Grandma Ercyl's Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

E and I got an ice cream maker as a wedding gift from Chrissy. Things have been a little hectic, so we used it for the first time on Super Bowl Sunday!

My grandma Ercyl makes fabulous vanilla ice cream, so we used her recipe. Making ice cream requires prep work.

Prep work:

• The night before you are going to make ice cream, put the "bowl" of the ice cream maker into the back of your freezer. It needs to freeze.
  
• You should make the ice cream mix the night before and refrigerate it overnight so it is cold enough.
  

We used a 1 1/2 quart size ice cream maker; our recipe is based on that.

1st set of ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of cream
• 1 1/2 cups of whole milk
  

1) Beat the eggs until they are blended (but don't overdo it).
2) Add cream and milk and mix well (but not too long).
3) Set these aside.

2nd set of ingredients:

• 1 cup of whole milk
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/4 tsp. of salt

1) Cook milk, sugar, and salt until they are between 165 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit (we also got a cooking thermometer as a wedding present. Yay!). It should not be boiling. You need to stir it the whole time. Once it gets between 165 and 180 degrees, cool it a little (but do not let it get below 165 degrees).

2) Pour a small amount of this hot mixture into the egg mixture that you set aside. Do this slowly (you don't want to cook the eggs). Keep stirring.

3) Keep adding the hot mixture into the egg mixture until it is well blended (this heats up the eggs so that they are safe to eat).

** If you accidentally cook some of the eggs, strain them out.**

4) Cool this in the refrigerator until it is really cold (at least 4 to 6 hours; it is better to just do it the night before).

5) Once it is cool and you are about to make the ice cream, add 1 TBSP. of vanilla (some people add more). Don't forget this part :)

6) Now follow the instructions on your ice cream maker.

Sunday Night Dominican Cooking

On Sunday night, Eric and I decided to cook some Dominican-style food.

The menu:
Pollo guisado
with
Arroz con habichuelas

I got the recipes off of Aunt Clara's Dominican Cooking website.

The pollo guisado recipe was okay, but nothing special, so I'm not going to post it here. I do recommend using her recipe for rice; I had forgotten how to make my rice turn out "Dominican style", and I was very grateful for her recipe.

The habichuelas turned out ALMOST as good as I remember them. I used her recipe, but I am going to re-type it here, because I think that hers was a little confusing. Also, I remember that in the D.R., my best friend would go to the colmado and buy a small chunk of pumpkin to add to her habichuelas. I think that the pumpkin adds a little extra depth to the habichuelas, and so I am adding that into my version of the recipe.

Habichuelas rojas guisadas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of dried red kidney beans
• Water in which you boiled the beans
• 1/2 cup of chopped celery
• 1 small red onion, cut into 4 quarters
• a "chunk" (between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup) of pumpkin or squash (peeled and without seeds; you can either chop it into small pieces, or just put it into the pot with the other ingredients to cook out the flavor)
  
• 1 cube of chicken bouillon
• 1/2 teaspoon of chopped cilantro (or you can just put a couple of pieces of cilantro in - stem and all, instead of chopping it up; I prefer to do it this way; then you just remove it before eating the beans)
  
• a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 1 garlic clove, mashed
• 1 pinch of oregano
• Salt - a lot of it
  

Prep work:
1) Put 2 cups of dried red beans on a plate and make sure there are no stones or "bad beans"
2) Put the beans in a bowl and cover with water, then swish them around and pour out the water. Do this a few times until the water runs clear. Then drain the beans.
3) Soak the 2 cups of dried red kidney beans in water overnight.
4) Discard the water that the beans soaked in.
5) Put 2 cups of water in a pot and add the 2 cups of beans and bring them to a boil. Then cover the pot partially, and turn the heat to low. Cook them for about 2 or 2 1/2 hours (until the beans are tender). You can add about 1 tsp. of salt to the beans when they are almost done (when there is about 10 minutes left).
6) Once the beans are tender, remove the pot from heat and save the water the beans cooked in (I just leave the beans in the pot).

Preparing the beans, Dominican style:
1) In a different pot, heat the oil.
2) Add the oregano, onion, garlic, tomato paste, celery, pumpkin or squash, thyme and cilantro.
3) Stir
4) Add 2 tablespoons of the "bean water".
5) Now add the beans (without their cooking water - but save the rest of that water).
6) Simmer.
7) Once the water has almost evaporated, add the chicken boullion cube and 2 more tablespoons of the "bean water".
8) Stir.
9) Add the rest of the "bean water", and (if you want) mash the beans a little bit over the heat.
10) Boil at medium heat until it reaches a creamy consistency (this takes about 1/2 hour. Longer if you are Liz and you turn on the wrong burner...heehee).
11) Add more salt (probably 1/2 tsp. or more, but taste it first to make sure you aren't adding too much salt).
12) Take out the onions, thyme sprigs, and cilantro "sprigs".
13) Serve over Dominican style white rice.

Plans

The job market, our house and its issues, and this weather have been making me feel pretty down lately. I felt so happy after my surgery was over, that I am disappointed in myself for letting my emotions swing down so quickly. Yesterday we had our first January thaw (I think). It was great.

E & I went out for lunch and talked about how our goals need to change. The plan was originally for E to go back to school full-time when I graduate. It doesn't seem like that is possible in this economy, and it is probably a bad idea right now. We already have our house mortgage, and thanks to me we also have my student loans to deal with. We can't afford to pay out of pocket for him to attend school full-time, and we definitely aren't going to take out loans to pay for his tuition until I have a full-time secure job with health benefits.

The other problem is how we will pay for our living expenses (especially since we are "grown-ups" with a mortgage) while he is in school. We can take out loans for those, but the thought of putting ourselves "in the hole" even more is pretty nauseating. He's going to keep on taking night classes, and we are going to start searching for scholarships (even $500 or $1000 scholarships) for him to apply for so we can cut down on the amount of money we will have to borrow. He will also work part-time while in school. It is really annoying that he can't keep his current job and attend the I.T. full-time. Most of the classes that he needs to take are not offered at night. It is really annoying. It makes it almost impossible for him to get his degree while still holding down a job. And the tuition is so expensive, especially considering that it's a public university. All in all, I know that I will never donate money to that school (if I ever have money to give).

It's also depressing because I don't know how we are ever going to be able to afford to pay for our own kids to go to school someday, especially when we will still be paying off our own student loans. I can only imagine that college prices are going to continue increasing. Maybe we shouldn't have kids at all.

Although the tone of this post is depressing, we really are feeling better about things. Basically E's thought is that he has a good and stable (knock on wood) job in this economy and it pays the bills. It would be pretty crazy to quit working there in order to go to school and incur more debt right now. Especially when the legal job market is on the downswing, so my contribution to our income is not guaranteed.

I regret my decision to go to law school every day. I wish that E had gone to school full-time instead. It would have been a better use of our money. I hope that I forgive myself for making such a dumb decision.

Last night my thought was: some people have great careers and some people have great economic success and some people have great love in their life. At least we have one of the three :) And that is probably the most important one.