipped vodka, because I had it.  New kicker to my ice cream.  I read that it makes it not freeze as hard so you can scoop it.  Makes sense, I love little tips that that! And it worked!)

Combine all ingredients and mix with a hand mixer (or what ever your favorite mixer is) until no more lumps.  Place in air tight container over night.  Give a quick stir before freezing in your ice cream maker.  This is by far the easiest ice cream base yet, no eggs!

Take about 4 cups (doesn't have to be exact) or 1/3 of your cake and break into large bite sized pieces, try and keep them as big of chunks as you can.  Or your can freeze a large piece and break up after frozen, I did a combination of both.  Freeze for about 5 hours.

Once ice cream is the consistency of soft serve, pour into your your favorite ice cream container.  Take 1 more cup of the room temperature cake and mix into ice cream, don't worry about breaking it up, mix until it is evenly combined through out.  Now add your frozen cake chunks and gently fold in until the are mixed from top to bottom.  Place in freezer and let harden.

What is that line from Eat, Pray, Love?  "I'm having a relationship with this pizza."  I think I had a moment of that while eating my little bowl of this heavenly treat.  Don't neglect yourself, make this now!  Enjoy!

Strawberry Gelato

It's becoming strawberry and blueberry season.  In my world, those are two different food groups that must be consumed in large quantities during the summer months or else certain death.  Its a rough life, but tolerable.  So Costco has the larger flats of strawberries in now, so I bought one of course!  Naturally the next thing to do was make ice cream, or gelato.  I actually made it 2 weeks ago, and never got around to posting it.  Then last night Kam looked at me as I was walking into the kitchen and told me to whip some up....riiiiight.  I'll just quickly throw that together for ya babe!


What you'll need:


3 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar (divided 1/2 and 1/4)
2 egg yokes
1 1/2 tablespoon corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries 
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice


In a food processor or blender add strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar and lemon juice. Coarsely chop strawberries until you have about 1 1/2 cups.  Set aside.


Heat milk to a simmer.  In another bowl, whisk your egg yolks and sugar together until well combined.  Add cornstarch and salt.  Whisk until sugar/egg is no longer clumpy.  It will be a little dry, but if you use a whisk, it will combine.  Slowly add half of your simmering milk whisking continuously.


Slowly return mixture back into saucepan, whisking until all is combined.  Turn heat up to medium and switch to a wooden spoon.  You do not want it to boil so you may have to adjust your heat a time or two.  Keep stirring until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of spoon, 4-5 minutes.  (If it gets too hot, the egg will begin to cook.)


Pour mixture through strainer into a bowl that will fit into a second bowl for an ice bath. Add strawberries and vanilla and whisk one final time.  Transfer bowl into large bowl with ice and water and leave until mixture is cool.  About 45 minutes.  Give it a quick stir every so often to keep a film from forming on top.  Once cool, lay a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the mixture.  Store in the fridge over night before adding to your ice cream maker.


I had a strawberry sauce that I had made for pancakes and stored the leftovers in the freezer a while back.  I thawed it out and we had that over our gelato.  Here is the recipe for that if you are interested, but the gelato is perfectly yummy without it!


Strawberry Sauce - (You may want to half this if you don't want a ton of left overs. Sorry, no process pictures.)


What you'll need:


5 cups crushed or chopped strawberries
1 1/2 cups water (divided)
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice


Add strawberries, half of the water, and lemon zest into a medium pan and heat to boil.  Boil for 5 minutes.  Dissolve sugar in remaining water.  Remove strawberries from heat and mix in sugar water, lemon juice, and corn syrup.  Return to a boil and boil for another 5 minutes, stirring fairly often.  Allow to cool and serve with whatever your heart desires!  

Thank you Costco and California!

Not quite there....

The gelato was super light and creamy on its own, the sauce gave it an extra punch. I find the gelato be best after you remove it from the ice cream maker and freeze it for about 2 hours.  Its hard at this point but not too hard to scoop.  The next day, you may have to let it sit on the counter for about 10 minutes before serving.  Enjoy!