Coffee Ice Cream Results...

I made the coffee ice cream - actually we should call it coffee custard. AMAZING!!!
The recipe is in my previous post and if you love coffee and you love ice cream and you're looking for something to do - MAKE IT! This isn't your typical coffee ice cream that really tastes like ice cream w/ a hint of coffee flavor - no this is frozen creamy coffee goodness!

It only makes a quart (which is 4 cups) but it is rich rich rich and if you can eat a whole cup you have a stomach for rich things that I could only dream of matching.

In the future I plan to follow the recipe as directed below - however when I add the custard mixture to the ice cream freezer I am going to add 1 cup of whole Milk to the mix. This should actually make it a little less rich. This stuff is thick, it is definitely frozen custard and not ice cream.
Oh, and 1/2 cup of heath bars didn't seem to be enough if you ask me - I used about 3/4-1cup of crushed heath bar - YUMMY YUMMY!

I'm not a photographer and I couldn't get the light right so the camera wouldn't focus correctly, please excuse my very amateur photograph - but you get the idea.

Sweet Treat...

I am bored just sitting around waiting for this baby to come. Baby is due Thursday - I'll be induced if she doesn't make her appearance by next Saturday morning - this waiting is about to make me batty.
Anyway, what's a girl to do while she waits....hmmmmm....Make Ice Cream! :)

I found a recipe today for Coffee Ice Cream (actually a custard based ice cream) a blogger I found had revised a recipe she found in a book and I have revised her recipe so who knows how much of this is other people's recipe and how much is mine. I'll give a shout out to the original author. I plan to take a picture of my finished product but that will have to wait until tomorrow. The custard/ice cream base is all mixed up and chilling in the fridge. Tomorrow, Adam and I will freeze it (hopefully right after church b/c I am really excited about it!) and then I will take a picture and give you a review.
Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Toffee Crunch is my favorite ice cream so the bar is set high for this experiment.

Coffee Ice Cream
from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz - revised by Correnta
3 cups heavy cream, divided
3/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups coffee beans (whole)-I used Starbucks Espresso Roast b/c the beans are strong and sweet.
pinch of salt
5 egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla
Brown food coloring paste - I just threw this in b/c I wanted it to have more color, I am ALL about aesthetically pleasing food.
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate, chopped (optional) - I think I'm going to use crushed Heath Bar
Instructions
1) In a saucepan over medium heat, warm 2 cups cream, sugar, beans, and salt until steamy, but not boiling. Cover with a lid, remove from heat and steep for 1 hour at room temperature.
2) Reheat the milk mixture over medium heat until hot and steamy (but not boiling).
3) In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and slowly pour the heated milk mixture with the beans into the yolks while constantly whisking to avoid cooking the eggs. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan.
4) Set the saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly, scraping the bottom and corners of the pot, until the mixture reaches nappe stage and coats the back of a spoon (about 8-10 minutes).
5) Pour the remaining cup of cream into a medium bowl, place med. bowl over a larger bowl that has ice in it. Set a strainer over the medium bowl.
6) Pour the custard through the sieve and stir it into the cream, pressing the coffee beans to squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Discard the beans.
7)Mix in the vanilla and stir until cool. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Stir in the chocolate and set in freezer to freeze.

I'll let you know how it turns out. I can't wait!!

Sweet Websites!

Ok - so my Pioneer Woman obsession has turned me on to two other sites I am now offically stalking. :)

There are some great ideas and beautiful food pictures on these sites. I hate cookbooks with no pictures so these user friendly - phototastic (I made that word up) websites are right up my ally. I can't wait for you to check them out...
Food Gawker
Picky Palate
Enjoy finding some really yummy dishes. The Picky Palate is a blog written by a mom who has picky eaters - her recipes seem to have reasonable ingreds - nothing hard to find and not too many ingreds in a recipe. She has some great ideas.

The food gawker is actually made up of many contributors so you just click on a picture of something that looks good to you and it takes you to that person's blog or website for the recipe.
At the very bottom of the FG home page there is an index that you can use to find recipes in a more orderly fashion (ie desserts, beef, chicken, breakfast, etc.).

Happy Cooking!
Heather

Craig's List Success...

I have been stalking Craig's List and garage sales looking for a few baby items I think would be nice to have but are not "needs" and I can't justify spending full cost on them or registering for them and having someone else pay that much either...

I found our changing table on Craig's list (a garage sale listing), painted it and made it just right for the baby's room.

I have been looking for a simple rocking chair that won't take up much room but would give me a place to sit and nurse the baby if I don't want to be out in the living room. Still hunting for this because either the chair isn't right or the price isn't right...Adam's dad is keeping his eye out at auctions too - it will come I'm sure.

Finally I have been looking for an exersaucer - those things are expensive and they take up a lot of room. I have been thinking I would just wait until Kaiya is age appropriate for one and then look, but I've kept my eye out for a good deal just in case. I have seen them at garage sales but they have been missing toys and have been pretty dirty and I just can't bring myself to pay $20 for something that needs a lot of clean up - assuming it can be cleaned up - ya know?

So on Craig's list this week was an exersaucer for $25 - the pictures made it look new. I looked it up on the internet and it runs for about $100. I went over to the lady's house to check it out yesterday. She says both her kids used it - she must have the cleanest kids in the WHOLE world because it looks like she just took it out of the box! Not kidding. So I decided I would go ahead and buy it. I had hoped to get one for $15-20 so I ended up spending more than I wanted but the thing is so clean - I couldn't have asked for a nicer one. I figure we can use it, others can borrow it and some day I can sell it on Craig's list. :)
Here's a picture of it - It's folded down and ready for storage.

Something Sweet

So I realized a few days ago that The Sweet Spot has not had a sweet recipe since I posted the chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookies...
That's just wrong! :)
I can't remember where I got this recipe but I tried it tonight and it's yummy and quick!

Rocky Road Popcorn
1 (3.5-ounce) package natural microwave popcorn (not the buttered kind)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups mini marshmallows
1 cup salted peanuts, optional
Pop the popcorn according to package instructions. While it's still hot, carefully open and dump into a large bowl. Add the chips and marshmallows. Return popcorn to the microwave. Cook on high until the chips and marshmallows get gooey, about 1 minute. Add the peanuts, if desired, and toss with a spoon until all the popcorn is coated. Cool until chocolate hardens, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a sealed container and tuck in a lunch box.

After the popcorn was coated I poured it out on a cookie sheet I had covered w/ wax paper (so I don't have to wash it) I thought this would help it cool faster and allowed me to go ahead and wash my bowl.

As for my cooking & freezing. I made the Chicken Spaghetti tonight. It's pretty good. Making the recipe whole I split it into one 9x9 pan and one 8x8 pan. The 9x9 I am freezing the other I popped in the oven for dinner tonight. Suggestions: more green pepper - like double. and more chicken - maybe 3 cups instead of 2 cups. use low fat cream of mushroom and low fat cream of chicken, it was still yummy and I can't imagine how rich it would have been if I had not used low fat. Also I used low sodium chicken broth. Serve with something light - raw veggies or salad or fresh fruit.

Enjoy!

I'm Freezing This..

As I venture my way through the Pioneer Woman's Website, I get REALLY REALLY Hungry!!!

This week I am going to make and freeze the Chicken Spaghetti for us to heat up and eat after baby gets here.

Since it's just me and Adam I think 1 recipe split into 2 8x8 or 9x9 pans should work nicely. One we can eat this week, the other pan we can freeze for later this month.

I also want to make the olive cheese bread and freeze some of it too.

Yummy yummy!!

I really need some distractions from thinking about when this baby is going to make her entrance into the world - it could be any day now - my curiosity will drive me crazy if I don't keep busy.

You Gotta Make This...YUM!

Ok so 3 posts in 1 day is pretty ridiculous - oh well, what can I say - I have a lot to share today. :)

My new addiction - The Pioneer Woman - led me to this great potato recipe that we ate tonight along with the BBQ Texas Beef Brisket that I finally cooked. These 2 dishes plus some leftover Mac N Cheese and a fresh peach I cut up made for a wonderful dinner tonight.

All of this good food and really I just keep thinking about having the potatoes again - like more than once a week - I LOVE THEM! And they are easy.

SO make the potatoes! Make the brisket too if you have the time - it wasn't tough at all, tender and juicy - it is spicy so be careful there if you don't like spicy make some simple adjustments and you'll be fine. I am SO glad my brisket is not going to waste. :)

Potato Recipe
BBQ Texas Beef Brisket

Enjoy!

Gift Giving...

I Love buying presents for people and for whatever reason I really like it when the gift can have some kind of theme to it.

Our niece is turning 8 on Saturday and I went to buy her birthday present today. I know she doesn't read my blog so I just HAVE to share what I got her...I'm pretty excited about it. I hope she is excited about it on Saturday.

My inspiration for her gift (other than it's for her) was earring because she recently had her ears pierced. She is very excited about having pierced ears. I thought I would get her some earrings but also one of those stands that has holes in it that you can put your earrings on so they can stay paired up and not get jumbled in a jewelry box. I found a simple - yet cute silver butterfly earring stand. I found 3 pairs of earrings: silver hearts, blue butterflies, and cute flower ones.

Then I went to buy her a card and found one with a cute butterfly on it. At the hallmark store they had little clothing outfits for webkin stuffed animals that our niece loves. I found a shirt and skirt outfit that was pink and purple with a butterfly on it that will look so cute on her webkin puppy - she is going to love it.

And then for the silliest part of all - I stopped by the candy store in the mall and they had gummy butterflies! They were too cute to pass up. I think she will love all these things. I don't think she is really into or not into butterflies but she loves earrings, she loves her webkins and she loves candy so I think I pretty much hit the jackpot!

Here is a picture of the gummy candies I bought. I really hope she shares one with me...they look so yummy and they are big - like almost 2 inches wide.

New Addiction...

I have a new addiction. A friend introduced me to a website with great recipes and the author of the website is hilarious! Plus there are TONS of pictures of the process and final product of each recipe - really over the top, but you can always scroll down to the bottom of the page for the direct recipe and skip looking at every step by step picture.

The author is a crack up, she has some personal things on her site as well.
Anyway - thanks Jen for the great new find...I'm sure I will be entertained for hours, days, weeks...I'm lovin' it!

So check out The Pioneer Woman for some great recipes and a good laugh - she's a hoot!

New Recipe

Can't sleep, so I am blogging. :)
I am starting to feel better though, I think the fact that I just got 4 hours of sleep in a row w/o a coughing fit or a potty break has something to do with the fact that I am totally awake at 4:30am. Oh well.

So, this spring we bought half a side of beef. This has been great to have so much meat on hand, especially with the rising cost of groceries. The problem is I have brisket and roast and quite a bit of it and I don't really cook either of those very often. Yesterday I decided I should hunt down a recipe to experiment with.

I decided to try and cook the brisket and found a recipe from the food network website for
BBQ Texas Beef Brisket....why not.
I thawed the meat and rubbed it down with the dry rub before we went to bed. I'm going to cook it today and see how it goes. My brisket isn't as big as what the recipe calls for so I may have to adjust the cooking time...hope I don't have dry brisket - that will make me so mad!

Anyway, I think this recipe is promising...I'll keep you posted.

Update

I did get medicine the other day - the nurse called me at noon and said they had called in a prescription for me. I am thankful.
However, I wish the meds would kick in faster.
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Still praying for healing and for rest. I can breathe better but still have a lot of drainage in both of my ears - hearing is difficult and Adam is not loving the volume of the TV - sadly I still can't hear it perfectly and I know it's loud. I have been using the closed captioning to help keep up with the Olympics. hee hee

Baby continues to be sweet and wait for mommy to get better before making her entrance into the world - Praise the Lord!

Stalking the doctor...

Seriously, I have been having cold symptoms since Wednesday night. I haven't had a fever but I've had a sore throat, ear ache, stuffy nose, sinus pressure, cough, etc. either isolated or a few symptoms at a time or all of the above at the same time.
Saturday morning I went to immediate care - they said, Keep taking sudafed, I don't have strep or infection. Sleep, drink water and good luck.
Saturday night I was bawling my ears hurt so bad. I called and had my dr. paged. He called back and said, keep taking Tylenol, chew some gum, try nasal spray, call him if my ears weren't better on Sunday.
Ears better on Sunday, just stuffy - slept lots. Had a great birthday dinner. Got more stuffy nose, drainage in ears again - I can't hear, throat hurting again. Sudafed not working anymore.
And my drainage is no longer clear, it's yellow and green and yucky! I feel like crap, although I am SO SO SO glad that my ears aren't hurting like the did the other night - I thought my ear drum was going to explode!
Monday morning left a message for the nurse at 8:30. Called again to talk to receptionist at 10am....it is almost Noon and I haven't heard anything. I want to talk to someone - I want an appointment or drugs or something, I need to kick this, seriously!

So I'm almost 38 weeks pregnant and have some kind of cold/infection something and I am getting very impatient and wondering how many times is too many times to call the doctor - I really want to just show up at his office and sit around there waiting to be seen, however I don't want to catch anyone else's germs while I wait, so I keep waiting at home.

Stupid insurance won't let me go to immediate care until my doctor either refers me there or until his office is closed for the day and it becomes my only option.

ARGH! I want some answers and healing before I go into labor and can't breathe to relax and push this baby out.

Down to the wire...

A week ago our basement was a few outlets, a shower, a gas fireplace and wood studs that framed out the walls. We got 2 quotes from some dry wall guys - chose the best guy for the job, hoping possibly he could start hanging sheet rock to form real walls and a ceiling before our baby arrives.
Two guys hung all the sheet rock last Friday - they worked non-stop from 7:30 am to 4:30pm - it was amazing! This week they have done all the mudding/sanding, and today they sprayed the ceiling - ALL DONE!
Adam can hang the lights back up tomorrow when the ceiling is completely dry, and get started on painting the primer on the walls. Currently all the things we had stored in the basement are crammed in our laundry room - there is a small path going to the washer and dryer. Our house messy right now, piles of things everywhere, dust everywhere - but now clean up and organizing can begin.
Now to pick out flooring and paint colors - we are going to double our living space - so exciting!
Mostly I am excited that the messiest, most dusty part is over before the baby gets here.

Speaking of things coming down to the wire, the baby could be here any day but in less than 3 weeks for sure - CRAZY!

Exciting times. :)

Free Stuff...I LOVE IT!

So today I rented my first FREE Redbox movies! FREE!
Go to...http://www.insideredbox.com/codes/
scroll down and you will see a list of codes and they will be color-coded to let you know what codes work and which ones aren't working so great.
I wrote down about 4 green codes (green = good code)
then I went to McDonalds.
The main screen on the redbox has a square at the bottom left that says "rent w/ a promo code" or something like that.
Push that, enter the code, swipe your debit or credit card (so they can charge you if you return the movie late), confirm your email address (the redbox walks you through all of these steps). Movie will spit out!
I got 2 free movies today - I love it!!!
Now I am going to rest, relax and chill with my movies.

I LOVE FREE STUFF - good free stuff anyway.

New Pictures - Nursery & A Seat belt for a Dog

I couldn't figure out how to get the slide show of picture in this individual post so the slide show is to your right in the margin.

We are continuing to prepare for Baby Kaiya. The nursery is done w/ the exception of hanging a mirror, a picture frame and her name (some painted wooden letters hanging from ribbon).

The pictures I took came out blurry and now we have some other things stored in her room while the basement is being sheet rocked so I will have to take better pictures when her nursery doesn't look like a storage room.

There are also a few pictures I took of our dog Justice today. She loves to go for rides in the car and I really like to take her along. She has never been restrained in a car before, but with a baby on the way I figure it is time for all of us to be safe and for the safety of the baby Justice needs a seat belt too. She still doesn't know what to think about this whole seat belt thing, but she is still able to sit up or lay down with her belt on so I think she will get use to it pretty fast. I need to take her for some more rides before Baby gets here so she doesn't blame the baby for her loss of freedom in the car. :)

Need Help...

I want to prepare some freezer meals. I am having trouble committing to preparing some because Adam and I neither one are big fans of leftovers and somehow I think freezer meals will taste like leftovers and not a fresh cooked meal.

Have you made freezer meals? Do you have a recipe you think re-heats really well and will satisfy picky leftover eaters?

I would love suggestions.

Maybe after baby comes we'll be so tired anything will taste good - who knows.

Wild

The Safest Place on Earth

click above to read why this is the safest place on earth

While flipping through channels on the TV this morning I stopped at Animal Planet. The show was about crocodiles and how a mama croc has babies. What I learned is SO wild, I had no idea!

Here is what I learned. The mama goes on shore, digs a hole, lays eggs in the nest (the hole) covers the nest with dirt. It looks like nothing was ever there.
Three months later the eggs will hatch, the mother will know the eggs have hatched b/c she can hear the squeaking noises of her young. She will gently dig the hole again revealing the nest. Some of the babies have hatched the others will hatch very soon, all the babies are squeaking, even the ones still in the eggs.

Here is where it get really wild - she scoops each hatched baby croc into her mouth, where she holds them in a pouch to keep them protected until they are bigger. She can hold up to 15 babies in her mouth.

The narrator said, "The same mouth that can rip a zebra to shreds is capable to being very gentle and caring for very small babies."

Anyway, the mama will take the babies to a save cove until they are bigger, they have swimming lessons and spend time in mom's mouth while she swims the river, she opens her mouth just enough so the babies can see out. It was so weird to see all these babies peering out from the teeth of a croc! The babies are all squirmy and trying to walk off or swim off, they are very adventurous and the mom has to be careful to keep them together, which is hard for her b/c once she has several crocs in her mouth it becomes more difficult to keep those crocs in and pick up other crocs to put in her mouth. She has not her hands full but her mouth full :).
She has to do this for a couple of months until they are bigger.

I am sure there is some spiritual analogy here. Right now I am just amazed at God's creativity in creation. Amazing!

Annoying!

Between being 36 weeks pregnant, the heat and the fact that we have workmen hanging sheet rock in our basement - I am confined to our home. This leaves me with a lot of time to play on the Internet, bake, clean and watch TV.

While watching TV today I had to turn the volume down multiple times during a certain commercial on the food network. Each time this commercial came on I had to turn the volume way down and then my show would come on and I couldn't hear a word they were saying.

Why is it that companies keep casting this LOUD SCREAMING guy to promote their products.

Now he does commercials for KaBOOM - Oxy Clean - super absorbent towels - and some kind of Hamburger cooking contraption! For some reason he must not believe that he has a microphone or maybe he was first a trained demonstrator for state fairs where he needed to yell - I have no idea. All I know is that the man likes to YELL EVERYTHING HE SAYS!!!!!!

He drives me CRAZY! SHUT UP DUDE! Bring it down a notch - seriously!

I know you know who I'm talking about....

Before and After...

Changing Table Before
(This picture from the seller, I forgot to take a before picture I was so excited to jump into project mode)


Changing Table After

I have been looking for a changing table for the baby room. I wanted something small and simple. I had been stalking Craig's List for baby items and garage sale listings to see if I could find just the thing for just the right price.

Last Thursday I saw just the thing on Craig's List, emailed the owner and picked it up.

This week I painted it, bought new pull knobs to match the other furniture, bought a piece of 2" foam for the changing pad (b/c the size is not standard and I couldn't find a pad to buy - dang it!) and made a cover for the pad.

It looks really good. Could not go better with the other furniture and the major plus....it gave me something to do inside on those HOT August days.

Do you like to rent movies?

Adam and I are Netflix users we pay for an account with some friends, so we share the cost and pass the movies around. It works great.

Yesterday I wanted to rent a couple of movies to watch. I hate it when you go to Blockbuster only to find that the movie you really wanted to get is all rented and you have to choose something different. Then you wander around the store trying to find a suitable back up, if you're lucky you find one. Then you pay about $4 to rent the movie.

A friend of mine suggested trying the Redbox DVD rental box at McDonalds. Rentals are $1 and they have new releases. Because of the heat yesterday I didn't want to stand outside at a box trying to navigate a new machine and choose a movie so I thought - maybe you can see online what movies are in the box so I can have my choices ready.

I FOUND A GREAT THING!!!
Go to http://www.redbox.com/
you can type in your zip code and it will bring up the nearest redbox. The site will then tell you what movies are available in that box, you can reserve the movie(s) you want and enter your debit or credit info. You have until 9pm the following night to pick up the movie. Then you have 24 hours to watch it - or you are charged for a 2nd day.

They had the movies I wanted to rent. I reserved them, drove to McDonalds, there is an option on the redbox screen to "pick up online order" I pushed that, then swiped my card and it spit out my movies! I was seriously at McDonalds less than 2 min. Amazing! The movies cost me $1.06 per movie. Much less than Blockbuster.

I'm still glad for netflix, but if you are waiting for a movie and want some entertainment the redbox is my new movie friend.

Target Clerance Item...Check this OUT!

Super Target in Wichita (and I'm sure other cities too) has this travel system on sale.
Regularly $189.99
Today $47.48 - I am TOTALLY not Kidding!

For whatever reason this deal made me really excited! I think it was a combination of the obvious deal but also b/c Target and I have not been getting along lately and I was majorly losing faith that it was even worth it to keep shopping there. Well even though their customer service can be lacking at times, they still know how to offer a great deal. They also had Post Raisin Bran Family Size 3 boxes for $7 pretty good.

Here is the picture of the travel system that is on sale. It is the Dot and Swirl Pattern.
If you know any pregnant people who need a stroller/car seat, you should call them - this pattern is very unisex and the price can't be beat - even at garage sales and Craig's list - I know, I've been looking.