Recipe: Ballerina Ice Cream

Ballerina cookies are great with vanilla ice cream, so of course they’re even better mixed in! I wrote this recipe to make a small batch (about a quart), but you can double it to fill a full-sized ice cream maker.

• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla
• ¼ tsp salt
• 6 Ballerina cookies

Pour the half-and-half and cream into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar, vanilla, and salt, and stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Place the mix and the cookies (separately) in the refrigerator or freezer for an hour or so. When the mix is very cold but not yet frozen, pour into an ice cream maker to freeze. Once freezing has started, chop the cookies unevenly, crumbling some pieces. Add pieces and crumbs to mix that has reached soft-serve consistency. When the ice cream maker is finished, stir the mix once or twice to evenly distribute cookies, pour into a storage container, cover with plastic wrap and the container lid, and freeze for at least two more hours. Serve with cookies.

“I still think America’s Test Kitchen is the best food show on the air, but I would add a caveat: However simplistic it may seem, however unsophisticated the recipes, the show that teaches you how to cook is the show that gets you off the couch and into the kitchen.”

Swedish cooking!

Saturday morning spinach quiche. The recipe (minus the can of mushrooms) filled the pan to overflowing. It baked beautifully!

When snow shuts down the city, it’s time for soup! Italian Wedding Soup from Ina Garten’s recipe.

“It is difficult enough to be injured or gravely ill. To add to this the burden of guilt over a supposed failure to have the right attitude toward one’s illness is unconscionable. Linking health to personal virtue and vice not only is bad science, it’s bad medicine.”

An excellent book on this topic is Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-sided.

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fakescience:

Is Butter Good For You?

fakescience:

http://summertomato.com/how-to-find-real-food-at-the-supermarket-flowchart/

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Phil Plait, astronomer, debunker of bunk, and major figure in the skeptical community, will have his own show on the Discovery Channel? And it’s basically Mythbusters In Space? I think I shall offer extra credit to my students this fall for watching!

Recipe: Zucchini Bread

Cheesecake Strawberries: Mix cream cheese, powdered sugar, maybe some whipped cream, a drop of vanilla, and a little bit of almond extract - or just substitute your favorite fruit dip. Hollow out several strawberries, fill with dip, and top with their caps or with slivered almonds. So simple, yet impressive.

The first sprouts in my new balcony lettuce planter. Only a few weeks to a delicious salad blend!