We are looking down the barrel of U.S. thanksgiving which is really not a thing at all here in Canada. It's just something we are aware of... and maybe do a little black friday shopping on Amazon.   We are in the dead of winter as far as weather is concerned.  Biking has been off the table this week and temperatures have dipped way below what we are used to.  I'm working really hard at not letting this affect my mood greatly.  I am looking at weeks of crazy christmas concerts and events and things that I have to plan and attend and still get organized for January work... and my family is currently checking out the 2015 potato calendar.  It's a real thing.
Here are some things that I thought were noteworthy over the last month:
1.  The Oatmeal's take on Net Neutrality
2.  Thanks to a Canadian quasi-celebrity we have all been talking a whole lot more about sexual abuse and harassment.  Let's hope that this talking continues and turns into a real change in the way society views the women in it.
3.  I've been geeking out to this song
4.  If I don't make this and this soon I just don't know what I'm going to do.
5.  This blogger beautifully summed up a lot of the food lies that women believe about other women. You know all of those food shots where an incredibly beautiful and thin woman about to eat something big and crazy.


I made this ice cream a good while ago and, in the spirit of not spreading food lies, I didn't eat very much of it.  I tested it and it was good.  Truth is I'm not much of an ice cream person.  In fact, lately food and I haven't been close but that's another story for another time.  Kid #2 won't go near this kind of ice cream if it were the last thing on earth to eat.  D basically won't touch ice cream unless it's chocolate or good quality vanilla (I totally get behind that).  So that left Kid #1.  She dutifully had a bowl or two but let out a sigh of relief when we had guests over because we served this ice cream with apple crisp.  It's pretty rich stuff and the texture and tastes worked well together.  Feel free to adjust the caramel to apple ratio if you think it might be too sweet for your liking.



Caramel Apple Ice Cream
makes 1 litre (or so)

1 1/2 cups whipping cream (the heavy stuff)
1 cup milk
4 egg yolks, whisked together in a bowl
1 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla or vanilla paste

Caramel Apple Sauce

3 - 4 sm/med apples - peeled, cored and diced
2 tbsp brown sugar (optional - depending on the sweetness of the caramel that you are using)
pinch of salt and cinnamon
1/2 cup caramel sauce (I made my own from here but you could even melt in some kraft caramels if it came down to it)

Add the diced apples to a heavy bottomed pan and heat over med/low heat.  As the apples start to cook you might want to add a dash or so of water to prevent sticking.  Add in the brown sugar, salt and cinnamon.  Cook until the apples have gotten all mushy and soft and the liquid has cooked down (I simmered mine for about 10 minutes to dry it out a bit)  Remove from the heat, add in the caramel and mix well.  Set aside.

Ice cream:
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, heat the sugar gently over med/low heat for just a minute.  Add in a little of the cream and mix well to dissolve the sugar.  Once dissolved, add in the rest of the cream and all of the milk.  Continue to heat until it almost comes to a boil, turn the heat down to about a half of what you started at and add a little of the hot cream mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.  Continue to add the hot cream to the egg yolks in a very small, steady stream until the yolks are warmed up (about a half a cup of the hot cream).  Pour the egg yolk mixture back into the hot cream. Place it back onto the stove and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture heats up enough to coat the wooden spoon (you should be able to run your finger over the back of the spoon and have the mixture remain in place without running).
Remove from heat and run it through a sieve and into a bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap (press down so it is right on the warm custard mixture all the way around and even stuck to the sides of the bowl) and cool completely to room temperature.  Place in the fridge overnight.
Once refrigerator cold, pour into an ice cream maker and run for about a half hour or until the mixture reaches a soft serve consistency.  Pour everything into a freezer container and stir in the caramel apple mixture.
Freeze.
Soften for a few minutes before serving.

Summer updates:

This daisy is in my back yard.  It is beautiful.  There are bugs.


This is pretty much what life is looking like here.  Worst part - no breakfast.  I can deal with no food pretty much any other time of day except breakfast.  Day two of finding breakfast elsewhere and I'm a bear... a bear in March.  Kids think that muffins and hot chocolate for breakfast is cool.  They are not having any trouble adjusting.

It's our 'Renovate all the things' project.

Kitchen edition:



Front Hall edition:


Deck and Balcony edition:  No picture available yet because it doesn't start until next week.

Kid #1 is going into high school in approximately 1 1/2 months.  I see her for probably no more than 20 minutes a day between her friends and her bedroom (and what I can only assume is copious amounts of netflix and tumblr)

We have no vacation plans... none... not even one plan.

I have decided to try my hand at making my own pepper sauce.  The bones seem easy but I imagine that it will take a little tweaking to get the recipe to my taste.  At least the basic ingredients are cheap so I won't waste a lot of money if it blows chunks.

Kid #2 has finally mastered biking on two-wheeler.  He hasn't yet mastered the starting and stopping of biking.  He went 'biking' with a friend yesterday.  I stood and watched them.  I became that Mom - the one that stands there and gets super edgy and uptight that her kid is going to fall or get run into or slam into a tree or something.  That Mom.  I had to close my eyes.

I really wish I were posting my rhubarb curd ice cream with white chocolate but can't because I haven't made it yet.  It sounds finicky but the idea occurred while I was trying to sleep and it made sense at the time.  I'm going to try it because I've decided that I need to work harder on my follow through.


I have some lovely little things happening in the garden this year.  Unfortunately, the raspberries have completely taken over the rhubarb and the poppies.  It turns out that tomato plants don't really like me that much and have decided to boycott growing in protest.  Pleasant surprise: I have dill where I planted none.  Nobody here likes dill.

I'm not sure if you would have picked it up from my last post but I've been away in Vermont.
We stayed at this wonderful spot, owned by some wonderful people.  Doing crazy things like:
Sitting on a porch drinking beer and reading
Hiking
Eating campfire food and chips... pretty much nothing else
Driving through mountains
Finding chocolate and purchasing ice cream scoops for friends
... and yoga

It seems odd to me that yoga and campfire hotdogs went so well together but, what can I say, they did.
I will also be forthright in admitting that I now need a vacation from my kids.  Admittedly, they were pretty easy going since we did no cooking other than hotdogs, hamburgers and seriously burnt chicken. They were so busy eating 'real' peanut butter (aka. the junk kind that we never buy) and fruit loop/sugar puff/tiny box cereal (that we also never buy) that they really didn't care about much else.

Prohibition Pig in Waterbury VT is a place you must visit if you're into good beer and house smoked meat.

We did provide them with a couple of restaurant meals and of course the requisite Ben and Jerry's visit.
Since this is our last week of summer, here are some things that I wish for you during your last few days of freedom (?)

Shameless Selfie - B&J ice cream in hand

I really really really want corn and tomatoes in my life... raw, roasted, grilled, sprinkled with some salt, some feta cheese added.  Whatever.  I really want it.  I've been craving corn and tomato soup with black beans.  It sounds wonderful, right.  I just can't bring myself to make soup in the summer.  It feels wrong.  I don't know, maybe I'm ok with wrong.  What I've distracted myself by doing instead is eating this ice cream.  I am currently on my third scoop - taken secretly, straight from the freezer when my kids aren't looking.  It's so not wrong.  Maple and Peach.  Maple because I had it and thought that it might be cool and I saw the combo somewhere else and it looked like it worked.  Peach because it's peach season - dude!  Where have you been.


The obligatory food box shot... I hope somebody cares because I feel kinda dumb posting this.  I thought briefly about taking shots of my fridge and freezer to show you all... why?  Why would anybody care about the organization of my freezer?  Why did the thought even occur to me?  It's a slippery slope.  Next thing you know, I'm taking shots of my sock drawer so that you can all see how well organized I am and how many colours are in there.  Slippery Slope.
I realize that summer vacation is about more than sitting in a park reading or seeing how much you can accomplish without leaving the couch.  Problem is that I'm enjoying those things so much that it's hard for me to find room to care about anything else.  If I could sit and read in the park with a drink - say a beer or glass of champagne - it's probable that I would never leave.  Unfortunately, one can't do such a thing in Ontario because we're all conservative like that apparently.  In this particular instance though it's a good thing.
I finished the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire.  I have the third and final book on my kindle.  I just can't decide if I want to go for it.  I waited a year in between reading the first two and, unlike The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, I feel like I don't need to wrap this all up and find out what happens.   Speaking of kindle - my little niece has written two books and published them on amazon for kindle.  They are both adorable... the books and my niece.
I cooked 'nuff' food yesterday.  Roasted Chicken with carrots and gravy.  Green Beans, Shitake Mushrooms and Sorrel with Soy Sauce glaze.  Roasted eggplant, fennel and zucchini Pasta sauce (recipe to come for this one).  I wanted to make crackers but then wondered what I would do with the crackers.  If I make crackers then I feel compelled to go out and get cheese to go with them.  If I go out then I should get some grapes too because those go nicely with crackers and cheese.  Once I'm out I should pick up some potatoes because we need... Ok, that's it - no crackers.  Still, felt good to fill up the empty fridge for the week.  Except that the whole time I really wanted Corn and Tomato, Black Bean Soup.


I thought you might be wondering if this ice cream is as good as it looks.  Yep.  It is.  I've eaten three more spoonfuls since starting this post... my kids still don't know.


Peach Maple Ice Cream adapted from Pies and Plots
makes about 1 litre

Custard:
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup 10% cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla
Peaches:
4 peaches, peeled and sliced
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla

For the Peaches:
Place the peach slices in a bowl.  Add sugar and vanilla.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Over medium/low heat simmer the peaches in their juice until there is almost no juice left.  Peaches will be soft and mushy.  Set aside to cool.
Custard:
Combine the heavy cream, 10% cream and milk together.
In a heavy bottomed sauce pan combine the cream mixture and the sugar.  Heat over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Once the mixture has just about come to a simmer, turn the heat down to low.
Stir small amounts of the cream mixture into the egg yolks, stirring to combine.  Once about a third of the mixture has been stirred into the yolks then add the yolk mixture back into the cream mixture.  Turn the heat up just a little and heat until you feel the mixture thicken and use the wooden spoon test.
Remove the mixture from the heat and pour through a sieve into a bowl.
Add the maple syrup and vanilla.  Stir and then cover with plastic wrap (placing the wrap right on the custard so that it doesn't form a crust) cool to room temperature and then place in fridge for about 4 hrs or overnight.
Remove the custard to a ice cream maker and make according to manufacturers directions.
At the end of the churning cycle add about 1 cup of the cooled peach mixture and run for another 5 minutes.
Remove the ice cream to a freezable container and freeze until hard.
Soften briefly before serving.

So Resting Bitch Face is a labelled phenomenon that I've only recently learned about.  It's a thing.  I'm not even joking... it's real and I know that because it's on YouTube.  The Urban Dictionary defines it as a person, usually a woman, who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless, without meaning to.
Recently my sister and her family made it to town.  This is a big deal because they live in Calgary which is far from Toronto.  Of course, somewhere during the course of our conversations the subject of resting bitch face came up.  What I discovered is that not only do I (and probably both of my siblings) have serious resting bitch face, we inherited it from two of THE BEST resting bitch faces on the planet.  I'm sure that you can put the pieces together.  My sister and I high-five'd (?) each other and the conversation moved on from there.  However, I've spent the last few days mulling over the idea that when I'm not aware of it I quite probably look like a bitch.  It might be anger that comes through.  It might be disdain.  It might be boredom.  Doesn't matter how it's perceived, the real issue is whether I know it's happening and whether therefor I meant for people to perceive me that way.
It's true, there unquestionably are times when I purpose to give that look but the thought that I might not have meant it but conveyed it anyway was unnerving at first.  Then I read this article.  You know, a few days and a few articles later I think I'm ok with it.  The alternative is aggressively working to remember to smile... all the time.  It looks weird.  You've seen that person walking towards you, haven't you?  The one with the weird ass smile and you wonder what the hell they're thinking about.  That is not me.  Or, as the article goes, I have to try to pretend all the time... jeez - don't we pretend enough already?  I really don't want to spend my time pretending to be happy and nice to people I don't know because... well why?  At the end of the day, if I don't know I'm doing it then I have to be super committed to not doing it in order to change (I'm not) and in order to be super committed I have to be convinced that there is a good reason to motivate that change.  Making people feel better or giving them the impression that I'm a 'nice' person just isn't motivation enough for me.  So I'm ok with it, my resting bitch face or bitch resting face or whatever that 'unsmile' is.  We're cool.


I survived Kid #2 birthday party and made a kick ass cake to boot.  Check here for the recipe if you're into it.  She's got much better pictures than I do.


I got this message on my beer bottle cap.  Best end to my day.


Here's the contents of this week's Food Box... this is for you KT.


I made this ice cream.  I'm not going to apologize for giving you another ice cream recipe because I'm just not.  I wanted it to be with strawberries and you'll need to check my last post to understand why it's with mixed fruit instead.  No matter what, this ice cream had to be lemon for me.  It's creamy lemon, kinda like lemon curd ice cream.  I wanted to drink the custard.  I would honestly just make the ice cream and forget the fruit but if the fruit was roasted strawberries then it might be too good to resist.


Lemon Ice Cream with Mixed Fruit Mush  adapted from epicurious.com
serves about 8

6 egg yolks
2 heaping tbsp lemon zest
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 cup mixed fruit
1/3 cup sugar

Combine the milk, cream, sugar, salt and lemon zest in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Heat slowly over medium heat until almost coming to a boil.  Turn the heat down to low.
Slowly add a ladle of the heated cream mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.  Add a little more of the cream to the egg yolks.  Then pour the egg yolk mixture back into the cream mixture.  Stir over med/low heat until the custard coats the back of a wooden spoon and stays separated when you run your finger through it (a candy thermometer should read 170°F)
Pour through a seive into a bowl and add in the lemon juice.  Cool custard a little then cover with clingfilm (place the clingfilm right on the custard so that it coats it completely).  Chill until the custard is cold (mine was chilled overnight).
Just before finishing the custard in the ice cream maker:  Combine the mixed fruit (rhubarb, blueberry, cherry for me) and sugar together in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Bring to a simmer and turn the heat down to med/low.  Simmer for about 15 minutes or until most of the liquid cooks off and the mixture is almost jam like.  Set aside to cool.
Finish the custard according to the instructions on your ice cream maker (Mine took about 20 - 25 minutes)
Remove the ice cream from the machine and loosely mix (I just did a couple of stirs to mine) the fruit through the ice cream.  Transfer everything to an airtight container and place in the freezer to harden.
Thaw for a few minutes to soften before serving.

The school where I work is a rather unique place.  It's a school - a full academic school.  It's an all boys school.  The school goes from grades 3 through 12 and there is only 1 class per grade.  Therefor, it's also a pretty small school.  Every single boy who attends our school has been auditioned and academically tested.  The reason for the screening is that each and every boy sings each and every weekend at the Cathedral that lives right next door to our school.  It's a boys Choir School.
Each year the Cathedral thanks the boys for the dedicated work by providing them with an ice cream day.  A local company comes to the Cathedral grounds and serves ice cream to all of the boys - not the teachers (this is important to note as it seems to have been a sore point over the last two or three years and because one teacher managed to score ice cream this year... only one teacher).  As you can imagine, this ice cream day is a highlight for most of the boys.
How it works is a big scoop of ice cream gets plopped onto a cold slab of granite (I guess) which is kept cold from some kind of refrigeration contraption under the stone.  The eater then chooses additions like gummy bears, marshmallows or sprinkles (god forbid fruit) and it gets all mixed together on the cold slab.  Then it gets scooped up and plopped into a waiting cup.  The boys grab a spoon (totally optional apparently) and go to it.  I happened to be on camera duty this year and here's what it looked like.

Sprinkles - waiting to be scooped into ice cream or poured straight into some boys waiting mouth.

This is what the slab looks like after abut 30 kids come through.

This is what all of that leftover everything looks like when it gets scooped into a cup and then given to an eagerly waiting teacher... the only teacher to get ice cream.

It's high time that something sweet and indulgent showed it's face here.  You deserve it.  You've endures so much from me over the past weeks.  Rants about Italy - blah blah blah we're all so happy that you went to Italy.  Lists about surviving with 180 boys for weeks on end - Boo, poor You having teaching at an all boys school.  Going on about the weather and when will it finally be spring anyway.  Blubbering about my home life and giving recipe upon recipe of things that have nothing to do with treating yourself.  Whining about how busy things have been and chiming on about how excited I am about getting some rhubarb this year.
Last weekend we had an extra day off.  D completed a fantastic DIY project with our neighbour in the backyard.  They fixed the fence.  It was in a state.  Falling over, you know how it goes.


All finished, it looks great and now my raspberries are not getting crushed by a falling fence.  However, my rhubarb took a hit.  A bad hit.  A deadly hit.  It's over.  No rhubarb this year.


My heart broke a little on one side - chipped right off.  I've ordered some for my food box and I'm not going to say any more about it.
I decided to let it go and drown some cherries in vodka because somehow I knew that would help me feel better.  So that totally happened.  Cherries left the freezer.  They got drowned in vodka and maple syrup and they were very very happy about it.  Drunk with happiness.  Then those gorgeous, drunk, bad boys got roasted.  Slowly and lovingly roasted.  The cherries were then chopped in their beautiful juice and thrown into the best vanilla ice cream I've ever made.


Ice cream is something I really need to indulge in more.  Homemade ice cream is possibly one of the very best things going.  The simplicity of making something with so few ingredients - cream, milk, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla - is more than comforting, it's sheer beauty.  I needed beauty in my life this week.  There is so much going on.  So much sadness and sickness and hurt and busy that needs balancing out.  I got told earlier in the week that I'm mean.  Maybe it was one of my kids or somebody at work, I can't even remember.  It was probably a joke but it got me thinking.  I am mean sometimes.  It's weird - when I like you I hurl insults at you.  I'm joking of course when I do it - it's all in good fun, right?  Sarcastic and funny.  I thought about how my sarcasm was kinda like those boys in Gr 1 who liked me.  How did I know they liked me?  They bit me... or maybe just punched me in the arm or something.  Their hurting me was actually them 'liking' me except how am I supposed to know that because I'm at school in the nurses office getting a plaster and hoping that I don't have to get sent in for a tetanus shot.  Yup - that's me sometimes only I use my words (isn't that what we're supposed to do) instead of my hands (or teeth as the case may be).  Blech.  Sometimes introspection sucks.  What am I going to do about it now that I know?  For now I'm going to eat ice cream because the fat will help me feel better about myself - I'm not even kidding about that.


I'm going to go and get together a list of some kind of crap that you could probably not care less about for my next post.


Drunken Cherry and Vanilla Ice Cream adapted from epicurious.com
makes about 750ml or serves 6 - 8

1 2/3 cup cherries (I used frozen from last year's harvest) halved
3 tbsp rum/vodka or vanilla
3 tbsp maple syrup

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla seeds scooped out of 2 pods
4 egg yolks, placed together in a bowl

Combine the cherries, alcohol and maple syrup together.  Stir and set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 300°F
Pour the cherries and liquid onto a baking sheet and roast for about 30 minutes.
Cool the cherries completely and then chop then in their juice.

Combine the cream, milk and sugar in a heavy bottomed pan.  Heat over med/low heat until just barely beginning to simmer.  Turn the heat down to low immediately.  Add the vanilla seeds.  Stir well.
Pour some of the heated cream/milk into the egg yolks, stirring constantly.
Pour the egg yolk mixture slowly back into the cream mixture until it's all added.  Stir constantly (the mixture shouldn't come to a simmer again).  You should feel the mixture thickening somewhat.  You can test that the custard is ready by checking the back of a wooden spoon - dip it into the custard, run your finger across the back of the spoon and if the cream doesn't run back together and fill in the gap then it's ready.
Run the mixture through a sieve and into a bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap, placing the plastic wrap right on the custard (that way no crust forms on the top of the custard).  Cool completely and then refrigerate for at least 4 hrs.
Place the custard into an ice cream maker and run according to the specifications.
At the end of the run, as the ice cream is nearly set, add in the chopped cherries.  Run for another 5 minutes.
Scoop into a freezable container to firm up.

It feels like I haven't been here for a while.
I've missed you.
I'm not offering this as an excuse but only as a means of explanation: Let's just declare this out front - 3 bushels of tomatoes is a hell of a lot of tomatoes for one person to work through.  But it's done.  To be honest, I actually didn't quite do it alone.  D helped a lot when he wasn't out at a gig.  T came over and helped me with the last half of the last bushel as well... which doesn't sound like a lot but somehow feels endless (he went home with a litre of sauce for his trouble and we've already made a date to do it together next year - Hallelujah, I'm saved).  All told, I spent about 20 hours doing my tomatoes.  My tomatoes... for the whole year.  That makes me giddy.  It's like having a baby, after some time passes you kinda forget how much it hurt.  That's what it feels like when you pull out a jar in January.  You remember the good stuff and not the bad.
I spent so long doing the tomatoes that I forgot to eat.  All of a sudden it was 8 o'clock and I hadn't eaten since breakfast.  D had left for a gig.  Kid #1 was at a birthday party and Kid #2 was looking forlorn on the couch.  We took a break and got some pizza for take out because I was not cooking.  I ate almost an entire medium pizza all by myself.  The next day I was still finishing up and almost forgot to bathe.  It's pretty intense, this whole tomato thing and once your in it then you've committed until the end - no matter what.


So I also didn't get to make this ice cream.  I saw it a little while ago and thought that with the marshmallow's left from our cottage trip to Vermont that I could make the ice cream.  Then the kids ate the marshmallow's.  Then I thought that the idea of S'mores ice cream would be even better but I couldn't figure out how to get the graham cracker chocolate thing.  That 'thinking' delay pushed me back into 'Tomato Weekend'.  'Tomato Weekend' pushed the ice cream into a kicking off the school year ice cream.  It's all connected.


Whatever the reason and whatever label you put on it, you really should try this ice cream.  It's much better than I was expecting or hoping for, especially given the crazy weekend it was made after.  It came out smooth and it really did taste like toasted marshmallow's.  AND I think that I managed to solve the graham cracker/chocolate dilemma successfully.  I finished the ice cream so late last night that it was too late for the kids to eat any.  So it became their 'first day of school after school treat'.  I guess that means it became my kick off to fall ice cream.
I hope that you missed me while I was knee deep in tomatoes.  I really do.  I hope that this wonderful awesome recipe will remind you of all the great nights you had around the campfire and maybe it will remind you of me just a little too.


S'mores Ice Cream adapted from 'Clockwork Lemon'

about 30 - 35 big sized marshmallow's (half a 400g bad)
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2  - 2 cups graham crackers, crumbled
8 oz dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicon liner (this is essential).
Place the marshmallow's on the baking sheet side by side and roast for about 20 minutes or until golden brown on the top.
Remove from oven and cool.  If possible, crumble the marshmallow's or break them into smallish pieces.
Combine the egg and egg yolks and beat together until light and frothy.  Set aside.
In a heavy bottomed saucepan heat the sugar over med/low heat for about 1 minutes.  Add the cream and the milk and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Once the mixture is just about at the boil but not quite, turn the heat down.  Take a ladle full of the warm cream and slowly whisk it into the eggs.  Add one more ladle full the same way.  Then pour the egg mixture back into the rest of the cream mixture.  Stir just until the mixture is ready (the wooden spoon test is the one I use - dip the spoon into the mixture, turn the spoon over so that you can run your finger through the back of the spoon.  If the mixture remains apart for a few seconds after you've run your finger along the back then it's ready)  Remove from heat and run through a sieve.  Add the marshmallow pieces and the vanilla.  Stir until the marshmallow bits are almost dissolved and then cover with clingfilm (pressing the clingfilm right onto the top of the custard covering the whole thing) and cool in the fridge for about 3 - 4 hrs or even overnight.
To finish:
Pour the crumbled graham crackers onto a baking sheet and flatten out as much as possible.
Over a double boiler melt the chocolate until it is a pouring consistency.  Pour the chocolate over the graham cracker pieces and then stir to coat.  Set aside to cool and set.
Pour the cream mixture into an ice cream maker and churn until it's the consistency of soft serve ice cream.  Pour in the cooled graham cracker/chocolate mixture and churn just a little more to mix it in.
Pour into some reserved containers and freeze until hard.
Soften for about 10 minutes before serving.

As you know I've been away.
During my time away from home I've discovered some new things in life that are in fact favourite things (that just might have ruined me).
1.  Well Water.  I didn't even realise that treated water tasted different because honestly I can't tell the difference between Toronto tap water and bottled water.  However when we were here I freaked out when I tasted the water straight out of the tap.  Now that I'm back in T.O. I'm having trouble re-adjusting.
2.  Beef Jerky.  Apparently we're all sold.  I never ever thought that kid #2 would go near the stuff but he did and even he loves it.


3. Beer.  Thank you Vermont.  'Nuff said.


4. The awesome results of zucchini plant fertility treatments... with a paint brush.


5. Unexpectedly seeing a field being plowed by two horses and a rear plow... in upper New York State(!)  Wish I could have taken a picture but we were on the Highway and it was gone before I could've gotten the camera out and shutter bugging.

6.  The taste of real campfire S'mores really cannot be overstated.


7.  THE Best Lunch EVER.


7.  Needing to go back.  This is not a proper kind of favourite thing but now I discover that I've got to go back to Vermont in order to continue on my beer tasting journey and to discover the joys of raw milk cheese.
I'm going to get on the blogging recipe train just now but in the meantime just give me a little time to bask in the post vacation glow.  It's coming soon though because I have some mondo zucchini and tomatoes that need attending to.


Just an FYI, if you find yourself in Stowe, Vermont then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a visit to 'Laughing Moon Chocolates'.  Some amazing chocolates, great local crafts, an amazing mission statement and if you are there when Amelia happens to be working tell her 'Wanda from Toronto' (with the cute kids) sent you.  She'll treat you right.