Dogs and ice cream are great and all, but unfortunately they don’t pay the bills. Or satisfy all of my creative aspirations… So I work. And I get busy… And I don’t have the time to deal with wordpress updating and backing up and things… Next thing I know my blog has disappeared.

I’m going to slowly but surely get this thing back on its feet over the next few weeks. Then hopefully I can start telling you about all of the exciting adventures Spider & the ice cream maker and I have been having.

Oh, and there’s a new member of the team… I got a pasta maker for Christmas!

A few weeks ago the parents flew in to Michigan, my sister flew in from Oregon, and we all piled into a car to head up the California coast.  Destination: sunny Cambria.

We wanted to go somewhere we could bring Spider, and traveling with pets isn’t always convenient.  My mom came across a helpful website dogfriendly.com, which listed top US travel destinations for people with dogs.  Carmel, Monterey and San Luis Obispo were listed, but we didn’t want to go too far up the coast so we picked a charming dog-oriented hotel in Cambria.

Cambria Shores Inn is located on the quaint hotel strip Moonstone Drive, which is right on the shore of Moonstone Beach.  The inn was directly across from the beach, and the breezy and recently renovated rooms opened to a central gardens that were steps from the view of the ocean.  Upon check-in, we were given a doggy basket which included treats and a dog towel and some pick-up bags.  The hotel was happy to have our pooches, but wanted to make sure we respect their property.  We were also given a map-tour of pet friendly restaurants, parks and beaches by the friendly host.

Spider did as well as could be expected.  He barked occasionally throughout the night, but my parents, who were staying at the other end of the inn, heard plenty of barking on their end as well.  There were a lot of other dogs around, and while the 5 human enjoyed happy hour drinks in the beach chairs, Spider defended our patch of lawn from any human or canine visitors.

Sunday morning Mom and J toured the Hearst Castle, and Dad, Chris and I took Spider to the dog beach across the street.  Spider was thrilled to run in circles, play tag with the surf and dig a cool hole for himself in the sand.

Spider’s latest new trick?  J taught him to “wave”:

I love the farmers markets in LA.  If I sleep through the Silver Lake market on Saturday mornings (which I usually skip), I can head to the Atwater Village farmer’s market, which is growing in size, or the beheamoth Hollywood market.  Lately I haven’t been in the mood to face the crowds, so I’ll head to Atwater for a week’s supply of fruits, veggies, fish, bread and cheese.

Last week I picked up 3 baskets of strawberries for $5.  Fresh California strawberries.  Pictures of these beautiful strawberries to come soon.

I was planning to make a simple, stunning sorbet to let these flavors shine, but unfortunately I let my creativity get the better of me.  I decided to try a spiced strawberry sorbet, and searched my cupboard for cardomom pods, but found none.  I had done balsamic strawberry sorbet before – good, but wanted something different.  I found a jar of cloves in my hand and didn’t say no.

I should have said no.

Now I have an unwanted, unloved pint of bright strawberry clove sorbet sitting in my freezer.  On first glance it looks perfect.  On first taste it’s not so bad.  But as the bite goes down, the essence of cloves creeps along the tongue, down the throat, and won’t let go.  It continues for seconds, minutes, until the idea of another bite of strawberry sorbet, to wash down the taste of cloves, seems like a good idea.  It’s not.

Guess what?!  The coffee-almond-chip-gingerbread ice cream I made for LaToya’s long awaited Make Me Ice Cream Please!! prize has earned me a finalist spot in Fine Cooking Magazine’s Make-Your-Own-Ice Cream contest!

Guess what else?!  You can help me win the contest!  Go to the finalists page HERE and vote for mine at the bottom of the page after all the pictures.  Mine is the second listed – Coffee Almond Chip with Gingerbread.  Don’t get me wrong, some of the other entries look fantastic – coffee berry buzz crunch?  White chocolate with pink peppercorns?  Tasty ideas.

What would I win?  An ice cream maker!  This is a Cuisinart Duo, which has two 1 quart freezer bowls side-by-side for simultaneous ice cream swirl fun.  Maybe I’d use it for marathon ice cream sessions before the highly anticiapated yet still unplanned ice cream social (now I’m leaning towards early September).  Don’t worry, I’ll have the gingerbread-coffee-almond-chip ice cream at the social for everyone to try.

Thanks for voting! (PS – check out my original post on the contest for a link to David Lebovitz’s very handy ice cream recipe creator – plug in your ingredients & it’ll give you the recipe)

Spider had a rough weekend.  And we didn’t get much sleep Thursday or Friday nights.

I don’t want to go into gross detail, because the details are gross.  But after being woken up at hour intervals two nights in a row by a desperately crying puppy, I will never let my dog eat the dried fruit I drop on the floor again.

Don’t worry, raisins weren’t involved.  I dropped a handful of dried blueberries and cherries, and Spider gobbled them up before I could get them.  I didn’t think much of it; we’re fairly relaxed about Spider being our kitchen floor vacuum.  He does a good job.

The next morning I was worried, but I thought that after three wee-hour sessions and a good morning trip outside, he would have it all out of his system.  Unfortunately when our friend LAB picked him up to take him for a walk mid-afternoon, Spider had had his first accident in his kennel, which I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled about.  Here’s where I won’t go into gross detail, but to say that the poor puppy had a small red spot on his nose we thought might have been from trying to nose his way out of diarrhea filled kennel.

He’s fully recovered now, but had me interested in really what is safe for your dog to eat off the kitchen floor and what isn’t.  I would avoid the dried fruits if I were you.

Human foods that are toxic to dogs – check one of my sources for a more detailed list.

Chocolate (darker it is the worse it is)
Raisins & grapes
Onions
Caffeine
Alcohol
Yeast (think breads)
Xylitol (sugar-free sweetener in gum & candy)
Macadamia nuts (really?)
Fruit pits & seeds
Rotten & Moldy foods

There is a site on the internet advocating the health benefits of dried fruits for dogs.  This site has a lot of amazing (mis)information,  some of which I’ve highlighted below.

Although peanuts are not really dried fruit, they’re also appropriate for dogs. I have seen how in some farms German shepherds go around the fields in search for recently planted penis, which they eat in large quantities.

Last Sunday Spider started acting very strangely.  He was violently trembling and panting very fast.  His tongue has never hung so far out of his mouth.

We thought he may be dehydrated, as it was pretty hot that day and he had been outside for a while, so we coaxed him to eat ice cubes.  He wasn’t interested.

He was acting so strange that I thought I’d give him a treat to gnaw on while J & I had dinner in the front yard.  He left his treat alone and sat under J’s chair, trembling.  This was very unusual behavior.

So we loaded Spider into the car to take him to an after-hours clinic.  But as he got in the car, his shaking stopped.  He was back to normal, and he snatched up his treat happily.  The change?  The neighbors had stopped setting off fireworks.

I had heard that dogs were afraid of fireworks, but I’ve never seen a dog react like Spider.  I’m glad he doesn’t bark or pace or whine or seem to get aggressive, but his intense reaction does concern me.  The last few nights the neighborhood has been gearing up for the forth, and Spider reacts the same every time the fireworks start.  He often starts shaking before we can pick up that there are fireworks happening, but all the dogs in the neighborhood start a chorus of howls, so we can guess what’s going on.  He then stays very close to J & I in the house, and will hide under furniture at our feet if he can.  Last night while I was getting ready for bed he huddled under the bathroom sink at my feet.

I’m going to look into getting some DAP for the weekend.  DAP stands for Dog Appeasing Pheromone; it’s a natural pheromone that is supposed to calm most dogs down.  It comes in electric scent distributors, like air fresheners, or you can get DAP chews.  I’ll probably stop by K9 loft and see what they have in stock this weekend, if they aren’t already sold out from this week’s activities.  Check out this site for more info on dogs & fireworks.

PS – Spider thanks Ouzo for letting him get away and hang out on Ouzo’s comfy, firework-free bed.

Last week was rhubarb week in my world.  My focus: transforming my farmers market rhubarb into an ice cream that captured the essence of my Grandma W’s rhubarb pie.

I don’t understand that people don’t like rhubarb.  I grew up pulling spring stalks out of the backyard garden, dipping them in sugar, and eating them raw.  And when we were lucky, my mom would bake us a rhubarb pie.  Her mom’s recipe is a standard custard pie with merignue top.  Easy, tasty, and the oppositie of healthy.  I’ll sum it up: pile 2 cups of rhubarb into a pie crust.  Mix together heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar, and flour, and pour the mixture over the rhubarb.  Bake.  Then top with fluffy meringue and bake for 15 more minutes until the top is golden.  Result: perfect rhubarb custard pie.

I figured the translation to ice cream would be fairly simple.  Most ice creams are custard based.  The pie fillings ingredients are pretty much ice cream ingredients save the sugar.  So I decided if I wanted to capture the flavor of the pie, I should stay as true to grandma’s recipe as I could.

I baked the rhubarb with egg yolks, sugar, cream and milk until the top was firm and a little golden: pie filling sans flour.  I cooled, blended, strained, then diluted the concentrated rhubarb custard with more cream/milk.  The color is green-ish (the rhubarb was young), and I was tempted to add some food coloring, but I realized my raspberry swirl would be less dramatic if the ice cream were pink.  Since the meringue topping is essential to the pie, I made a soft meringue, cooked it in the oven until soft, firm and browned, and cooled it to add to the churned ice cream.  I discovered after dropping the first piece in that it would disinigrate into the cream in the churning ice cream maker, so i folded the meringue bits into the cream as I transfered from the ice cream maker.

I also added a raspberry streak (the departure from my grandma’s recipe – inspired by a recipe for raspberry swirl ice cream in The Perfect Scoop).  I muddled fresh raspberries with sugar, vodka and Grand Marnier.  They freeze a little harder/colder than the ice cream, but make a nice compliment.

My highest critic & most valuable taster, J, said this is the best ice cream I have made, based on the way it captures the essence of rhubarb.  I’ve only taken small tastings – I’m saving a double batch of this for the ice cream social!

Recipe: Grandma W’s Rhubarb Pie Ice Cream

*note – this makes two 2-quart batches.  For a single batch, cut the ingredients in half)

Rhubarb Ice Cream:
4 cups rhubarb, sliced
6 egg yolks
1 1/2 -2 cups sugar (I like things a little less sweet – if you’re afraid of rhubarb use the full 2 cups)
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk

Meringue:
2 egg whites
4 Tbsp sugar
pinch cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla (I forgot to add vanilla and it was fine)

Raspberry Streak:
1 cup raspberries
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp vodka
1 Tbsp Grand Marnier

Preheat oven to 350.  Combine rhubarb, sugar, egg yolks, 1 cup cream and 1 cup milk in a glass baking dish.  Cover with foil or lid.  Bake until rhubarb is soft and custard has started to set: 1 hr 20 minutes for the double batch.  Cool, then chill overnight in fridge.

To make the meringue, blend egg whites with hand or stand mixer.  When you reach soft peaks, sprinkle the tartar on top, and slowly add sugar.  Keep beating until peaks are stiff and glossy.  Fold in vanilla if desired.

Pile the meringue on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake in 350 degree oven until browned.  Cool and slice.  Store in an airtight container in the fridge if you make this the night before freezing the ice cream.

Blend custard in blender on high until the bits of rhubarb are incorporated.  Strain through wire mesh sieve into a large bowl.  This takes a while (20 min) and requires some muscle and a spatula to help the thick mixture along.

Whisk in remaining 1 cup heavy cream and 1 cup milk.  Pour into ice cream maker and freeze.

While the ice cream is freezing, mash the raspberry streak ingredients together with a fork.  Leave it a bit chunky for texture.

When the ice cream has frozen, transfer it into your freezing container with a spatula, and alternate layers of ice cream, raspberry streak & meringue slices (See top picture – this is mid-layering the ingredients during tranfer).  Cover with plastic wrap, then your lid, freeze for an hour, and enjoy!

My friend JR bribed me to help make a birthday ice cream for her friend Jessica.  I was easily bribed: I love making ice cream, it was fun to do it with someone else, and she gave me a rad portable (translation: stays frozen at the beach) ice cream tub from Crate & Barrel.  Thanks JR!

JR wanted to make something tailored for the birthday girl, so she did a little sleuthing and discovered Jessica likes fruit flavors, no chocolate, coffee or coconut.  That left things pretty open, but this recipe for Golden Raspberry and White Peach Sorbet seemed like a good starting point.

I picked up raspberries and white peaches at Trader Joe’s.  I had reached for the regular white peaches, when I saw they had organic white peaches, and they were the same price.  I usually opt for organic, but these didn’t pass the smell test…  They didn’t have much smell, and the non-organic peaches were wafting through the plastic containers.  So I bought a package of each.

When I got home I discovered my suspicion of the organic fruit was well-founded.  It was terrible.  Under-ripe, and hard as a rock.  So this was a non-organic peach and non-organic raspberry sorbet.

I peeled the peaches, blended them with raspberries and the sugar, and then stirred in Grand Marnier and champagne.  The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier, but I wanted the sparkle of the champagne to add a little bite.  I was afraid the sorbet would be too soft if I added too much booze, so I filled the 1/4 cup up about a third of the way with the Marnier, then overflowed the champagne into the bowl.  We tasted, thought it could use a little more bite, and poured a bit more champagne in.

Now that we had popped open champagne, we had to finish the bottle.  Meanwhile, the sorbet chilled in the fridge, then froze (softly) in the ice cream maker.  The final result is a soft sorbet, but not wet.  Perfect balance of a nice and ripe dessert straight out of the freezer.

Sparkling Peach & Raspberry Sorbet

6 white peaches, peeled and quartered
2 cups of raspberries, rinsed (I used as many as would fit in my blender)
1 cup sugar
1/8 cup Grand Marnier
1/3 cup Champagne or sparkling white

Combine peaches, raspberries and sugar in the blender.  Pulse till smooth.

Strain fruit into bowl through mesh sieve.  Stir and push liquid through: those raspberry seeds would be buzzkill.

Stir in Grand Marnier (or other orange liqueur) and Champagne.

Cover tightly and chill for an hour.  Freeze in ice cream maker & enjoy!

I’m not settled on naming this ice cream Good Bread.  It doesn’t really have anything to do with the flavor – a creamy coffee ice cream with toasted almonds and chocolate chips, layered with gingerbread.  Good bread was a nickname, or “code name,” for a high school crush, so I associate the name with secret desire.  Ha ha.  Runner up is “coffee treat drink,” which is appropriate since this ice cream was inspired by a friend’s fancy for gingerbread lattes from Starbucks.  Original gingerbread sundae here. Oh – no – new title.  Gingerbread almond latte.  I like that.  Thanks facebook friends.

So now that that’s aside, this ice cream is an updated version of my original coffee chunk, which I served with gingerbread in sundae form last fall for said gingerbread latte-loving friend.  Congrats LaToya – this ice cream was hand made for you since you won the last Make Me Ice Cream Please!! contest.

How was it?  Great.  Loved it.  Even J, who’s not the ice cream lover, craves it for desert (I made a little extra for around the house =) )

The difference was I made the coffee ice cream base from David Lebovitz’s recipe in The Perfect Scoop.  This version has more cream, so the texture is much smoother and more dense and full.  Last version was icy – too much milk, and I hadn’t figured out how to make a proper custard yet.  Step by step pictures on how to make ice cream follow.  If you want ingredient proportions, go check out The Perfect Scoop.

Infuse coffee beans in milk & cream (Intelligentsia Black Cat espresso)

beat egg yolks

add warm infused milk & beans to egg yolks

cook custard

add custard to cream (pour through sieve)

chill

Melt chopped dark chocolate with corn syrup to soften. This is drizzled into the ice cream in the last minute of freezing in the machine. The chocolate freezes into soft chips as it's drizzled in (without corn syrup the chocolate is hard and waxy).

Toasted, roughly chopped almonds are stirred into the ice cream before the chocolate, and the cubed gingerbread is layered with the ice cream when transfered from ice cream maker to container.

Coffee almond chip ice cream layered with gingerbread.

This week has been rhubarb week for me. Rhubarb on the brain. I bought some rhubarb at the Atwater Village farmer’s market on Sunday, and have been planning my rhubarb ice cream all week, based on my Grandma Werger’s rhubarb custard pie. Last night I made the rhubarb custard. I’ll finish the pie (oops – ice cream – Freudian slip) tonight.

After J & I had our epic journeys through Utah (road trip pt 1, 2, 3) and Colorado, we traveled to Iowa to visit my relatives for a week. We anticipated this leg of the adventure would be tough on little dog: he’d already been away from home for 2 weeks, new people & places every day, and less opportunity for exercise and attention.

We split Iowa into two visits: a few days in Manchester to visit my Grandpa W (mom’s dad) in Manchester, which included day trips to the Mississippi and tours of north-east Iowa, and a few days in Clear Lake, where my Grandpa & Granpa B live (dad’s parents).

We gave my Grandpa W an assignment: we wanted him to take us to a place where we could have pie.  Iowa pie is simple and wonderful and rather taken for granted in the state.  He instantly had a place in mind, and we drove to Prairie du Chien, Wisconson, just over the river from his cabin in Clayton, IA.  Hungry House Cafe had plenty of fresh pies for us to choose from, and I was thrilled when they offered rhubarb.  Jared had a wild berry pie with lemon crust, and grandpa had his classic lemon meringue.  Man that meringue was piled high.

The rhubarb pie was so good I decided to buy a pie and take it home, but they only had 3 pieces left, so they sold me the half-pie (pictured above).  They explained that I could order a pie, but they didn’t know when they would have another one available: they only made rhubarb pie when neighbors brought fresh rhubarb for the restaurant to use.  Another reason to fall in love with the place and the pie.

Visiting Iowa was so refreshing.  It was wonderful to see my loving family, and the strangers are friendly and happy to talk as well.

Spider had a great time in Iowa.  He managed to bust through Grandpa W’s screened door when we left him on the porch, so we had to reinforce the screen barrier by piling patio furniture.  Spider took a windy boat ride on the Mississippi, where he stayed close to our feet and seemed pretty freaked out for a while.  Once he got used to the rocking boat, he happily gnawed on his bully stick.  Pikes Peak (pictured above) freaked him out as well; we’ve deduced Spider is afraid of both water and heights.

We spent the second half of the week in Clear Lake, where my Grandpa & Grandma B have a cute little yorkie-poo named Daisy.  Couldn’t call Spider “little dog” anymore!

Spider got along okay with Daisy.  He did his annoying “I’m gonna bark at you cause I’m a bully” schtick.  Not cool, Spider, not cool.  The other night Spider decided to pick on a three-legged blind dog, half his size, who hangs out down the street.  It doesn’t seem malicious (we had some dog socialization lessons I need to write-up, and we confirmed he’s not malicious, just rude), but it’s obnoxious.  It would be great to expose him to more dogs in controlled environments so he could figure out how to effectively convince doggy-pals to play.  We’ll have to work on that in LA.

My parents came for the last few days of the trip along with the infamous Stella, who finally put Spider in his place.  Stella is a Chessie, and she LOVES the water.  She’s also a high-energy dog, so tossing the tennis ball into the lake & letting her fetch is a great way to tire her out.  This game drove Spider crazy, though, because Spider wouldn’t jump in the water.  He had no interest at all in getting wet.  I hope it’s not my fault for introducing Spider to water in less-than-stellar conditions (wavy Oregon coast, frigid Colorado lake).  His fear of water works to our advantage, however, when we take him on boats or around water.  He’s not gonna jump in on his own.

I lowered him into the water off the edge of the dock twice.  Spider is an excellent swimmer.  I’d toss the ball of the side, pick him up, put him in the water, and he’d grab the ball and swim straight for shore.  Of course then he’d sprint around the neighbor’s lawns looking for dead fish, happy to be free of his leash.  This resulted in my prying a rotten fish out of his jaws on more than one occasion.

Stella sometimes wears a life jacket when she swims, so she can stay in the water longer.  She likes to chase my dad while he windsurfs, but she can’t really keep up so after a few hundred feet she’ll turn back to shore.  The life jacket gives my mom peace of mind while she paddles around.  My parents also like to exercise Stella by taking her kayaking in lakes near their house in Michigan.  Getting some water exercise certainly breaks the daily walk routine, especially during the summer when the woods are humid and thick with mosquitos.

Spider and Stella did well together.  If Spider got too barky or obnoxious, Stella put him in his place.  By the end of the visit, Stella (who is a very dominant dog) had established dominance over Spider, and was standing with her head over Spider’s shoulders and sniffing Spider while he lay on his back.  I was proud to see Spider submit to a fine mistress.