Mocha Java Chip ice cream with Walnuts

a – “babe, can you just make a normal ice cream flavor this week?”
me – “you mean one like coffee or chocolate or with nuts?”

So this one is for my love who has “endured” all my crazy flavors and is a combination of all his favorite things… coffee, chocolate and nuts!  I added a few extra steps to my recipe, just for fun!

” I love my husband & sunny summer saturday mornings” Mocha Java Chip Ice Cream with walnuts

2 cups whipping cream
1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Starbucks via packets (I used colombian)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
1/3 cups finely chopped walnuts

1. whisk eggs in a medium bowl until light and fluffy, add the sugar and mix until blended.
2. Add milk, whipping cream, cocoa powder and instant coffee (Starbucks VIA packets are really worth it!)
3. Churn in your ice cream maker following manufactures instructions.
4. The last two minutes add the chocolate chips and walnuts.
5. Remove from maker and transfer to a freezer container. Continue to freeze until hardened.
6. Throw a mug on the potters wheel. Hand pull the handle and join. Fire in the kiln.
7. Glaze mug, fire in the kiln again.
8. Paint silk scarf for back drop. Iron to set colors.
9. Scoop homemade ice cream into homemade mug, place on hand-painted backdrop. Take Picture.
10. Sit at the kitchen counter on a sunny saturday morning, eating ice cream, listening to good music on the ipod, and post on your silly blog!
11. repeat.

These are a few of my favorite things – carmel latte ice cream

I watched Sound of Music this weekend with the girls.  They were glued to the story.  We watched it in three different sessions,  I forgot how long that movie is, it even has an “intermission.”  It is so sweet to hear the girls singing their versions of the songs.  I think I will add Carmel Latte’s as one of my favorite things, it’s even better when you make it into ice-cream.  I am pretty sure it could cure any dog bite,  bee sting or plain when I’m feeling sad.

Carmel Latte Ice Cream

2 cups whipping cream

1 cup milk

2 large eggs

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar

1 packet Starbucks carmel via

1 packet Starbucks decaf via

Whisk eggs and sugar together.

Add creams, milk and via coffee packets.  Stir until dissolved.

Freeze in maker according to manufactures instructions.

served with Chocolate Pecan Pie, recipe found here.

move over cardboard there’s a new hard cover in town.

Every once in a while I dabble in bookmaking.  I used to make my own journals all though college, just little ones that tucked just so in your pocket and weren’t too daunting to fill.  I still have them all, they full of thoughts, memory verses, sketches, ideas, remnants of daily life.  Most of them are stained in some area with coffee and I keep them together in a burlap sack.  I still like making small journals, lately I have been trying to take my craft to a new level.

Before Christmas I posted about a trip to Hollanders here,  I would love to take one of their many classes in bookbinding or printmaking.  Last time I was there I bought new text blocks to make journals but hadn’t done anything with them.  So it dawned on me  to combine book-making with my passion for clay – Here are my first round of ceramic book covers I made just before Christmas.   I was so excited to see how they turned out, if they warped in the kiln and their shrinkage rate.

A few months later I finally have completed my concept idea.  They indeed shrunk quite a bit more that expected so I had to make my own signatures (papers inside) for them. I used leather for the back cover for durability, cutting, tooling and staining them.  They are bound with a Coptic stitch binding, created with wax linen thread, sewn with a curved needle.  Thanks mom for the new bookbinding book for my birthday, it has already come in handy.   I love the variety in materials and the overall texture and rich feel.  I am so thankful to have the ability and control to choose materials for every step of this process.

To complete these books I figured I used these FIVE artisan skills:

- ceramics (for the top cover)

- painting ( color selections/ glazing)

- paper crafting (to make the inside signatures)

- leather working (for the back cover)

- sewing (for the hand-bound edges)

I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do.  I don’t know if these two will make it into the etsy shop, I think I am quite attached to them.  I will definitely make more…

 

** now availabe in my etsy shop, click on the link for more designs and colors!

birthday cake & homemade starbucks coffee ice-cream

Great day!  Lunch with great friends and dinner with family.  I wanted to try out this flour-less chocolate cake, with espresso whipped cream and raspberry sauce for my birthday.  SO RICH and good!  Whipped up a batch of Starbucks coffee ice-cream to go with it and I am ready to sit back and enjoy my birthday flowers from my in-laws. Thanks friends for all the well wishes, it makes this life after 30 turn sweeter every year!

Starbucks coffee ice-cream

2 large eggs

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 cup milk

2 packs Starbucks instant coffee (I used medium roast colombia)

1. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended.  Whisk in cream, milk, and 2 packets of instant coffee to blend.

2. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream make and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions. After the alloted time, continue freezing in an air-tight container in the freezer.

Makes generous 1 quart.

beautiful hands of eva zeizel

What do you expect to be doing when you are 104 years old?

Few people make it to that age must less use the time to accomplish what Eva Zeisel has. She declares herself a “maker of useful things.” Her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships. Currently, she continues to design furniture as well as glass and ceramic objects, like her most recent 101 design and her Century dishware at crate and barrel. As an artist and a woman I find her life and history so inspiring.

A pioneer in the ceramic world, she studied painting at the Budapest Royal Academy, desiring to pursue a more practical profession she apprenticed herself with a guild of potters. She built a career with ceramic manufactures in Germany and served as the artistic director in the Soviet ceramics industry before being imprisoned as a political prisoner under Stalin. Moving to the US to escape Nazi rule in Austria, Zeizel further developed her craft and taught one of the first courses on industrial design at Pratt University. She also was granted the first one woman show at the Museum of Modern Art.

What a legacy she has built!  I love this picture of her, that you can see her hands so clearly.  Hands that display such a story of making, creating, building, age, grace, and movement.  May my hands be used as beautifully as hers.

coffee, love, gratitude

I made a batch of these journals this summer.   Each contains over 40 pages of heavy drawing paper and are lined in a chocolate colored linen. Last week I actually purchased some blank block journals and moleskins to experiment with.  I have some for sale at my etsy site (which is a work in progress…)  The smell of coffee slightly lingers over them, they would be great little stocking stuffers, or great for keeping track during holiday travel.

Since conception my family has lovingly been saving me all their used coffee bags.  My husband even accused me on one occasion to be purchasing a bag of coffee based on the packaging.  Seriously, what an accusation!  I am not a superfluous person outwardly that is, perhaps inwardly I am overflowing.  Maybe I should snag a new journal myself and fill it with my gratitude for life.  For faith, marriage, kids, friends, family, art, home, the fresh snow this morning.  I am embracing this season of life, how glorious it truly is!