Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream (Dairy free)

It’s been too long since we talked about ice cream. After all, it’s one of summer’s primary food groups if you count popsicles, smoothies, and milkshakes in there too.

I think the biggest thing I miss being dairy-free is ice cream. It might even beat out butter cravings. Fortunately we live near an inspiring ice cream shop that turns out some of the best dairy-free ice cream that is on a rotating flavor schedule so I never get tired of a flavor.

But really, you can’t go out for ice cream every night. So I started playing around at home. We made some delicious sorbets. But this new try is the kind of thing you start thinking about in the middle of the afternoon and can’t always wait until after dinner.  Perfect for midnight snacking straight out of the container. But also fancy enough to serve in pretty glass dishes with pretty silver spoons that you’re selling for a friend but had to sneak into a photo.

This isn’t a very original recipe, since cherries and chocolate have been put in ice cream since the beginning of ice cream.  There are fresh bing cherries at the farmer’s markets right now, so it’s time to get your hands dirty (literally) and make some cherry ice cream.

Most cherry chocolate chunk ice cream recipes call for pureeing some or most of the cherries into the ice cream. I prefer it with the cherries just chopped and mixed in. It makes each bite explode with the distinct flavors of cream, cherry, and chocolate. But if you want it to be more pink, puree a couple cherries into the milk before churning.

Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

Two 13.5 oz cans of full fat coconut milk
2 Tablespoons corn starch
1/2 to 1 cup of pitted chopped bing cherries
A healthy sized pinch of salt
A dash of vanilla
3 T of sugar or honey
a generous 1/2 cup of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips

Mix the corn starch into a bit of the room temp/cold coconut milk to blend. Heat the rest of the coconut milk to a simmer in a saucepan, then stir in the corn starch mixture until completely smooth. Add everything else but the chocolate and chill completely.
Freeze according to your ice cream makers instructions.   (Add the chocolate during the last couple minutes of churning).

A New Super for the Beehive

Each level or box of the beehive is called a super. Large super, medium super, small super. Our hive needed an expansion as Queen Hilda makes alot of babies. A little glue, some clamps, a too-big nail gun, and some varnish later, we had two new floors for the hive.

Independence Day in the Mountains

In our effort to squeeze in as many camping trips as possible during the sunny months, we went camping over Fourth of July. Really, the holiday was very accommodating to fall on a Friday to give us a three day weekend. We escaped to the mountains away from the crowds and the noise. Up to where showers are optional and housework is minimal.

We drove up to the Icicle Creek area outside of Leavenworth, WA. And since one of the friends we went with had spent a summer backpacking the area, he knew all the secrets. Such as where to camp to avoid the masses of generators and crowds and stereos of the normal campgrounds, yet still on a creek for water. We’re really starting to get very attached to the blessing of a 4runner that allows us to use out-of-the-way-not-a-campground sites. Ryan has almost won me over to an additional 2 inches of lift. Almost. But then I try to get into it in a pencil skirt and all bets are off.

We hiked to Stuart Lake one day. It was longer, buggier, and colder than we expected; and as beautiful and worth every minute as we’d hoped.

Ryan took a nap break.

Andrew fishing a Nalgene out of the lake.

Ryan finally has a Charcoal Grill

This whole saga started a couple weeks ago, when we helped a friend pick up their new grill. It was a beautiful shiny Weber grill with a hybrid of charcoal and gas, a perfect choice. It’s a charcoal grill, but the coals are kick started with a gas ignition.  Coals are ready to roll in 20 minutes flat.

We love our little Craigslist gas grill, but Ryan was pretty impressed with this new one. And he’s been wanting a charcoal grill for a while.

So he talked to his people.

Whenever Ryan decides he going to find something, I picture him as a mob boss. He tells mafia members to get him something, and they scatter, only daring to come back when they have something. Seriously, that is what plays out in my head when he says he’ll look for something. I think in reality it’s more his patience and searching that really wins the prize. But I prefer the pinstripes and cigars version playing out in my head.

So he talked to his people.

And a couple days ago his best friends at Got Junk came through for him.  It is the previous model, but a beautiful, practically unused Weber charcoal gas hybrid grill. Originally priced much too high, Ryan went back the next day, and that day’s attendant gave it to him at half price for $10.  And as always at this place, Ryan got them to throw in a little extra, a replacement gas line.  (When he bought a ladder they threw in a cooler, and we got a baseball bat with our fire pit). After some cleaning and a new grate, we were ready for grilling.

We’ve decided to go with wood lump charcoal instead of briquettes.  It’s a little more expensive, but the residual wood particles add a wood-smoked flavor to the grilling, besides being free of the chemical additives.

Bring on the BBQs.

 

Salmon Fishing

When Ryan gets to go fishing he becomes as excited as I imagine he was a small boy on Christmas. When we were camping, as soon as the sun was up enough to see, he was sitting up and putting on all the available clothing layers to get out of the tent and to the lake. Whenever we arrive at a river or lake, he starts physically shaking in his excitement and hurry. Everything else has left his mind in the immediacy of the moment. I’ve learned to simply follow with my book and camera and sit and wait an hour or two until he’s ready to talk while he casts.

I love this hobby of his, since it feeds our wild salmon addiction for much cheaper than Costco or Trader Joe’s does.  But I must confess I have a hard time being interested in participating. (All his other hobbies I enjoy with him, only exceptions are fishing and watching televised golf) Perhaps one day when he teaches me to fly fish…

He had the opportunity to go salmon and crab fishing on a boat with some friends a couple weeks ago.  The invitation involved ten hours on a boat with crab pots and several big fishing poles, so it was essentially heaven on earth.

Thanks, Stefan, for the photo!

He brought home a nice big salmon, and between them they had four Dungeness Crabs. (caught 34 in the pots, but 30 were female and had to be released.) We feasted on the fresh crab with our friends that evening. Two nights later Ryan grilled some of the salmon for me for dinner. Crusted in salt and pepper with a little olive oil, it was delicious.

That expedition just whetted his appetite. This last weekend we went fishing twice. We drive up to the Snohomish River, about forty minutes from our house. You can slide down the muddy river bank and sit beside the river and fish. Ryan fishes for as long as he can, and I sit nearby curled up in a quilt with a book. (Until is starts raining, then I retreat to the car.)

As the salmon are all heading up river to spawn, the water was teeming with them. Multiple fish were jumping in front of us at the same moment. He caught a nice pink salmon last weekend, and a couple Cohos this weekend.  I can’t wait to pull those out for dinner this winter.

Tourist in Our Own City

We played tourist in Seattle last weekend. Ryan had gone fishing all day on Saturday, and we don’t like crowds and traffic much anyway, thus trying to get out of town didn’t seem appealing. So it seemed smart to not try to get away on our long weekend. Instead we wandered downtown Seattle for the afternoon, which was calm and laid back since it was a Sunday and most businesses were closed through Labor Day.

If I were into hash-tagging, this post would be tagged with comfortable, end of summer words. Tags that reminisce of wandering hand in hand warm breezy streets with your husband, sipping iced coffee.  Something about agonizing over a soda flavor purchase, window shopping for everything from wood table to fancy shoes, people watching from a park bench, and the non-existent word that could encompass the sensory explosion that is Pike Place Market.

We even did the incredibly cutey touristy thing and took a photo outside the restaurant where Ryan took me on our first fancy dinner date, almost four years ago.

After a rather unremarkable dinner, we went for drinks at Vessel. While it was a little too pretentious (yet not snobby) to be my absolute favorite Seattle cocktail bar (I like quiet corners and unassuming people) it was an incredible experience. Thankfully it was a slow Sunday evening, so we could sit at the uncrowded bar and watch Kevin the bartender at work. My champagne cocktail had some sort of apricot liquor in it, and was perfectly smooth and sippable. Being slow drinkers, we kept wishing the people around us would order drinks so we could watch Kevin make them.

He hand-chipped and shaped a round ice cube (from a big block of ice) that just fit into a scotch glass for one drink. When he poured the drink from the shaker over the sphere in the glass, the amount fit exactly, with the last drop it stretched the liquid tension across the top of the glass, but did not break. One drink required shaking in a vacuum sealed shaker. Another drink was poured into a glass that he prepped with spritzed alcohol, put a match to, and poured a perfect steady stream of liquid  into a blue-yellow cloud of flame in the stemmed glass.

Here’s a little bragging side note about Ryan’s amazing resourcefulness.  On the way downtown the motorcycle cut out and died. After 20 minutes and pulling apart everything  he could on the side of the road with a screw driver, he decided the starter fuse had blown. He replaced the fuse and it started up like a dream. It’s makes me so thankful my husband is handy. When the bike dies he just starts pulling wires and screws and testing things until it starts again. I am generally useless in these situations except for taking pictures and holding the seat open so it doesn’t slam on his hands as he pulls apart the wiring.)

Alaska Lake

No, not in Alaska.  The trailhead is about an hour outside of Seattle just over Snoqualmie pass. Perfect for a quick weekend backpacking trip so Ryan could fish in peace.  My sister came with us, and since she didn’t get off work until 2pm on Saturday, we had to move pretty quick on the way up.  The last brutal uphill mile is not a maintained trail, so we did have to pause a few times looking for the next strip of bright trail-marking-tape or cairn built by a previous friendly hiker.

We spent most of Sunday relaxing and enjoying the Lake.  Ryan fished for about five hours, taking only one quick break for coffee and oatmeal.

To give you a landmark of where we were, the Pacific Crest Trail stretches across the ridge on the opposite side of the lake.

When we first arrived, we did some scouting for a good campsite, since the three at the lake were already taken. We ended up back at the main lake access, and found a nice spot between a couple fallen trees.

Mostly we were eager to be as far as possible for a group of six young people who did not understand how loud and obnoxious they were. Who play music at a wilderness campsite? Thankfully they left early the next morning, leaving the rest of us in the quiet. (We also may have failed to feel sorry for the one that fell into the frigid lake water while he was trying to fill his water bottle.)

Ryan was up at dawn the next morning, unable to wait any longer to get his line in the water.  He did a little fly fishing, but mostly spinning reel fishing. He caught half a dozen little fish that we set free again, and couple keepers that we fried for lunch.

The after picture.  Taken right at the amazing moment when you get to take your hiking shoes off.

Brooks Memorial

The semi-annual family camping trip was last weekend. The weekend that bordered on Glamping, we spent most of the time around a campfire, some time exploring the area, and threw around a great deal of sarcasm. Our two side-by-side campsites had five tents, one little backpacking tent for each couple and a wee one for Grace, and Old Yeller, the parent’s big yellow dome tent that we’ve been camping since we were toddlers.

The first evening we were there, we were asked if we were part of the Sasquatch hunt that was in the area.  There had been a few sightings and while most of the hunters were gone and the festivities over, there were a few folks remaining. Now while I know we’re not totally normal, do we really look like Sasquatch hunters? But it was a good information for when you think you might want to stumble into the woods for a midnight bathroom break. Even a girl in pajamas might look like Sasquatch to an eager fan.

We explored some of Eastern Washington’s tourist activities. The Maryhill Museum, including the Stonehenge memorial (know affectionately as Fauxnhenge), the Mary Hill Winery for some wine tasting, and lunch at the Glass Onion. There was also a brief trip to the local observatory to look at the sun through a telescope. (Mom couldn’t resist the one educational field trip option)

On the way home, Ryan and Grace and I took the scenic route to jump in the Yakima River. The water was so cold it made your feet and ankles ache.  So Grace and I only made it in thigh-deep. Ryan went for a full dunk.

Adding to Life Skills

I think that every month I am married to Ryan, I learn another skill. Generally the learning process also includes stains of some sort on my body and clothes, or a new bruise, as I am a clumsy person and tend to get paint or stain or bruised 0n anything within arm’s reach.

This month, we went to stay at a friend’s beach house for the long weekend.  As part of the deal, we prepped the outside of the house for painting. We also started in on plastering the bedroom walls, and re-grouting the tub.  The guy at the hardware store when I bought the grout knife said “That’s hard work for a little thing like you”.  Which was sweet, and funny since at 5 feet 10 inches, I don’t get called ‘a little thing’ very often. He was correct.  Never ever ever in my life will I put 1 inch square tiles anywhere in my house.  I am too cheap (read Norwegian) to pay for something I could do myself.  And scraping out sloppily applied old grout with a grout knife is not a pleasant task.   The fine, heavy dust settles everywhere, including your lungs if you don’t wear a mask. You’ll be cleaning it out of the corners of a bathroom for weeks. Before I wrapped my head in a rag, my hair was coated finely in white powder.  I told Ryan that was how I would look in 20 years, he better get used to it.

But back to the prettier project…power washing, scraping, caulking and oil priming the outside of the little house was actually a pleasant task. It was hard work, but it was a beautiful location, it was sunny, and the sea blew cool salt-scented breeze across the lawn all day long.

The point of the exercise was to preserve the siding enough to last another 5 years. All it needs now is a coat of crisp white paint.

We were a block from a great little coffee shop for the cool mornings. In the evenings we walked the half mile down the road that cut through a golf course to get dinner.  We were coerced into playing music bingo in a pub, during which I tried to eat a rubber ice cube thinking it was a berry.  But really, if you’re going to put little round pink rubber pieces in the bottom of a martini, you might warn a girl it’s not food.

A Weekend Away

We always come back from a weekend in Moscow physically exhausted, but very happy. We tend to stick around on Sunday afternoon just a little too long.  The guys open another beer.  Someone finds another treasure trove of a interior design magazine.  Another kid need a snack, which means it probably time to brew another latte made with almond milk.

And then it’s 8:30 pm, four and a half hours past our departure time goal, and we’re faced with the long drive back to Seattle. After a long dark drive, we roll into our bed at home at 1:30am, and roll back out at 6am for work. And so Monday night is one of those night we get home from work, eat, and go to bed at 8:30.

But spending the time with the Moscow crowd of family is always worth it.  This  time we had the added bonus of Ryan’s mom being in town. We went to see the church building Ryan’s brother is the contractor on remodeling from an old warehouse to a church building. I squeezed in quick visits with a couple old friends (and missed too many more). Ryan soaked up the comfort of his home town. And we spent plenty of time relaxing with family. Uncle Ryan is very popular because he will bounce on the trampoline and play nerf war and so much more.

The littlest nephew (of the 8 nieces and nephews we visited) is almost 3, and brimming with personality.  He says ‘bing’ with the a perfect ringing bell tone at random intervals or when he gets something he wants. And he even got his dad to bounce him on the trampoline. We’re not sure who had more fun with that one.

And in spite of living in Seattle, a meca of markets, the Moscow Farmer’s Market remains Ryan’s favorite, so we wandered it, drinking coffee and eating baskets of sun-warmed raspberries and tiny, delicious donuts.