Home Made Ice Cream

My mother was in town visiting last week.  We decided to conclude our week together with the usual Friday night pizza dinner.  For dessert we all had a craving for ice cream, partly because we also had a craving for warmer weather - it has been an appallingly cold spring so far.  In discussing ice cream my children insisted on home made ice cream as it was "the best.   My mother and I agreed and reminisced about making ice cream with our parents when we were children.  I was happy to oblige and to create some new ice cream making memories for my children, nieces and nephews.

As I made the grocery list for our ingredients, I had a chuckle when my mother asked if we would need ice and salt for the machine.    No Mom, I said, the new machines are so much easier (I see the gift of an ice cream maker in her future).  Though I have fond memories of making ice cream with that messy, loud machine, usually in the dead of winter when snow for the basin was plentiful, I prefer my new Cuisinart.  

I brought all the ingredients and my ice cream maker to my sister's house and enlisted the kids for help.  For them the changing of milk and cream into ice cream is miraculous, probably more interesting to them than changing water to wine.  I have to admit the process is still exciting for me as well.

I snapped this photo (on my iphone) of my son and nephew as they patiently waited for the transformation.

Our favorite variety is also the simplest, I use the recipe that came with the ice cream maker:

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I use 1tsp. vanilla extract and the seeds from one vanilla bean)

I have also made maple walnut ice cream with great success, simply substitute 1/2-3/4 cup maple syrup for the sugar and add a half cup of chopped walnuts.  Last week, I also followed the Cuisinart recipe for chocolate ice cream and I have to admit it did not turn out well.  I know its hard to imagine any chocolate food not tasting good but alas this was the case.  I will have to scare up my mother's tried and true recipe and will report back on the results.

It seems I am not the only one who has been in the mood for home made ice cream - today I saw that one of my favorite locavore bloggers, Diary of a Locavore, also has a new post devoted to home made ice cream.  I guess we New Enlganders are ready for some warmer weather.  Be sure to check out this great blog for more home-made ice cream inspiration.

 http://www.diaryofalocavore.com/2011/04/homemade-maple-ice-cream.html

Can a Locavore Shop at Costco?

I went to Costco today to stock up on the usual, this time with new parameters, the locavore pledge.  To be honest I don't really shop at Costco very often, maybe once every 3 months or so.  I generally shop there to stock up on paper products or oxyclean.  Of course I know that there are greener choices for paper products like Seventh Generation but so far none of them come in very large quantities and they are significantly more expensive.  So, unless a toilet paper, paper towel or tissue factory that makes green products opens up within a hundred miles of here I am going to get these items from Costco - for now.  

Today I got the usual paper products, toner for my fax/printer and an air purifier for the bedroom.  They were on the list and I was going to stick to it.  I was not even going to be tempted by the book section.

I really did not expect to buy any food other than salad greens (I was asked to bring a green salad to a pot luck dinner this week) and well, there are no local salad greens that I know of this time of year.  On my way to pick up said organic greens I thought I would check out the bakery section just in case there was something local, after all they do bake many things right there in the store, that's pretty local.  Boy did I get lucky!  There, tucked in the furthermost section of the baked goods was an entire rack of Eli's Bread, as in Zabar's famously delicious gourmet bakery, fresh from the Upper East side.  Since I don't go to Costco often, I got two loaves of the Raisin Pecan bread and two of the Health Loaves to put in our chest freezer.  I have to say however that the raisin pecan bread was so good I am tempted to go more often.

I also celebrated this first day of March by picking up a fresh loaf of Irish soda bread made in Wyandanch, NY just across the sound from here.  Of course no visit to Costco is complete with out the taste of a sample or two and today's sample was Nature's Path Organic granola bars.  Yummy and perfect for the kids lunches so I grabbed a box of them too.

All in all I did better food wise than I expected.  Of course other than the salad greens I did have to skip the produce section entirely but I really didn't mind.  Only 4 more weeks and we will be receiving the first box of spring produce from our CSA - can't wait!

Going Locavore

As I posted earlier I have been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and have truly been inspired.  Her book has reminded me of what I know in my heart to be true, love your neighbor as yourself and for me that means voting with my wallet to support local farmers and businesses.
So, we are going locavore.

The Locavore’s Pledge
If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.

Consider these quotes from Kingsolver's book, "Buying your goods from local businesses rather than national chains generates about three times as much money for your local economy" and "if every restaurant got just ten percent of its food from local farmers, the infrastructure of corporate food would collapse".  Those are pretty powerful incentives to me.

Generally "Local" means a 100 mile radius from your home.  If you want to calculate yours here is a great site www.100milediet.org.  When I looked up my 100 mile radius I realized that I hit the local food jack-pot.  My 100 miles includes western Massachusetts, all of CT, Hudson Valley New York, Long Island NY, the eastern edge of Pennsylvania and most of New Jersey (yes, the Garden State).


Making the change to Locavore in February in New England seemed an impossible challenge but I have found that it is not as hard as I thought it would be.  My first step was to shop at Whole Foods, a store I love but often skipped since I bought into the its too expensive hype.  Yes some things are more expensive but many things are not and it is always a good idea to be a savvy shopper no matter where you go.  The thing I like about Whole Foods is that they label all local foods which makes it much easier.  


The second thing I did was to sign up for local milk delivery through  Hudson Milk Company
www.hudsonmilk.com.  Not only can we get fresh, local, glass bottled milk but we can also order eggs, butter, cheeses, breads and meat through them as well.  So far we have been getting milk, butter, eggs and amazing grass fed ground beef.  My husband told a neighbor on the train that we had switched over to milk delivery, and the neighbor exclaimed "you know that is twice as expensive!".  When my husband related this exchange to me, I was very happy to report that in fact a half gallon of delivery milk was the same price as a half gallon of organic milk in the supermarket.  So much for its more expensive - it is very important to do your own research!


Probably the biggest change we will be making is in our produce.  We have just signed up for the spring (I love to hear that word) CSA with Gazy Brothers Farm www.gazybrothersfarm.net.  This farm participates in our town's Farmer's market where we can pick up our produce during the season, it will be delivered to us in the off season - how great is that!  Again, I thought that this would be more expensive too but when I actually did the math it was obvious that this will actually be a big savings for us.  A 10 week share is only $200 which comes out to $20 a week for an entire box of produce.  Try buying that much produce from your local grocery store for only $20.  The best part is that 100% of my food dollars will go to the farmers, our neighbors.  You may not realize, but on average, farmers today receive only 19 cents on every food dollar spent, that is a lot of money on gas and middlemen.  


So far, we have not switched over completely - it is February after all and I am still using up what is in the pantry but I feel really good about the changes we are making.  The kids are also really excited and I am glad we are teaching them the importance of where their food comes from and about how to make educated choices.  I will keep you posted on our progress!


If you want to find out how you can eat locally, please visit Local Harvest. www.localharvest.org