Please tell me I’m not the only one out there who compulsively buys strange/unusual/exotic ingredients. You don’t, eh? Well then, what about shoes? garden seeds? material? books? Come on, there’s gotta be something!

For me it’s food. I’m not out for big thrills, mind you. Live baby octopus and corn mold aren’t what I’m talking about. But the little box of Indian spices that came in the mail today is right down my happiness alley. Dried Curry Leaves, Kalonji, Black Mustard Seeds, get ready to party!

So often I, in a moment of passion, buy things I use only once, or, worse yet, not at all. Like the grape leaves I bought a year (or two?) ago and the block of hard cane sugar that’s been on my shelf for going on five years. Help, help me, Rhonda!

But then I land on something so supremely delightful (Prosciutto dahling, let’s elope) that it makes all my expensive/useless purchases totally worth it. (In my opinion, not Mr. Handsome’s, but he’s not the author of this here blog.)

You could say it’s a form of gambling, I suppose. An addiction to food discovery. Some might say I’m greedy, others would call me creative, and yet still others would say I’m an artist. I think I’m just a Curious George, minus the tail, when it comes to food.

Anyway, back to last night’s thrilling dinner.

Not that you knew I was talking about last night’s dinner before just now, but I was. So now you know. Anyway.

I made peas with prosciutto.

See, I was talking about dinner! I said, and I quote, “Prosciutto dahling, let’s elope.” So there.

Anyway, I had bought a few ounces of prosciutto to smoosh into dried dates with gorgonzola (one of my tailless C.G. Adventures) and had a few slices leftover. I’m not one to gussy up my veggies—a salt shaker and boiling water is usually all I need—but then Molly posted this pea recipe and I had the prosciutto…

It was worth it. Worth the five dollars for the meat and worth the heartache and suffering for the peas. (Well, maybe not the second part. Store bought peas aren’t as heinous as their icy green bean and corn counterparts.) The peas were all buttery and soft, and tossed with the wisps of salty ham—mm-mm good. Mr. Handsome had seconds (he’s not one to have seconds of vegetables); I had fourths.

This dish won’t be showing up on my table any old day—it’s way too fancy and expensive for that. But I do think it might have just earned rights to hang out next to the mashed potatoes and gravy come next Thanksgiving.

Peas with Prosciutto
Adapted from Molly’s blog Orangette

The recipe I’m posting here is more or less the same as Molly’s. However, I recommend, for the sake of pinching pennies, doubling the peas while keeping the prosciutto the same (increase the other ingredients accordingly).

2 cups (1 pound) peas, fresh or frozen
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup minced white onion
1 clove garlic, minced
salt
black pepper
2 ½ ounces prosciutto

Melt the butter in a pan, add the onion and garlic, and saute for several minutes—do not let the veggies brown. Add the peas and simmer for ten minutes, stirring every now and then. Tear the prosciutto into little pieces (do not stack and cut like I did—they stay stuck thataway) and add them to the pan. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Turn the heat off, lid, and allow to sit for another five minutes. Taste to correct seasonings. Serve warm.

One year ago: Counting Chicks
Two years ago: Red Beet Salad with Caramelized Onions and Feta

My day started off with me standing in our front yard by the half-pruned, skuzzy-looking apple tree with my camera around my neck, waiting to snap a picture of our phantom speed demon that terrorizes us most mornings at 7:13. I’ve never seen him, that’s how fast the dude (or dudette) is. Disappointingly enough, he didn’t show this morning, but I’m one tough cookie—I’ll try again tomorrow.

Not that I have any idea what I’ll do with the picture once I take it. Perhaps I’ll call the license number in to the cops, or maybe I’ll see that it’s the granny that lives down the road and thus reduce the fear/anger element. If that’s the case, I might get bold, flag her down, and have a pleasant little chat about whether or not she has any grandbabies and how she’d feel if they got squashed flat by some nincompoop.

As the sun rose, the kids trickled downstairs. The Baby Nickel was first.

He perched on a stool and read books—first short stories by Flannery O’Connor followed by The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz—while eating toast.

After the flurry of last week’s cleaning, I resolved to do more deep cleaning on a regular basis. I also committed to broadening my kids’ chore repertoires. So this morning, I hounded Miss Beccaboo on proper porch-sweeping etiquette, and I divided out the green bean snapping amongst the four sets of hands, mine not included. (Our bean crop is piddly-puny, thanks to that nasty drought.)

I instructed The Baby Nickel in the art of dusting baseboards, Yo-Yo the piano, and Sweetsie the chairs. I included The Baby Nickel when I doled out the laundry, giving him his own little pile of socks, undies, and hankies to hang.

As for me, I washed windows and stairs, dusted some embarrassingly infrequently dusted furniture, and blanched the beans.

While the kids ate their lunch of leftover chicken-corn-and-noodle soup, I snapped photos of my new favorite ice cream, scarfing bites in between camera clicks.

This stuff rocks, people. Like totally.

Since I got my electric ice cream maker, I have made more ice creams than I can count; at present, four different kinds reside in my freezer. While I’ve discovered some impressive recipes, I’ve made even more only so-so ice creams. Either I’m picky or I’m doing something wrong or a good recipe is hard to come by. (I like to think it’s the latter, or perhaps the former, but definitely not the middler.)

But this ice cream, wow. This ice cream is staying with me for life. The only problem is that it involves sweet cherries and I did not pick any sweet cherries when I went to the orchard, preferring instead to stuff my jars with the sour variety. So, I had to buy fresh sweet cherries from the grocery store, an excessive act (nine bucks for three pounds—ouch!) that was redeemed with the first bite of ice cream. (I have also made this with the cherries. It made me weak-kneed.)

This recipe taught me two new things:

1. How to roast cherries.

It’s simple, really. Toss the unpitted fruits with equal parts sugar and bourbon and bake at 450 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Shazam!

2. How to get tender chocolate crunchies into homemade ice cream.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like chocolate chips in my ice cream. They create too much of a texture contrast—rock-hard crunch versus smooth cream. It hurts. Chopped-fine bar chocolate has the same painful result. Chopped candy bars, while softer, leave a waxy taste. But I have, once and for all, solved the chocolate-in-ice cream problem. Simply melt bar chocolate and then drizzle it in slowly during the last minute or two of churning. The chocolate freezes up and breaks into little, melt-in-your-mouth shards. Perfect.

My ice cream maker has an open top which enables sneak tasting, an art of which I am master. However, my mother was here while the ice cream was churning and she put me to shame. Every time I turned around, there she was, spoon in hand, a guilty look on her face. (My mother might possibly be the queen of ice cream. She recently purchased and ate 17 boxes of the stuff, though, I’m sure she’d like me to add, not all by herself.)

Roasted Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate
Adapted from The Craving Chronicles

This makes a large amount and maxed out my ice cream maker. Unless you have a larger machine or don’t mind a mess, don’t skip the strange steps at the end of the churning process.

The bourbon is said to be optional but I beg to differ.

40 sweet cherries (or a few less), stems removed, washed
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons bourbon
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
½ vanilla bean, split
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
pinch of salt
5 ounces 60% bar chocolate (not chips), chopped

For the cherries:
Toss the cherries, unpitted, with the 2 tablespoons sugar and bourbon and lay them out in a shallow baking dish. Bake at 450 degrees for 10-15 minutes till bubbly and soft, stirring gently every few minutes. Keep a close eye on them so that the sugar doesn’t burn.

Once the cherries have cooled to room temperature, pit and quarter each cherry. Chill the cherries in their juices.

For the ice cream:
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the milk, 1 cup of the cream, the salt, the 3/4 cup sugar, and the vanilla bean (both the bean and the scraped-out seeds) till warm. (I accidentally boiled mine most vigorously for about 15 minutes while I wandered the house watering plants and talking on the phone and it didn’t hurt it a wink. Not that I recommend my methods. I’m just saying.) Lid and steep for 30 minutes.

Beat the egg yolks. Add some of the warm cream, whisking steadily, to temper the eggs. Add the tempered eggs to the saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, whisking away all the while, till the mixture has thickened slightly and coats the back of a spoon.

Pour the custard through a strainer into a larger bowl. (Rinse off the vanilla bean, dry, and add it to a canister of sugar for vanilla sugar.) Add the other cup of cream. Chill the custard in the fridge.

To churn:
Pour the custard into your ice cream maker and churn.

While the ice cream is churning, melt the chocolate in the microwave. Then, heat it a little more till it is runny melted. You need to be able to pour the chocolate in a thin stream, and to do that the chocolate has to be hot.

Once the ice cream has finished churning, slowly drizzle the chocolate through the hole in the top. Then, stop the machine and remove an ample cup of ice cream.

Start the machine up again and add the cherries—the juices make the ice cream base blush up real purdy. Once the cherries are incorporated, turn the machine off and package the ice cream into freezer boxes (gently stirring in the ice cream that you removed) and freeze till solid.

Yield: About 1 ½ quarts of heaven.

Confession: In the course of writing this blog post, I opened the freezer not once, not twice, but three times. I wasn’t just looking, either.

One year ago: Zucchini Relish
Two years ago: Banana Coconut Bread

Miss Beccaboo turned nine years old underground. Being underground at 10:44, her time of entry into this world, had nothing to do with her birthday, really. Well, it kind of did. She had requested we skip church, a request I’d vetoed, but then the day dawned so bright and sunny and the kids were so jolly and the thought of getting presentable just to sit down inside for an hour felt so cumbersome, that I changed my mind.

Let’s skip, I said under my breath to Mr. Handsome.

He, not surprisingly, was delighted by my derelict behavior. So we packed kids, jackets, and water bottles into the car and headed over the mountain to Luray Caverns.

The kids loved it. Mr. Handsome loved it. And even though I’d been there before with my English students ten long years ago, I loved it.

It’s a magical place, totally worth three hours of our time and 79 dollars.

Afraid that we had just jacked expectations for birthdays sky-high, I gave the kids a big lecture about how our trip to the caverns had nothing to do with Miss Beccaboo’s birthday. Nor did skipping church. It was something their father and I had been discussing for months and months and months. That we decided to do it on the Sunday that Miss B turned nine was a fluke. I delivered the lecture coming and going. Let’s hope it sticks.

Three hours of the afternoon were devoted to lunch. There was shrimp to bread and fry (and be disappointed by).

There was a cake to decorate with brand new cake decorating equipment.

There was cake to eat.

There were presents.

Hugs.

A hat.

And the promise of six horseback riding lessons.

The day ended with a showing of The Black Stallion and giant bowls of popcorn.

End of birthday.

Now for the icing.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Adapted from Aimee of Under the Highchair

I realize the frosting on the birthday cake looks gross, especially the side icing (which you can’t see because I’m not showing it to you because it looks like caterpillar poo). It curdled, which, shockingly enough, is totally normal for this icing, but not a disaster at all. That is, if you have patience to stir it back together. No big deal, really. You just have to do it. I stirred subsequent bowls of icing a few strokes longer and was rewarded with lush creaminess.

The first time I made the icing several months ago, it did not curdle. The icing also went straight from mixer to cake, no refrigeration sandwiched in the middle, so this could be the reason. The icing also contained lemon curd which could be the other reason. But yesterday’s icing was refrigerated and I was impatient and so I messed it up. And it could’ve so easily been perfect. Oh well. The bottom line? Do not be afraid of this icing. Be patient.

On the other hand, this icing contains three sticks of butter so you might want to be just a leeetle bit afraid. And conservative with portion sizes. (Miss Beccaboo cut her own piece of cake, the right of birthday kids in this house, thus the obscene size.)

4 egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
½ vanilla bean, just the seeds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups (3 sticks) butter, cut into cubes and at room temperature

Put the egg whites and sugar in a large mixing bowl (I use my Kitchen Aid mixing bowl) and set it in a large kettle that has a little water in the bottom of it, creating a double boiler effect.

Heat the water on medium heat, constantly whisking the eggs whites and sugar.

When the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is mildly warm to the touch, remove the bowl from the kettle and set it on the mixer stand. (Or, if you don’t have a Kitchen Aid, just use a hand-held mixer.)

Using the whisk attachment, beat the frosting on medium-high speed for 6-8 minutes, or until stiff peaks form. Swap the whisk attachment for the paddle attachment.

Turn the mixer on medium speed and add the butter, one or two pats at a time, waiting for them to incorporate before adding more. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the bowl and add the vanilla. Beat gently, just until combined. If the frosting curdles, continue beating till it is smooth and creamy.

Refrigerate the frosting if not using immediately. Before icing the cake, return the frosting to room temperature. If it curdles, beat it vigorously with a spoon till creamy.

Yield: Ample frosting for a 9-inch layer cake. If it’s high summer, keep the iced cake in the fridge.

About one year ago: Tangential Thoughts
About two years ago: Birthday traditions, Strawberry Cake