coconut ginger ice cream

a friend asked me to post the recipe for some really good coconut ginger ice cream i just made.

that's hard, because i was experimenting and i don't really know how much of anything i actually used.

you should have on hand:

three cans of full fat coconut milk
sugar
a metric craptonne of fresh ginger
some candied ginger


ok, so start out with two cans of coconut milk and a half cup of sugar in a saucepan. toss in a lot of slices of ginger. simmer those suckers for a while. then for some reason start another recipe that requires PART of a can of coconut milk and toss the rest in with the base you're already making, so now you're going to need some more sugar and some more ginger.

no, i don't know how much.

also then because you want that GINGERY, take a big wad of grated ginger and squeeze out the juice. add it to the base, either before or after you take it off the heat. let that sucker cool and steep for a long time, maybe overnight.

then strain out the ginger chunks and simmer them in simple syrup for a while. let them cool.

meanwhile, toss your coconut base in your ice cream maker as you usually do things, and chop up both your fresh candied ginger and your crystallized candied ginger. as much as you want.

when the ice cream is half frozen, toss all that in there until it's all mixed in and you like the consistency.

put it in containers and freeze it.

you're welcome.

love and chainsaws

later in the season, after leaf out, i would not have seen it.

jim carved his initial and lucy's initial into the trunk of a fallen tree and sort of made a seat out of it.

you wouldn't necessarily notice it, but lucy would. lucy and jim are high school sweethearts. he still carves their initials in trees.

only now he's no boy with a pocket knife. he's an old guy with a chainsaw.

a view from governor chittenden road

i drive this road nearly every day. the mountain in the background is camel's hump, perhaps our most iconic mountain.

if you get a vermont quarter, camel's hump is on it.

thomas chittenden was the first governor of vermont. the road goes by old houses the chittendens built.

frogs at my house

yes, of course i am doing the 2015 venture vermont challenge.

of course i am.

some of the items on the list are repeats of last year.  last year for the item "make a recording of a frog or toad's call at night", i recorded peepers at my uncle john's house.

this year on one of the first warm evenings i sat out on my porch and recorded these guys.

i wanted to get a recording of that ONE REALLY LOUD FROG but it turns out he was singing right from my front porch, so as soon as i stepped out there he was done singing for the night.

knotweed pie

people living in most states have probably heard of japanese knotweed. if you've heard of it, you probably know it is a pernicious invasive.

what maybe you don't know is that you can eat the sumguns.

MB told me i should make this pie and she don't have to tell me twice to do a thing.

it's pretty good, but i think i would tweak that. MB says lime juice is the key to it.

so here's my pie.

here's your proof

yesterday i patted a puppy.

why, yes. that IS out of character for me, but she's mike's puppy so i kind of have to be friends with her plus it was naptime and she was very cute.

yeah, i know, nobody would believe it, so here's proof.

some random images

seen in a coffee shop

april 20 at my house

me and my guy

graffiti

man with a harp guitar

you don't see that every day.

i have a little cup of grass on the windowsill near my desk.

of course i do.

because my mom used little cups of grass as table decorations at easter. and she was so excited about it, showing us how you can "mow" it.

yes, she calls it mowing, even though you're just trimming it with your scissors. but you know, to keep it in really nice shape (and who doesn't love carefully manicured grass?) it needs daily care of some sort.

one of my friends said "that's not a houseplant. that's a PET."

fine, whatever.

so a few weeks ago when i was going to NEFFA, i had to bring my cup o' grass with me. so barb and i are getting into the elevator and i'm holding the cup o' grass in my hand and a guy gets on and he takes a look at me and says "now, there's something you don't see every day."

spit out the bones

i was riding along on a trail at catamount, working on my mapping project and also looking for forage.  i didn't find the things i was specifically looking for, but i did find this most excellent gnawed bone and some really cool owl pellet.

i am going to have to carry some small baggies so i can collect owl pellets and take a look inside them later.

cookie day

i make a lot of cookies at my house these days. go ahead, blame it on MB.

anyway, i got it into my head to make some experimental savory cookies, cheese thumbprints with onion jam.

so... they're kind of shortbready. i think if i make them again i will make them something with more tooth, but experimental is just that.

the jam is good, though.

the black flavor is onion jam with a balsamic reduction and mustard, the red flavor is tomato rosemary onion jam, and the yellow is honey apricot onion.

they're pretty, and reasonably tasty, if you like savory cookies.

i do.

MB does.

that's all that counts, really.

yesterday at catamount

i ride a lot of the time at catamount family outdoor center in williston. yes, it costs money to ride there, but the thing about it is that it is a crowning jewle of greenspace in vermont's most populous county, in a town with all the big box stores and a lot of sprawl.

and because of the way the land is laid out and because of how it's been cared for over years, it is many diverse and protected habitats. it's kind of stunning, really.

and they have races for runners and for mountain bikes and for cyclocross and run camps and programs.

me, i'm the lady you meet on the trails, the one who can give you directions and help you find a trail you will enjoy. i will also check to see if you have your trail pass. it's what i do.

anyway, i was there yesterday and it's still early season and i am riding slow and tentatively because that's how i always ride until i get my legs, plus this winter the time at which i stopped getting a lot of daily exercise coincided with the time at which i started making a lot of cookies.

of course it's because of MB, but it's not really appropriate to lay blame with MB. when you get slow and fat and weak it's nobody's fault but your own.

so here's about two minutes coming down a trail.

dances for everybody

recently i was at NEFFA. i like to dance a lot there, and beginner dances have live music. sunday morning i went to a family contradance, which means it's simple dances, nongendered, and suitable for anyone who shows up, including tiny children.

here's some video of me dancing with a woman and a tiny child i assumed was a grandchild.

don't tell me how to feel.

cabbages and kings

a week or two ago i took it upon myself to make some of the food of my people: cabbage and dumplings.

it's simple to do, and delicious, if you like cabbage.

you take a head of green cabbage and chop it up. toss it in a pan with a whole mess of hotted up butter. and an onion or two.

while it cooks, make some flour and water dumplings. flour, water, salt. throw little globs of it in boiling water until they float to the top.

then lay those puppies on your cooked cabbage and you are all set.

but second day.

second day the fun starts.

take those leftover boiled dumplings and fry one side of them in a pan with butter. when they brown a little, flip them over and toss some leftover cabbage on top of them. fry two eggs beside them and by the time the eggs are cooked, the cabbage will be hot and the other side of the dumplings will be brown and you scoop the cabbage and dumplings into a dish and lay the eggs over them and oh, my.

good.