Bonus: Peach ice cream, and an Irene update

Now that summer is pretty much over, and fresh peaches will soon be a thing of the past, I want to share the peach ice cream that I made--twice--more than a month ago now in my new ice cream maker.

I found this recipe at Barbra's (aka scmom) at "Bless Us O Lord" blog:

5 large ripe peaches

3/4 cup sugar, divided
large pinch kosher salt

1/2 t. lemon juice

1 1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup milk

Peel, pit, and chop the peaches. (The first time, I chopped them; the second time I puree'd them as well. Details below.) Place them in a medium saucepan with 1/2 cup sugar, salt, and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until jamlike in consistency, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, combine cream, milk, and remaining sugar in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until liquid begins to bubble around the edges, stirring occasionally.

Transfer to a bowl and add peaches and sauce. Place bowl in a bowl of ice water and let sit for about 30 minutes or until room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled.

Churn in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instruction. Freeze until scoopable to your preference.

(source)

You can dice your peaches as big or as small as you want, depending on what you like.

We had to lock it in the laundry room for this part so our dog wouldn't eat it.

Churning...

All finished and ready to eat! (That's gluten free granola on mine.)

The only complaint I got from Joe and the boys was that the chunks of peach in the ice cream were frozen and were cold on their teeth. (I liked it this way, though.) I made it again a few days later, and this time after cooking, I put the peaches in the blender and puree'd them before adding them to the milk and cream mixture.

Not as chunky, but just as delicious!

Not long ago, I tried making peppermint ice cream; soon I'll share with you how that turned out!

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I guess I kind of left everyone in suspense in my last post, and maybe you're wondering how everyone fared in the midst of Hurricane Irene.

Nick had this to say on Twitter on the days following the storm (I'm combining the 140-character-or-less tweets into somewhat of a paragraph):

My family is safe, the house is fine. Just a little water in the yard. Other parts of New Bern weren't so lucky. Many -- hundreds -- of houses in New Bern flooded, lots of downed power lines, power off to thousands of homes, many fallen trees. 9 out of 10 people in New Bern without power. Might take time to get it restored. Flooding in town ranged from nothing at all to up to 8 feet in some places. We have a generator, so we're okay. It might take a week for power to be restored. Internet and phone is spotty ...Downed power lines everywhere ... The problem is that even the stores have no power so have to leave town to buy things like milk and bread. Thank you to all the utility crews that have come to Eastern North Carolina to clean up after Hurricane Irene.

Now he's back to publishing tweets like this:

"When life hands you melons, you know you're dyslexic..."

"Do we STILL not know who let the dogs out?"

(Check out Nicholas Sparks' official Twitter page for more cheesy jokes.)

In my neck of the woods, we got a healthy dose of wind and rain from Irene, but not nearly the amount of flooding and damage as other parts of the East Coast. We didn't even lose power, which was the best part! (Nick hasn't said anything about Lee; I expect they're getting quite a bit of rain from that one like we are.)

Coming up next: Spaghetti with meatballs and sausage, and my mother-in-law's amazing pasta sauce. I promise.