The morning after the refrigerator debacle, I was sitting at my desk clicking through my morning tour of favorite blogs when Julie’s post caught my eye. She was writing mostly about apple-red raspberry pie, but it wasn’t the pie that got me, it was the ball of red raspberry ice cream sitting alongside the pie.

As I pondered the recipe, I remembered the couple boxes of mushy, juicy red raspberries that I had hurriedly stuffed into one of the basement freezers in midst of the previous evening’s frenzy. That did it, I decided. Red raspberry ice cream was the way to go.

So I went.

I did not grow up with red raspberries. In fact, my mother was very outspoken in her distaste for the fruit. “They taste like Pepto-Bismol,” she’d say, screwing up her nose and smacking her lips, pretending to taste the foul medicine. “Now black raspberries,” a beatific smile relaxing her face, “they are something else. Black raspberries are far superior.”

Black raspberries are pretty incredible, I’ll admit, but over the years I’ve grown to love the red variety, so much so, in fact, that given a choice between red or black, I’m not sure which I’d chose. I kind of have a hunch I’d go with the red because they’re so … red. And because they’re tart and they go well with so many foods, adding an often much-needed color/flavor boost.

(I think my mother’s opinions regarding the red raspberry have softened somewhat. While she and my father still don’t have any of the bushes on their property, she did fall head over heels in love with the red raspberry-rhubarb pie. We spent phone conversations discussing that pie.)

I’ve made different red raspberry ice creams before and they always involved pureeing and then straining the fruit to remove the seeds. This ice cream doesn’t mess around with any such nonsense, and because I happen to like the seeds, this appears to be the only way to go.

If you add the fruit earlier in the mixing process, the ice cream will blush pink all over. I opted to go the swirl route, waiting till the ice cream was as stiff as I could get it before spooning in the crushed berries. (Actually, I didn’t wait for the ice cream; I was running around upstairs overseeing the kids’ room clean-up tasks, aware out of the corner of my mind that the machine was grinding away, probably for too long. It worked out in the end, though. The rooms got cleaned and I got my ice cream.) As soon as all the fruit had been scraped in, I shut off the machine and boxed up the ice cream.

I had some leftover peach cornmeal cobbler on hand (yes, I’ve made more and another one is on the kitchen line-up for today) and I kept fixing little bowls of warmed-up cobbler to eat with mini scoops of red raspberry ice cream. I think I did that a total of three times. It would’ve been four, but when I got home from my church council meeting the cobbler pan was shiny clean. I may have wailed. After pacing between cupboard and fridge for a good while, I finally settled on a plate of cheesy tortilla chips and salsa. The chips were good, but they weren’t cobbler and ice cream.

Red Raspberry Ice Cream
From Julie over at Dinner With Julie, not really even adapted

This is one of those ice creams that is best served up straight away, but it’s good after a rest in the freezer, too.

1 cup whipping cream
½ cup half-and-half
½ cup milk
½ cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
½ capful (½ teaspoon) of vanilla
1 cup red raspberries

Stir together the cream, half-and-half, milk, ½ cup of sugar, and the vanilla. Freeze in your ice cream maker.

While the ice cream is churning, mash together the red raspberries and 2 tablespoons of sugar with a fork.

Spoon the fruit into the machine in the last minute of churning, earlier if you want the ice cream to be pink all over.

Yield: 1 quart

This same time, years previous: Earthy ponderations, part one and Two morals and Oven-Roasted Roma Tomatoes

1. Go to the fair.
2. Arrive home from the fair at 9:58 with a carload of exhausted, dirty, ice cream-sticky kids.
3. Open the fridge door and notice that it’s (the inside of the fridge, not the door) warm.
4. Notice that it stinks, too.
5. Open the freezer door and notice that everything is soggy.
6. Panic.
7. Put the kids to bed while simultaneously panicking and yelling at your husband who is also panicking, but in a manly sort of way.
8. Call your brother at 10:15. You do not care if he is awake or asleep. This is an emergency. He says yes to your question of whether or not they have extra fridge space.
9. Thank your lucky stars that your brother’s family does not hoard food like you do.
10. Curse your unlucky stars that you hoard food.
11. Remember that your mother wanted to clean out your fridge when she last visited you.
12. Decide not to think about that.
13. Load a couple wash baskets with food to take to your brother’s house.
14. Load a couple boxes with food to take to the basement.
15. Cover the counter with a multitude of jars and tubs and bottles and bags of food that might no longer qualify for that title.
16. While your husband drives the soggy, stinky food to your brother’s house, dump all the unnecessary, ancient, not-worth-keeping food into one giant bowl: maraschino cherries (two bottles), a bit of salsa, moldy blackberries, rotten celery, a lime and a lemon, horseradish, old oil, ham broth (from Christmas, really?), honey mustard no one will ever eat, a half can of orange juice concentrate…and the list goes on. And on and on.
17. Refrain from gagging.
18. Feel nauseous anyway.
19. When your husband comes back, give him an opportunity to wash the dishes. (In other words, declare that you quit and walk away in search of some desperately-needed fresh air.)

20. Come back and help wash down the fridge.
21. Let your husband take a turn washing down the fridge and watch, completely depleted but pleased, nonetheless, as he disassembles the thing and then points out all the dirt you left behind.
22. Discuss what may have gone wrong with the fridge.
23. Fret about another huge expenditure whopping you upside the head so soon after the purchase of your lovely new cleaning machine. (Appliance polytheism does hold a certain appeal, you admit.)
24. At midnight, go to bed.
25. Wake up at 7:44 and go downstairs to a wildly gesticulating husband who points out, with much knob-turning and way too many words for your fuzzy brain to absorb, that the fridge setting wasn’t just turned down a little bit as previously thought, it was turned down one-and-a-holy-cow-half revolutions, as in OFF.
26. Recall that you have four children.
27. Interrogate them.
28. When the littlest one fesses up to the error of his Curious George ways, explain the importance of NEVER touching the refrigerator knob, and then forgive him.
29. Feel pleased on many fronts: the fridge is shiny-clean and empty, there is no need to buy a new fridge, and while the work was intense and disgustingly painful, it was blessedly short-lived; there was no time to dread the task—typically the most painful part of refrigerator cleaning.
30. Become an obsessive refrigerator knob checker because there is no way on earth that you want to repeat that cleaning method ever again.

More How-To Stories:
How To Get Your Kitchen Clean On A Leisurely Sunday Afternoon
How To Get Your Bedding/House/Kids Clean All In One Day

The unheard of is happening: it’s raining! We’re supposed to take the kids to the fair tonight but I’d rather not go. I’d prefer to stay at home and luxuriate in the foreign sound of pounding rain on metal roof.

Plus, it’s chilly outside—perfect for baking nectarine tarts and making spaghetti sauce.

Plus, I made a library run this morning and I adore the sounds of the kids slishing pages, books thudding to the ground after they finish them.

So tell me, why would I want to go out on a night like tonight? To some godforsaken field the whole way across town where the lights glare and the music blares and my kids are bound to get a frightful case of the gimmies? I am not a proponent of fairs.

I am a fair proponent, however, so because we said we’ll go, we’ll go. I will stop my whining right now.

The other night for supper, I threw together a hodgepodge of a meal which ended up delighting me down to the tips of my paint-flecked toenails. I got the idea from a fun blog called Stonesoup, the focus of which is minimalism. (Which is not a word, I know. Humor me, okay?)

I am not, let me state for the record, a minimalist. I routinely make my life as complicated as possible and then take perverse pleasure in trying to wiggle my way out from under. Just ask my husband.

And, again, for the record, I get irritated with modern thinking, the kind that tries to lump everything you’ve ever known into three categories, or perhaps five. You know what I mean: The top three things to look for in a man. Or, Three kitchen gadgets you simply can not do without. Or, Cleaning your house in five easy steps. We are a people flooded with too much stuff, too many desires, and too little wisdom. Compartmentalizing life helps us to feel like we’re in control.

To which I say hogwash. There is no such thing as being in control of life.

Though the illusion is quite charming.

Oh my goodness. Now where in the world did that speech come from? I must be feeling peevish.

But, since I brought it up…

The top three things to look for in a man:
1. work-worn hands
2. twinkly eyes
3. straight teeth
Bonus points for a tool belt.

The top three kitchen gadgets you simply can not do without:
1. a sharp knife
2. a grater
3. band-aids, because knives and graters are dangerous things
Bonus points: food to chop and grate.

How to clean your house in five easy steps:
1. Eliminate the word “easy”
2. Put everything back in its place
3. Dust
4. Vacuum
5. Wash windows
Bonus points for not crying.

And to think I started out this post telling you about my supper. Sheesh. I’m not sure I even remember what it was anymore. I’m starting to feel guilty for sitting here when I have dirty windows and all my bookshelves are, quite simply, chaos shelved.

Supper was (quick! before I run down another bunny trail!) beans, barley, and sausage simmered in tomatoes and red wine.

The top three components of a good dinner:
1. scrumptious
2. easy
3. filling
Bonus points: it gives you the illusion you are in control.
Extra bonus points: the kids like it.

Barley and Beans with Sausage and Red Wine
Wildly adapted from Stonesoup

I used barley because it’s what I had on hand, but pasta would work fine, as would (wild) rice.

1 quart chopped tomatoes and their juice
1 onion, chopped
1 cup red wine, plus a splash more to deglaze the sausage pan
1 pound sausage links
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 19-ounce can Cannellini beans and their juice
3 cups cooked barley (or another grain)
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
Parmesan cheese to serve, optional

Cook the sausage links in a kettle over medium-high heat for about 12 minutes, turning frequently (or according to package instructions). Transfer the cooked sausage to a plate, cut each link in half and set them aside.

Put the olive oil in the now-empty sausage pan and add the onion. Saute for about five minutes.

In a large-ish kettle, dump in the tomatoes, red wine, and the sauteed onions. (Splash some extra red wine into the dirty sausage-and-onion pan and cook for a minute or two, scraping the bottom to loosen all the flavorful bits. Add the wine-y, oily juice to the pan of tomatoes.) Simmer over medium heat, uncovered, for about 45 minutes until a bunch of the liquid has evaporated and the contents have cooked down a bit. (If you want the final dish to be more soup-like, cook it for less time.)

Add the sausage chunks, barley, beans, salt, pepper, and oregano. Simmer for another five minutes. Taste to correct seasonings.

This is delicious served with a flurry of Parmesan and some slices of warm, buttered toast.