I Scream You Scream...

We all scream for ice cream!

Saturday was one of those rare days that I did not have anything on the books.  I may or may not have kissed Joe goodbye when he left for work  (it was really early folks), and then I rolled over and snuggled in till way past the rooster's crow.  No commitments, none.

This is what I live for...putzing around the house, cleaning a little, clipping and snipping fresh flowers as I waltz from room to room with Mumford and Sons blaring....candles lit throughout the house in wafting scents of apples and spices.  Coco was perfectly content with the Saturday morning line up on the boob tube, and was also perfectly content with a lazy breakfast of self serve cereal.

It's days like this that I get the hankering to bake, or make, or craft...or whatever the spirit fills me with.  I set Coco up with all of her craft baskets spread out on the floor, and tasked her with lazily reorganizing them as she watched TV.  And, I went to town in the kitchen.

Ice Cream.  It's a staple around here.  Joe has been known to plow through a half gallon from sundown to sunrise.  I often awake to find an array of bowls, plates, and silverware in the bedroom from his midnight snacking.

I have a standard vanilla ice cream that I make, and then jazz it up with whatever we have laying around.  You can, of course, make the non-egg variety, but we always have an abundance of luscious duck eggs...so I make the custard version.  Here we go folks!!....

STEP ONE:  Scald two cups of half and half.  This means put it on low/medium heat just till the bubbles form on the top, then remove it from the heat.

STEP TWO:  While that is bubbling, separate 5 egg yolks into a bowl.

STEP THREE:  Add 2/3 cup white sugar, and whisk the yolk and sugar for a minute or two until it's light and fluffy and yellow ;).

STEP FOUR:  Slowly add the egg yolk/sugar mix to the scalded cream...a little at a time, whisking constantly so that the yolks don't curdle.  

STEP FIVE:  Put the cream, egg, sugar mix on a double boiler, mixing with a wooden spoon.  Do this for a few minutes, until you lift the wooden spoon out and can draw a line across it with your finger, and the custard stays.  Then it is thick enough.

STEP SIX:  Put the pan on the counter and stir in a little vanilla, and let it cool.  This is your base.  This is a good time to add cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger...whatever spice flavors you are working with.

Today, we are making Banana & Toasted Coconut - because we have over ripe bananas, and the tale end of some coconut from Joe's batch of granola this week.  You know it's a good day when Coco is still in her Rainbow Bright nightgown mid-afternoon. (a rainbow bright nightgown that was indeed mine when I was her age!)

At this point I stick the liquid mix in the Cuisinart, and slowly add the fixins.  Some other Cesarz favorites are peppermint stick, oreo, pumpkin, or whatever fresh fruit is in season.  Once it thickens a little, put it in tupperware, and stick it in the freezer for a few hours.  

If you don't have an ice cream maker, I have bypassed this step and just thrown the whole mixture in the freezer -it will set up just fine!

And, Voila!  Happy Tuesday Ladies and Gents!  xoxo, e.

A Girl and Her Chickens. or Chickens, A Love Story.

A proper introduction to the flock, of sorts, is long overdue.  So, let me formerly introduce you to my gals and guys....let's start with the chick, or the egg, or the...

Ok.  There is Sookie, Sheriff Eric Northman, Wanda Jackson, Susie Q, Lily and Rosie, St. Marie, Henny Penny, and Dolly Parton #1, #2, and #3 (they look alike), and my rooster, The Shiek.

We decided when we bought the farm to slowly add livestock over the years.  Year one - chickens.  So in March, one goes to Tractor Supply.  One buys heat lamps, feeders, and tiny, yipping and pipping chicks.  One also buys four baby ducks because their husband says "Please, I'll do anything if you just let me get those ducks."  MmmHmm.  And so it became the year of the chickens and the ducks.

It's March, keep in mind, and tiny baby birds have to live in your kitchen in totes under heat lamps, not outside yet.   Every morning they would hear me come down the stairs, and the excited cheeping and quacking would start.  And they grew.  Fast.  

I'm talkin' full grown ducks in your kitchen with no sign of spring in sight yet.  But spring came, and the coop got built.  The chicks and ducks made it into the barn, and before you know it, they actually started laying eggs!  The first two were like gold.  You'd think that we had never seen an egg before.

They give and give, and then randomly the smarty pants chickens start hiding their pretty powder blue eggs, and you get worried because they are "not laying," but really they have made a nest out of a dish towel in a corner of the barn, and outsmarted you again.

They peak in the doors for visits.

They lay gigantic double yolkers.

They are amazing.  And so, when you see a beautiful little bird for $15 dollars at the farm down the road, you pack a cat carrier full of hay, and you go get her.

St. Marie was a very welcomed addition to the flock.  She is a Golden Sebright bantam, and she is no bigger than a dove, and she is full grown.  She lays teeny tiny eggs the size of a quarter.  We lost a few and gained a few chickens in the first year (neighbor's dog eating chickens, other neighbors dropping random chickens off in totes) and St. Marie rounded us off to an even dozen chickens, and the four ducks (we'll get to them in a minute).  The day I brought her home, I put her down with the others, and the CCIP (Cesarz chicken integration program) began.  The others chased her away at first, and she would fly straight up, 40 ft in the air, and sit on the power lines.  And I would think, "Good God, I brought home a dove and am going to try and keep her in a coop?".    But after a few days, my two head chickens, Sheriff Eric Northman and Sookie (smartest, prettiest, best girls) took the little one under their wings, literally.

Which brings me to last night.  Chickens have assigned sleeping spots in their coop.  In the beginning, each night we would creep out to the barn at dusk, and the little chicken would be on the fence outside of the barn, shivering and trying to sleep.  I would place her into her new "assigned spot" in the coop and cross my fingers.  Each morning I would go out, and St. Marie would be sleeping up in the rafters, which is apparently where she wanted to be.  So be it.  Last night I went out to "tuck the babies in" (lock up the barn) and in true big sister form, the sheriff, my white chicken, was sleeping on top of the coop directly across from St. Marie...just to keep an eye on the baby.  They are like a perfect little family, and they are part of our little family.

Ok, just a word on the ducks.  I held them as babies.  I kissed them an told them how much mommy loved them.  I give them a fresh swimming pool every day, and share my cucumber slices with them.  And still, they think I am going to kill them every minute of every day.  They are my rotten little babies.  They rape and pillage the chickens.  They run away.  They quack.  They chase me with their heads down until I turn around and tell them I might eat them.   But, they lay beautiful, huge eggs every day and I make amazing custard and ice cream with them.  So they can stay.  Because we like ice cream.

The Bevy:  Hank, Henrietta, Peaches, and Penny.