Tuesday, July 6, 2010

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July holiday weekend!!! We tried to take it easy, hence my absence from blogging. In the past few years I have truly come to value our great nation’s freedom and independence, and I am humbled by all of the men and women who have served our country through the years. Their sacrifice and dedication paved the way for all the things we sometimes take for granted. After all, without their tenacity and selflessness this blog and our way of life in general would not be possible. Yay, America!!

The first annual Gingerbread Day – July 3rd (Gingerbread’s birthday) was commemorated with gingerbread ice cream made in our Cuinsinart ice cream maker:

From this recipe: http://www.serving-ice-cream.com/gingerbread-ice-cream.html

Gingerbread Ice Cream Recipe

Philadelphia Style

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Ice Cream Maker Time: Approximately 25-30 minutes
Makes: 1 1/2 quarts
Servings: Ten 1/2 cup servings

Ingredients:

1 cup milk
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp molasses
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 cups whipping cream

Directions:
If you don’t have an ice cream maker, click here.

Whisk milk and sugar together to completely dissolve the sugar.

Stir in molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Add heavy whipping cream and blend well.

Pour into your ice cream maker.

Churn in ice cream maker about 25-30 minutes or according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Enjoy! It’s a holiday party pleaser!

Helpful Hint: If you want a hint of gingerbread flavor, rather than a full flavor – just reduce the amount of spices you add to the ice cream mixture.
http://www.serving-ice-cream.com/gingerbread-ice-cream.html

It took 3 tries before it turned out right!

First try: The bowl wasn’t frozen enough
Second try: Dustin forgot to put the churn in and the bowl melted
Third try: Success!

We had a scoop each to try it when it was finally done…

It wasn’t the creamiest ice cream I’ve ever had, it was rather gritty, which may have been attributed to the spices and/or freezing it with just a foil cover in the bowl it was made in. But the flavor was right on! So it was good. Next time I’m going to try the custard version. I’m definitely going to try this again around Christmas, it tastes just like a gingerbread cookie. I was a little surprised that it didn’t actually call for any ginger in the recipe, though. I’m sure Gingerbread would have approved. We miss our kitty terribly. He will always be a part of our lives, though.

We were out most of the weekend, even though we previously vowed NOT to be, LOL. We managed to avoid heavy traffic by strategically timing our departures, hehe. We sneaked in a few All-American grilled meals in between. Like this salmon burger with chips + pineapple:

I was thaaaaaaaa-rilled to pick up a 4-pack of Virgil’s diet soda (sweetened with sorbitol, a sugar alcohol) the last time we were at Mother Earth’s. I’ve been looking for this stuff forrrrrrrrever! The whole bottle is only 6 calories and doesn’t contain any funky stuff.

I was actually looking for the diet root beer flavor, but they didn’t have it. So, I settled for the vanilla cream flavor. It was just “alright,” I didn’t like the vanilla cream flavor much. It didn’t taste like other diet cream sodas that I usually like, so I ended up switching to water halfway through. It’s also pretty expensive; $5.00+ for 4 bottles. I’m not going to completely give up on it, though. As soon as I come across the root beer flavor (hopefully soon!!) I’ll give it another try.

There IS a salmon burger tucked in there, LOL. I gutted out the inside of the giant roll from Hannaford, and piled on a ton of veggies. Yummmmmm

And finally, fresh pineapple for dessert. Fresh pineapple is my favorite fruit! SOooOOoooOooOOooo GooooooooooooooooooooD!

• 1 Trident salmon burger (130 cal) on a Hannaford Portuguese roll with a bit of Hellmann’s olive oil mayo, a drizzle of yellow mustard, LOTS of shredded romaine lettuce, a plum tomato, and red onion
• Handful of Kettle Baked sea salt and vinegar chips (ooooh, sooo sour YUM!)
• Virgil’s diet vanilla cream soda (6 calories per bottle)
• Fresh pineapple

On the 4th of July I had this amazing patriotic double-turkey cheeseburger salad:

All American processed cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese product in all its glory. HECK YES!!

• Bed of romaine lettuce topped with: grapes tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, EVOO + red wine vinegar, 1 ear of grilled corn on the cob shaved off the cob, two 4oz lean grilled turkey breast burgers (240 cal) topped with 2 slices organic American cheese slices (100 cal), and 6 no salt added bread & butter pickles (30 cal)

Calories: ~595

This salad was FANTASTIC!! Love, love, lovedddddd the grilled corn and, say what you will about processed cheese, it tasted freakin’ GOOD on this! It has so much flavor. Yummy! The kind that I buy has just 210mg sodium per slice, so other than the naturally occurring sodium in the other salad components, it wasn’t a total sodium bomb.

I’m trying to ease back into a more disciplined routine. I picked up a box of Culturelle probiotics that my doctor wanted me to try 3 years ago to see if it helped alleviate any of my symptoms. True to my impatient self, I stopped taking them after a few days rendering them, “useless.” But I’m going to give it a thorough chance, just to see if there’s any improvement. I’m tired of feeling so run down, it’s really taking a toll on my body. Some days I feel GREAT, but most days I feel really yucky, and it’s gotten progressively worse. I’m going to try out the probiotics and wait to see a specialist that my doctor in Atlanta recommended. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll give updates on my results.

It’s supposed to be 99F degrees here in upstate, NY today!! We’re keeping somewhat cool, or at least room temperature by having the AC on upstairs only so that it doesn’t compete with downstairs. Besides, cold air sinks, so it’s indirectly cooling off downstairs. But of course, hot air rises, so we’re battling that simultaneously, lol. We also have several fans going, but our office is the hottest room in the house due to the excessive computers and radiation boxes monitors. I cannot wait to buy a house with a finished basement. We’re going to pimp our office out and have the best cooling system evah! *giggles* I’m inspired to clean our bedroom… it’s cooler in there!

Stay cool, my friends! How hot is it where you are? Or, is it chilly in the southern hemisphere? Lucky!

PS. I haven’t seen Eclipse yet!!!!! We’re waiting for the drive-in to show it. *sigh* Well, I read the books, so I already know what happens. I guess I can wait. I guesssssss.

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Tagged as: 4th of July, 99 degrees, American cheese, Cuisinart ice cream maker, Eclipse, Fourth of July Weekend, Gingerbread Day, gingerbread ice cream, grilled, holiday weekend, hot, ice cream, Independence Day, Kettle Baked sea salt and vinegar baked potato chips, salad, salmon burger, summer dinners, summertime, Trident salmon burger, turkey cheeseburger salad, warm weather

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