Mmmmmmm. Peace ice cream.

This summer we’ve toyed with triple-digit temperatures repeatedly, something that is increasingly becoming the new norm.  When the thermometer on our north-facing, shady porch says it’s 100 degrees F, it’s time for ice cream!  It’s peach season in Arkansas, so I can’t resist finding ways to use peaches. Why not ice cream?  Today’s recipe is for a peach ice cream that’s not too sweet, letting the natural goodness of the peaches shine.

Making ice cream at home is easy, as long as you have lots of ice, a little bit of patience, and an ice cream maker.  No, I’m not talking about Mr. Homesteader.  I’m talking about an electric machine.  I remember fondly the days that my family and friends took turns on a hand-crank ice cream maker.  I also remember when we bought our electric machine.  It’s the same one I use today, decades later.  Still, if you’ve got the muscles and time, go for a hand cranker, and burn off the ice cream before you ever eat it!

Now, let’s talk about two crucial ingredients that don’t go in the ice cream.  You need lots of cubed or crushed ice, at least one large bag if you need to buy it.  You’ll also need rock salt, also known as ice cream salt.  Some stores keep ice cream salt in the seasonal section, while others keep it with spices, salts, and baking staples.  We’ll use about a cup of rock salt today.

Peach Ice Cream

makes about 1 1/2 quart

Ice Cream Ingredients

As always, you should be able to find everything listed here in organic form, so buy organic if you can.

• 4 egg yolks (Save the whites!  Use them for an egg white omelet with seasonal vegetables, and you’ll have a light, fluffy, flavorful summer breakfast.  Ask me if you want a recipe.)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• optional:  1/4 cup nonfat dried milk
• 2 cups half and half (or whipping cream if you’re feeling decadent)
• 2 cups milk (whole or 1%)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons real vanilla extract
• 4-5 ripe peaches

Method

Using a whisk, stir together the egg yolks, the sugar, and at least one cup of the cream in a heavy-bottomed pot.  (Whisk in the nonfat dried milk too if you are using it.)  Heat over medium heat, whisking regularly, until the mixture is too hot to stick your finger in and hold but not boiling.  Adjust heat to hold it there as necessary.  If you have a candy thermometer, we’re looking for about 140 degrees F, held for 5-10 minutes.  Whisk more as the temperature rises.  The mixture should thicken a little as the egg cooks, but don’t let the milk curdle!  Now take the mixture off the heat and add the rest of the half and half, milk, and vanilla.

Next peel and pit the peaches and dice them.  You can do this step in the early stages of cooking the egg mixture if you’d like.  Add the diced peaches and any liquid they’ve given off to the mixture.  Chill it well, even to the point of putting it in the freezer if you’re planning on making the ice cream in a few hours.

Is your mixture good and cold?  Break out that ice cream machine.  Using the method that comes with your ice cream maker, put the ice cream mixture in the cylinder, add the paddles, secure the top, and pour in the ice and salt, alternating as you add them.  We let our ice cream mix inside, in the air conditioning.  At 100 degrees F outside, the ice cream may never properly freeze.  Inside at about 80 degrees F, it freezes easily.  You’ll know your ice cream is ready when the paddles slow down and the machine starts to sound labored.  Hand-cranked machines will get harder to turn as the ice cream freezes, so save your best muscle at the party for last!

Quickly scoop the finished ice cream into a freezer container, being sure to share the paddles with your favorite people before the ice cream melts.  Avoid letting the ice cream thaw and re-freeze, as without commercial emulsifiers the ice cream can become hard.  You can dish up the ice cream immediately soft serve, or let it freeze a bit harder for those perfect round scoops!

Our next dessert will be rich chocolate ice cream, but before that I’ll post a tasty ratatouille Provençal recipe, to help you use up your bounty of summer garden and market vegetables.

Copyright Ozarkhomesteader 2011, including photographs.

Why is she opening the big door and flashing us with that bright light?

Maybe if we go over here she'll just take pictures of the other ones.

Why did they move? Are they talking about us? Hey, I didn't poop on the watermelon. It wasn't me.

Girls, why did you move over here? You hurt Blackie's feelings.

Okay, kind readers, how do you view these maneuvers?  Recaption the pics!

What, you want a recipe too?  How about if I post ice cream recipes next?

Copyright 2011 Ozarkhomesteader.

This is really my sandwich, straight out of the camera, no retouching or boosting the color.

That’s a classic brandywine tomato, by the way, plus a country egg, of course.  If you don’t like yours runny, break the yolk in the pan and cook it a bit more.  It’s tasty that way too!

What’s your favorite simple summer breakfast?

Copyright 2011 Ozarkhomesteader.

Okay, gals, it's time for your group shot.

Group shot? Wait, where are we?

Watching the birds has been a hoot (should I make that a cluck?).  I learned, for example, that even hens fly at each other and chest bump.  I was most surprised to discover that a little pullet can pick up half a corn cob and run with it some distance.  How far we may never know, because the other pullets grabbed hold.

I’ve also been amazed at the behavior of our cats, Tucker and Ms. C. (last picture).  I was out of town when the chicks arrived, but Mr. Homestead read both cats the riot act (without shouting, he says), and now I can’t get them to get close enough to take a picture of them together.  Of course, yesterday when I had the pullets free-ranging in the garden with just a little chicken wire encircling them, Tucker went into stealth mode, and we had to shut him in the house until we were done with our tractor modifications (removing the chicken wire on the bottom).

We are raising the chickens in a chicken tractor, a moveable coop and run.  That way, they have fresh forage every day, to supplement their organic feed, and never sit in their own muck.  They get all of the health benefits of free ranging without the danger.  We are raising them primarily for eggs, but I keep reminding myself that some day, when their laying days are done, all five are destined for a stew pot.  It’s not easy to think that way when they are so adorable, with so much personality.  Deep sigh.  Did our grandmothers feel this way?

How about another view?

Have you guessed who’s coming to breakfast?

Copyright 2011 Ozarkhomesteader, including photographs.

method
Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a very large, non-metallic bowl. (I use a vintage pink gooseberry 4-quart Pyrex bowl.) Then stir in the liquid ingredients, honey, and butter or flax meal. Does the dough temperature feel fine on your hand, no hotter than a warm bath? Then you’re ready for the starter. Add the sourdough starter and knead to combine for a few minutes. The dough will be sticky. I turn the dough into a large glass measure, wash and oil my Pyrex bowl, and then return the dough to it to rise. Cover and let rise until doubled.

Doubling could take twenty-four hours if your house is cool and you haven’t fed your starter recently. In a warmer house (around 80 degrees F) with starter fed about 8 hours earlier, you’ll need a much shorter rise, as little as two hours.

Now give the dough several good kneads and turn it into a large bread pan (10×5) for baking. Cover and let rise until doubled again, and then bake at 375 degrees F for 45-50 minutes for wetter dough, a little less for drier dough. If you don’t have a large bread pan, you can scoop out some of the dough and make muffin rolls. I also sometimes pull out some dough for flatbread. The bread loaf is done with it sounds hollow when you rap on the bottom of it.

Serves: 20 1/2-inch slices.

Whole Wheat Bread with Yeast
ingredients
4 cups whole-wheat flour (about 3 cups pastry flour and 1 cup regular for a softer texture)
1/2 cup wheat gluten (see note on gluten above)
2 Tablespoons potato flour
3/4 cup warm water
packet active dry yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk, warm (okay to substitute water for vegan option)
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons butter or ground flax meal
1/2 cup more warm water

method
Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a very large, non-metallic bowl. (I use a vintage pink gooseberry 4-quart Pyrex bowl.) Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the remaining ingredients except last 1/2 cup water. Knead the ingredients together to combine. Add the last 1/2 cup of water and knead for a few minutes. The dough may be sticky. I turn the dough into a large glass measure, wash and oil my Pyrex bowl, and then return the dough to it to rise. Cover and let rise until doubled. Rising could take a couple of hours if your house is at optimal yeast temperature (about 75-80 degrees F) but could take longer at cooler temperatures.

Now give the dough several good kneads and turn it into a large bread pan (10×5) for baking. Cover and let rise until doubled again, and then bake at 375 degrees F for 45-50 minutes for wetter dough, a little less for drier dough. If you don’t have a large bread pan, you can scoop out some of the dough and make muffin rolls. I also sometimes pull out some dough for flatbread. The bread loaf is ready when you knock on the bottom and it sounds hollow.

Serves: 20 1/2-inch slices.

Eat it!
We love this bread, either sourdough or regular, for sandwiches, toast, and garlic bread or crostini. I cut it really thick and make croutons with it. I scoop up the crumbs and save them for dressing. In short, when I’ve got the ten or fifteen minutes prep time and the 45 minutes baking time, this bread is a staple in our house.
Next up: pumpkin-chocolate chip bread with and without sourdough.

Do you bake with sourdough? What’s your favorite use for it? Do you have questions about baking with sourdough or yeast? Feel free to ask! I’ll bet if I can’t answer it, one of my great readers can.

I will admit that I’m tired of hunkering down, backtracking around flooded roads, and revising the hail damage report for my insurance company, but what we’ve had here is nothing compared to Alabama.  I hope that all of my blogging friends are weathering the storms safely too.

Sourdough Bread

Isn’t it gorgeous?  It’s a huge half-loaf of homemade sourdough bread.  You see, I had to attend a weekend conference back in February, but out of that loss of my weekend I got to talk with a colleague (a lot) on four long plane flights.  We discovered that his wife and I share a love of baking.  First came the bread.  Then not quite two weeks ago I got the holy grail:  her sourdough starter, now almost a quarter of a century old.  Sourdough starter saves you from buying little packages of yeast, some with chemicals added.  You can use it to make baked goods with all organic ingredients.  Sourdough starter really is magic.

My benefactor sent with the starter her own sourdough recipe.  It looked good (and I know it tasted good, because we’d gotten the first gift!) but used handmade proofing baskets and a 24-hour rising period.  The starter also (apparently) needed to be fed once a day.  Well, you know me.  I can’t stand to throw stuff out, so I determined to test refrigerating the starter to delay feeding (which definitely works) and reduce how much starter I had and to use the starter in other ways.  Since I got the starter, I’ve made several loaves of whole-grain bread, pancakes, and even pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins.  Yes, the recipes will all follow, and I promise to post them with alternatives for making them without sourdough starter.

The votes are in! Whole-wheat sourdough and whole-wheat bread are now posted here. Next up will be pumpkin-chocolate chip bread!

Do you bake with sourdough?  Did you create your own starter, or did you receive it as a gift?  How long have you kept a sourdough starter going?

Copyright 2011 Ozarkhomesteader.

Yesterday I completed the half marathon, running and walking, in a little over three hours.  I know I was close to the back of the pack, but my goal time was to finish in four hours, and I beat my anticipated time per mile by about 4 1/2 minutes and my total time by almost an hour.  Mr. Homesteader kindly walked to various points around the course to cheer me on.  I first realized I was doing better than my goal when I hit the 5-mile mark at 9:10.  I’d hoped to be there by 9:15 or 9:20.  I knew I was doing okay when I crossed the 10k mark.  I had planned on stopping running then but kept alternating running and walking.  When I hit the 8.5 mark where a friend was serving water, I was more than 20 minutes ahead, despite a bathroom stop with a long delay at a portapotty long about mile 7.  I really started to hurt as I got close to the governor’s mansion–my twisted ankle, my pinched nerves in my feet–so I pulled out my Ipod, up until then just used for my clock, and I inserted one earbud and listened to Harry Potter and his introduction to Quidditch.  That was enough to distract me, and within a mile I’d pulled the earbud back out and was enjoying the cheerers again.  Then we hit Chester Street.  There at Chester and 7th is Vino’s legendary pizza.  The aroma of pizza and faint scent of beer reached my nostrils.  I almost stopped.  I kept going, though, although by that point I was now down to running two minutes out of every ten.

Then I hit the lipstick stop.  It’s famous as the only one on marathon courses.  I don’t wear lipstick in my day-to-day life, much less when I’m sweating.  I thought one of the volunteers there was going to block my way until I convinced her that I really did not want lipstick.  By then I knew I was within a quarter mile of the finish line.  And when a fellow runner/walker I’d had the opportunity to chat with on the course several times told me it would be easy to run the rest of the way in (thanks, Zora!), I did.  Only I really ran it, and she jogged, so she is not in this picture.  That’s me, in the black fleece.  I’m crossing the line.  I’m not really that wide; I had my gloves and headband stuffed in the pockets of my oversized pullover.

In retrospect, knowing what I know now about how close I was to breaking three hours, I wish I’d run just a little more and somehow avoided the potty stop.  Maybe next year?

Thanks to all of my readers who provided so much encouragement and who have patiently waited as I traded adding recipes here for miles to my shoes.  I should know soon if I’ve succeeded in really, finally beating Lyme.

P.S.  Mr. Homesteader took me to Vino’s after I’d showered and changed at the hotel.  Other runners were in there wearing their medals, all from the marathon relay.  I wish I’d worn my  half-marathon medal in!  They all looked a lot younger than me, and I was so happy to know I’d run (and walked) further.  :-)

Look closely; it’s there!  Yes, I ran yesterday.  Actually, I ran until the snow got too deep and I had to walk.  I got in 30 laps, until I looked like the Abominable Snowman.

My running buddy:

In fact, she shows up from the neighbors’ house, runs circles around me, begs to be petted, and then races off to chase deer, cats, birds . . . and then she catches back up with me and does it all over again.

The creek in snow:

Cold frames seems a particularly appropriate name today:

I’m not sure there’s still something growing under all that snow!

Is it delivery?

No, of course it isn’t delivery.  We can’t get delivery here in normal weather, much less when there’s almost a foot of snow on the ground.  If you missed the recipe earlier, it’s here.

So, the NWS claims we got 9-12 inches of snow.  Our thermometer read 1 degree F above zero this morning.  How’s the weather in your neck of the woods?