Homemade Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

I am not a very creative person, so I do need to point out that I came up with this recipe by myself (with an idea from my sister-in-law)! So drum roll please.....

I am introducing Annie's Mint Chocolate Ice Cream:
yes, it's not chocolate chip! So there is no mistake in leaving that out! You will see....

Ingredients:
1 cup of regular cow milk
2 cups of heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar 
1 pinch of salt
1 table spoon vanilla extract
1/2 table spoon peppermint extract (or if you like it strong a full spoon)
a few drops of green food coloring
1 cup of Andes Baking chips (Creme de Menthe)

Instructions: 
- measure 1 cup of the Andes Chips and put them in a bag into the freezer (preferably overnight)
- set the stove to a low heat
- in a saucepan, combine the milks, sugar, salt and extracts and bring just to a boil
- remove from the stove right away and let it cool down a bit
- transfer it to a container that can go into the refrigerator
- let it cool there for about 2 to 3 hours, until really cool (again, overnight is best)
- get your ice cream maker out and use as directed by the manufacturer
- I add the mixture to the bowl and let it churn for about 15 minutes
- add the mint chips right before you are ready to turn of the ice cream maker off
- when ready, transfer the ice cream into a container to place it in the freezer (for about 2 hours)
- it makes about a quart of ice cream that becomes more like a quart and a half with the chips!

Now, why the green food coloring? This is from my kids. The first time I made this ice cream, I used only the peppermint extract and chocolate chips. It was okay for me, but my kids refused to eat it because they told me that the store-bought mint choc chip ice cream is green! And because I want to please my children, I added the color for their eyes only! It doesn't change the taste or anything. so you can leave it out!

Peanut happens to love MY ice cream just as much as the store-bought kind - which makes this Mami very happy! (Coqui is still reluctant - he has no idea what he is missing!) And Munchkin eyeballs my bowl as if she knew what it is.... I would assume she'll devour it just as Mami and sister do!

Blessing someone else

This blog is about me and my family and our journey together and our many blessings in this life. In a children song that we often play in the car, it says something like 'stand still and count your blessings, you'll be surprised at how many they are'. Very deep for a kid's song. Yet so true. I am constantly writing about how blessed I feel and we truly are!

So I want to share once again how blessed I feel but this time to bless someone else. My neighbor just had a baby - I wrote a birth story on it! So when I asked her what I can do for her, her requests were to cook for her. I thought I don't hear right - me, cooking? Have you not heard me when I said I don't like cooking? Have you not read my story on 'Daily struggle with dinner'?
So I told her I will see what I can do. I mean I can do errands for you, I can take the older kid and watch them for you, I can even clean the house for you if necessary. But cook?

When I got home, I thought to myself that she needs me for this particular thing, so I better get my act together. And after all, this does not involve any meat cooking. I can do Vegan, right? SO when I shopped for us, I shopped a little more than usual. And I started cooking. Vegan. The first day, I came with a small dish of lentil soup, not knowing what she would think of it. She liked it. Okay, I can do this. The second day, I came with a dish of mushrooms and couscous. She liked it even better. OKay, I think by now I was on a roll and I actually enjoyed it. First of all, someone needs me, so I better get to it, and second of all, she likes my cooking. One-dish-meals are the best and I eat them for myself all the time! Just the hubby and my son don't like it much.... I have to train them better, I guess....

To make a long story short, I provided five meals for her for the entire last week. I even baked a cake. I went shopping twice. And I took her daughter out one day, so she gets out of the house. And you know what - it felt soooo good! Just to be needed and to be there. For an honor to help. I loved it and I even loved the cooking. I am still getting my glass containers back, one at a time, and each time it reminds me of someone actually liking my food. How cool?

Now I have more confidence in cooking. Actually, I even have figured out how to make it every day with much less struggle. I talk to the Hubby and ask him what he wants. This is what I had been waiting for. So we are planning together! Yippy. Then I prepare everything possible when Peanut is taking her nap. Coqui is good at playing by himself for a while, though he will interrupt me occasionally. But it seems to work. SO either, I just have to warm it up for dinner, or I cook it then quickly on the grill when we come home from our afternoon activity.

Thank you, neighbor!

Daily struggle with dinner

A little while ago, a friend of mine has blogged about leftovers. Here is the link:
http://cbethblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/lovely-leftovers.html

Dinner is a daily struggle that I fight! It is exhausting and very stressful for me. All day I am fine, I can eat what I like and feed the kids what I think is healthy for them, at least most of the time.
But by around four or five o'clock, I am reminded of the fact that I need to provide dinner for my husband, my kids, and actually me, too.

Growing up in a German household, things might be a little different. Usually, Germans eat their biggest meal at lunch and the smallest at dinner. So naturally, I eat a pretty good lunch, and I think the kids as well. I mean, I don't just eat a little salad like I have seen so many other women do it. I eat something that I cooked for myself - Vegan mostly. The kids eat either the same thing or I make something different for them. But at dinner, I am just perfectly fine with just bread and butter and hummus or something, or that salad we talked about before! Coqui loves bread, so he doesn't mind when once in a while, we just have bread for dinner - as he eat real lunches anyway.

But of course, my lovely husband is not okay with just bread and butter for dinner. He usually buys stuff for lunch that hold him over until he gets home. But by then, he is usually pretty starved. So I should have dinner ready for him.... but unfortunately, not always! Yep, I am a 'bad' wife, in that department at least. There are two complications to the story. He doesn't like leftovers, and he has Crohn's Disease, so he can't eat everything that I like, actually none of what I like. He needs lots of carbs and protein!!! So here we go: what can I make??? I can't taste anything that I make for him because it is not Vegan. So I kind of cook with LOTS of luck....

Hope your dinner tables are not as boring as ours lately. I have such a hard time with it. But I can not complain, lately he has told me what he wants, and we try to pick things up together, planning for the week ahead! It helps. Thanks, Hubby, for being so patient with me!!! I love you!

Sunday Night Cooking

My husband and I have decided, though I have come up with the idea, that we cook on Sunday evenings together. I have a hard time making dinner during the week, due to various factors. So I figured in order for him to be happy with what is on the table, we should do it together. It gives us quality time together on the day of rest - I have more to say about that, but that it'll come in a different post!

So here is a picture of what we made last night. It's stuffed papers. The recipe comes from my parents. They have made it multiple times for my husband and he has liked it alot, so he wanted to try it himself. Of course, it did not come out perfect, but it was somewhat edible.



He had ground meat in his, and the last one in the corner was mine, stuffed with rice and soy ground 'meat'. Coqui only ate the meat balls that was made out of the leftover ground meat. And Peanut really enjoyed the rice that was added to the sauce.