Bourbon Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Well, ice cream attempt number two was another good one. This one was a real, egg based ice cream that took a little work but was really good. (I got a little impatient and shaved an hour off the cool time to get it into the machine and freezer hoping to serve it after dinner. It is a little softer than real ice cream which may have to do to the shortened cooling time or its due to the bourbon, not sure.)

The recipe from Serious Eats doesn't specify the amount of bourbon to add. I used 5 tablespoons then added an extra at Mike's request. Its got a serious bourbon-y kick.

Sauceless Pizzas

I spotted this fancy hawaiian pizza recipe at A Cozy Kitchen and it looked too good to not make. Plus, its got "fancy" in the name so that's usually a good sign. Since I had the ingredients on hand, I also re-created rocket arugula pizza I had in San Francisco.

The only changes I made to the fancy Hawaiian pizza were to use the red onions raw and sprinkle lots of chili flake on top after baking. The rocket arugula pizza consists of mozzarella, proscuitto and arugula all sprinkled with red chili oil.

Cake Batter Blondies

After making the cake batter ice cream, I had a little over half a box left of yellow cake mix. Not wanting to just toss it, I made half the recipe for cake batter blondies found on pinterest. Yum.

San Francisco through Diana

Mike and I bought a Diana Lomography camera which the website describes like this: With each click of the shutter, a moment is captured in a unique and fairly unpredictable way...

I really like cameras like this. It uses film, is plastic and has a manual shutter lever. There's nothing fancy. No focus. No way to fix the photos. They just come out the way they are shot. Sometimes light leaks in and your pictures have streaks or shadows you didn't see when you shot them. That's all in the fun of getting the film back (does anyone remember what that was like... waiting to get film back from the store? its a lot more fun than just loading the memory card onto the computer. or so i think)

Anywho. Here are a few of my favorites. Some I took and some Mike took. Sometimes I forgot to wind the film and exposed two pictures on the same negative. All in good fun.

Cake Batter Ice Cream

As if Mexican Thanksgiving needed anything else, I also whipped up a batch of cake batter ice cream. There's nothing smarter than making a new recipe with a new contraption right before friends come over for dinner right?

Well, that's generally what I end up doing. Sometimes it doesn't work (case in point the Friday night before when I made artichoke and white bean crostini for my cousin and girlfriend which promptly ended up in the garbage due to its weird smell). Sometimes it does work, like with cake batter ice cream.

I think this was a great recipe to try my new ice cream maker attachment since its a total cheat... it uses milk, cool whip, and yellow cake mix. It came together like a charm and froze right up. I had mine with sprinkles and the boys had theirs with chocolate chips and sprinkles... Erica just ate Nick's after protesting she was too full. Lesson learned - You just can't say no to ice cream that smells like cake batter.

Queso Blanco

We had a little "Mexican Thanksgiving" with Nick and Erica over 4th of July weekend... aka we again made too much food for the 4 of us in the form of beef and chicken fajitas and way too much queso.

I tried making queso blanco for the first time. The recipe was really straightforward but I think it really needs more kick. It also got REALLY thick after just a few minutes off the stove/no stirring so I think it needed more milk or something but its a nice recipe to start from...



Since I'm not in love with the original recipe... here are a few others along with it for other options:

recipe 1
recipe 2
recipe 3
recipe 4

Food Truck Stalking - SSahmBBQ

Mike and I are huge fans of food trucks. I love the idea of them. And I love that its usually people that just love what they do and by visiting we are directly supporting them and their idea.

Sadly, Dallas has been super slow to jump on the food truck craze. However, the past few weeks have been filled with emails about a few new food trucks that have started as well as descriptions of a food trailer park that will be on Greenville in 2012.

Mike and I went to try SSahmBBQ (Korean tacos). It was to die for. And the people running the truck were really nice!

We tried almost everything... kimchee fries with monterey jack & cheddar cheese, cilantro & onion, caramelized kimchee and ddak (spicy chicken); a daeji (spicy pork) taco with sesame soy vinaigrette salad, caramelized kimchee, cilantro & onion, and salsa rojo; and a kalbi (short rib) burrito with sesame soy vinaigrette salad, monterey jack & cheddar cheese, cilantro & onion, caramelized kimchee, and cilantro lime jasmine rice.

Feeling Crafty - Zinc Letters

Here is the inspiration... zinc letters from Anthro at $18/piece.







And there are my "zinc" letters! I'm pretty pleased and it was a super easy and fun weekend project. Plus the paint + letters + brushes cost less than 1 zinc letter from anthro. Here's the tutorial from Sugar and Charm.