Four Cheeses are Better than One

We had a handful of visitors swing by our place in Dallas. Just a handful (Andy, Bea, Jill, Eric, Bruce, Rona, am I forgetting anyone else?) in a whole year.  When we moved to Richmond I thought we would never see anyone. Boy was I wrong (and glad to be). Andy -the best man- came the day after we moved in. We werent the slightest bit settled but he helped us get a little closer to getting there.

Kristen- maid of honor- came down from D.C. last weekend. We already had it on the books for her to visit but luckily we had a holiday and she took 1 day off so we got to visit for 4.5 days! Since I am nesting, I am all about comfort food. And what is better than tomato soup and grilled cheese.....I cant think of a thing.

You can probably guess what tools where used in the making of this magical goodness; the crockpot, the griddler and the ice cream maker!

Here is the recipe for the the soup. Kristen and I went out to grab our ingredients. I wasnt fully committed to what kind of cheese I wanted to use so I chatted up the cheese lady at Kroger. Not my friend from Whole Food but the lady at Kroger is totally cool in my book too. She said her favorite grilled cheese was mozzarella, provolone, cheddar and goat cheese. YUM! I already had goat cheese so I grabbed the other 3 and headed home.

Since I had been slaving over the soup all day. I left it to Jeff to make the sandwiches: grilled cheese on rye. I figured he would have a good time with the Griddler since that was more of a man thing, like a grill you get to use inside? (thanks shower hostesses!)

Maybe I was just tired after I had whipped up this soup and this unbelievable ice cream!  I mentioned before that Kristen had bought me that great book for ice cream and other frozen treats.

It was a really hard decision since I plan to eat everything in this book eventually. Here is how it goes:

2 cups half and half

1/4 cocoa powder

1/2 sugar

pinch of salt

1/2 smooth peanut butter

Whisk the half and half, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a large sauce pan. Heat, whisking frequently until it comes to a full rolling boil (it will start to foam up). Remove from heat and whisk  in the peanut butter stirring until completely blended. Chill thoroughly, then finish the process in your ice cream maker.

In the last 5 minutes, I added broken up pieces of Reese's peanut butter cups and topped it all off with hot fudge goodness. Ah, this is the good life.

I decided it would be best to keep the ice cream maker bowl in the freezer at all times so that I can just grab it when I need it for emergencies. Seriously, who has the time to wait for it to freeze every time you want to use it. Keep it ready for immediate use is the only way to go. 

Next we will have my Mom + stepdad followed by MIL+FIL, a one day drive by featuring BIL. Its going to be a packed house for T-giving. 8 people + 4 dogs. I accidentally watched Meet the Fockers (again) last week, not a good idea since our parents are meeting for the first time. Say a little prayer for me, Ill let you know how it goes.

Waste Not, Want Not

I think my mom taught me that saying. Thanks, Mom. 

For the last 10 years or so, I have been working really hard, "trying to make it in America" style. So even though, now times are good, I still like to practice my resourcefulness, just to keep it sharp. I mean, you never know.

I get on these kicks where I am all about using what we have. I can be a teeny bit indecisive so it is helpful to me when deciding what we will have for dinner, to look at what we already have and go from there. I dont like stuff laying around for too long, so I am all about putting stuff to use. Just ask Jeff.

This came into play last week and resulting in an amazing meal. First off, I had been craving lasagna. Back in Dallas, I had made a great lasagna and I remembered that I found the recipe by googling "best lasagna ever", and it was. Since I had lasagna noodles left over from the last time, I decided it was fate. Here is the recipe.

Since I am sure you are dying to hear all about my own personal lasagna making experience, allow me to share. First, of all if you make the recipe exactly as is, it is perfect. Everytime I make it (twice), once I get the sauce made and start putting it together, I think- This would be so good if I added mushrooms. I have not done it yet but if I ever do I will let you know how it turns out.

Considering my obsession with allowing things to cook ALL DAY, I made a little adjustment. First I cooked the meat sauce. Then I moved this yummy creation over to my new crockpot (Thanks Jessica!) and had it simmer on low all afternoon. I also love no boil noodles and that is what I had so I used them since that was the basis how this whole thing got started. BUT- I did not consider that when you use no boil noodles, the lasagna must be baked for 60 minutes instead of the 20 minutes the recipes says (you would boil them before). So that threw off my timing a bit but that is ok, we can work around this. Just eat later.

In my own humble opinion, no meal is complete without a divine dessert. Given that I have my very own ice cream maker now (Thanks Cydney!), it is my responsibility to put that sucker to use. Part two of Project Use it or Lose It, was choosing an ice cream flavor made of ingredients we already had that would also complement the best lasagna ever.

This takes me to my herb garden. I started this little herb garden with 6 plants in Dallas. Five survived (good odds for me) and I insisted on carrying them by hand to our new home in Virgina since the movers would not take them and I wasnt going to throw them away. I dont throw out a perfectly good herb gardens after we have been thru so much together.

I decided on Honey Rosemary ice cream since I had rosemary that I had grown my very own self and a giant gallon jar of honey from Catahoula Parish that my Dad had given me awhile ago. FYI, Dad, not that you will ever read this, I use this honey almost every day on something. It is SO good. You can see I have made a dent in it and I must like it since I moved it to Dallas then Richmond. Good Stuff!

The ice cream was very good. Creamy and an interesting flavor. Very good compliment to the lasagna. I added some chocolate chips to my bowl, because that is what I do. I dont know that I would make this often but Im glad I tried it out. I mean, if you can make your own and you have the ingredients lying around, why not.

I recommend this recipe, of all the rosemary ice cream recipes this one was the most simple, even though it was  a two day process since it required chilling overnight. Each step only took about 30 minutes, the same amount of time it would have take me to drive to the store and pick out a flavor, check out and drive home.  By the way, if you want the recipes, you should probably click on the words in a different color (maybe blue or orange?) above since those are links directly to the websites where I got these recipes.

Ice Cream! You Scream!

Right before I left Texas, my Mom and her crazy gal pals thru me a lovely bridal shower. It was really fun (Quite a few blog posts will stem from that day) and I couldn't believe that sweet Cydney Wilson drove 2.5 hours to from Baton Rouge to Jena and back to be there. It really meant alot to me that she spent five hours driving  round trip to be there. 

On the drive in that morning, she and I had a second to chat. Cydney informed me that she was very excited about the gift she was bringing me that day. She told me that she had made sure to choose something that we had registered for, but she didn't want to buy us a plate or silverware, she wanted me to think of her the "once a year I actually used it." I laughed and couldn't imagine what she was talking about but I couldn't wait to find out!

The present opening begins and when I get to Cydney's gift I am thrilled to find this:

If Cydney Wilson honestly thought that this baby would be collecting dust in a closet at my house, she has lost her mind! We moved into this house 18 days ago and I have made 4 different slushy treats and I believe there will be many more. I love this thing! Sorry Cydney if you regret this purchase since I feel like I have to tell you every time I use it.

I kicked off my ice cream maker adventures with a simple vanilla custard (delicious!). Since that went well, I decided to make a more interesting flavor: Honey Rosemary. This worked out well because I am also making an effort to use things we have. Since we have rosemary in my herb garden and we have a huge thing of honey that my dad gave us awhile back, I decided to give it a go. I found a good many recipes but this one looked like something I could pull off.

The great thing about living in Virginia is that I am now a quick 2 hour drive to my MOH, Kristen. Lucky for me, Kristen came to visit us this past weekend. We had big plans to break in the ice cream maker, we have been talking about all the delicious things we can make. As a bonus, Kristen showed up here with a fabulous birthday gift for me. And the fun began.

One of the first nights Kristen was here, our dinner menu was Roasted Tomato soup of Grilled (4) Cheese sandwiches. It was a great opportunity to use my new Crockpot (thanks Jessica) and our griddler (thanks shower hostesses). A full blog post will be dedicated to this meal. Back to the ice cream making......

After soup and sandwiches, we enjoyed chocolate peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter cups mixed in. I may have added some hot fudge since I don't believe in over kill . We got this recipe from the book Kristen gifted me. Did I tell you I have the BEST friends ever?

Last night, I decided to break out the Mediterranean cookbook I bought at TJ Maxx (for $3) awhile back. Soon, I will share the recipe for that dinner because it was unbelievable! Well, I just had to make us a little treat to top things off. Going back to my obsession with using things we have, I found a recipe for sorbet that required Rose' wine. I had bought a ton of stuff (including a bottle of rose' that I will never drink) when Marcello's in Baton Rouge went out of business last year. At a later date, I will share the details of how to make this delicious sorbet.

Its a dang good thing I started this blog today. I already have so many things to share. If I had waited 1 more week this intro to my ice cream making would have been a whole book! I know its super exciting and there will be so much more to come. Thanks, Cydney and Kristen for giving me such great treat. I love you!

Do you have any suggestions for flavors we should try?