Here’s what’s been happening in our kitchen this summer:

Towards the end of May, I realized that one of the other bus stop moms is a fellow real/whole foods enthusiast, AND she had kefir grains to share! We’ve made 3-4 batches now, and we are still adjusting to the taste. Co-op kefir must have A LOT of sugar in it, because even after adding various sweeteners, this stuff is SOUR. I may use my next batch in place of buttermilk in a recipe and see how that goes.

We’ve only managed to make two quarts of pickles so far, because we’ve been slicing them up, tossing them with a bit of salt and pepper, and just eating them fresh.

Earlier this spring, we tried a new ice cream recipe.  We’re now sold on this new method.  For a few years, we’d been stuck on Mark Bittman’s ice cream method, which is a little, well, involved. You make a custard that involves at least 3 but up to 6 egg yolks, then chill it, then finally put it in the ice cream maker.

I don’t have anything against custard ice cream. It’s delicious. But with the price of eggs and our busy daily schedule, we just weren’t making it all that often. Now that we’ve switched to this new basic recipe we make it all the time. The basic recipe is: 2 cups cream, 2 cups whole milk, ~1 cup sugar, and then whatever flavoring you want. Whisk briskly, put it in the ice cream maker, 20 minutes later: done.

Above, we added some mulberry juice (probably about 1/2 c.) that was still leftover from last summer.

We’ve now eaten two hills of our French fingerling potatoes (La Ratte). These things are like buttah. Even the kids went on and on about how delicious they were, just boiled with a little butter, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley.

Here is a quick fry-up of one of our purple cauliflowers, zucchini from the market (didn’t have room this year), onions and purple/green beans from the garden. They grow purple, but turn green when cooked.

Pickling & canning season is really getting underway!