Books and ice cream
I just finished reading "This Book Is Full of Spiders, Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It." I actually snuck in the last few pages between data entry at work, because I was thaaaaaat close to finishing. Wow. Like the previous book by David Wong (aka Jason Pargin), "John Dies at the End" it managed to both utterly horrify me as well as make me laugh out loud. I actually think my Dad, of all people, would enjoy both of these books, as he is something of a horror fan as well.
I also made another batch of ice cream using the Humphrey Slocombe book - Balsamic Caramel. It tasted GREAT. But it didn' really freeze, and is more like a delicious, concentrated milkshake right now rather than something scoopable.
I almost feel like there is an engineered wrongness to the recipes in this book, as though the authors adapted the recipes just a tad off-center, like a sneaky cook passing out the family recipe while leaving out one ingredient, without which the dish is imperfect. For one thing, the salt levels that are called for are about double what my tongue says they need to be (I have used half in every recipe so far, and have contemplated going a little lower), and the sugar levels seem too high for this recipe as well as another I have made, Fat Elvis (brown sugar banana ice cream with bacon peanut brittle - the brittle was the best part; the ice cream was SUPER sweet and soft). I even reduced this recipe's sugar because it was about .83:1 sugar to dairy as written, and I dropped it to .75:1. Also, as it was supposed to be *balsamic* in flavor, I would jack up the balsamic vinegar a touch, because the bite was lost in the end product.
Still, good stuff.
I also made another batch of ice cream using the Humphrey Slocombe book - Balsamic Caramel. It tasted GREAT. But it didn' really freeze, and is more like a delicious, concentrated milkshake right now rather than something scoopable.
I almost feel like there is an engineered wrongness to the recipes in this book, as though the authors adapted the recipes just a tad off-center, like a sneaky cook passing out the family recipe while leaving out one ingredient, without which the dish is imperfect. For one thing, the salt levels that are called for are about double what my tongue says they need to be (I have used half in every recipe so far, and have contemplated going a little lower), and the sugar levels seem too high for this recipe as well as another I have made, Fat Elvis (brown sugar banana ice cream with bacon peanut brittle - the brittle was the best part; the ice cream was SUPER sweet and soft). I even reduced this recipe's sugar because it was about .83:1 sugar to dairy as written, and I dropped it to .75:1. Also, as it was supposed to be *balsamic* in flavor, I would jack up the balsamic vinegar a touch, because the bite was lost in the end product.
Still, good stuff.