• Blog - Kitchen

    Dry Ice Ice Cream

    July 25, 2014 - By 

    I’m not sure how but I completely forgot to share this with you.

    It was about a month ago… Our freezer was having an issue, which later turned out to be not a big deal. Thank goodness Mr. G is also Mr. Fix-it. In the mean time I totally panicked and sourced dry ice (and a lot of it) to keep our 200lbs of beef in the freezer from becoming the largest neighborhood BBQ anyone has ever thrown around here.

    Long story short…the freezer was back up and running in short order and we had 100lbs of dry ice to play with.  Since we weren’t throwing that BBQ after all, we had no need of a fake smoke cloud to roll from the garage.  Still was fun to pretend.

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    We searched out “fun things to do with dry ice” and found you can make ice cream. Sweet! No pun intended.

    We used my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer. It was the one thing that I wanted when we got married. Now 20yrs later…I’m glad I insisted we make that purchase…I use it all the time.

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    We weren’t really sure exactly how to make the ice cream and as you can see…we had a little trouble. The dry ice wasn’t crushed quite as fine as it should have been. This created very large bubbles as the solid carbon dioxide sublimated.  In the end, it turned out perfectly.

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    The yummiest vanilla ice cream we’ve ever had!!  In fact it was so good we decided to make more the next day…

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    We made another batch of vanilla, chocolate and my personal favorite…strawberry!  We had fresh picked strawberries from the my in-laws garden…oh yum!

    It’s certainly not an inexpensive way to make ice cream but if you’ve got some extra dry ice sitting around…it’s a great way to use it!

  • Blog - Photography

    T Tuesday: days of summer edition

    July 22, 2014 - By 

    Happy Tuesday! So glad you could join me for another edition of T stands for Tuesday.

    We’ve been trying to get out and about more this summer with the kids before they are too old to want to go out with us….or have jobs and can’t. I know we still have a couple of years but the times goes by so quickly.

    On one adventure we came across a garage sale…more of a sample sale I guess. The kids convinced me I needed this travel glass.great at 40Of course, this edit would be most accurate…actually 42We’ve explored the MN Landscape Arboretum twice already. I bought a 1yr membership with my birthday money so I want to make sure we make it worth while. collage1 collage3Such a beautiful place…abundant trails…something new around every corner.

    We always have a great time on Independence Day.collage4And no, those are not my kids. Mine are much, much older.

    collage2We just had to go see Minnehaha Falls after the torrential rains and flooding. I’ve never seen the Falls running that fierce. It’s just a few short blocks from the Mississippi River, we ventured over there as well. collage5These photos were taken from Lock and Dam #1. The trees in the middle of the river look pretty strange right?! It’s normally an island about 200 yards from the dam. A good share of the walkways used by the Army Corp of Engineers are totally under water as well. I’ve never seen anything like it.

    The more we adventure around…the more places we want to see. I keep making lists of things to explore. I’m sure we’ll have lots more to share before summer is over.

    But for today, I have my everlasting list to tackle.

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog - Crafts

    Collage cards collage

    July 18, 2014 - By 

    Was that a confusing title or what?!?  But it is accurate. Thanks to my friend Patty, I now have a quick and easy way to make a collage or mosaic of photos… The program is called pixlr and I just love it!card collage2 card collage1These are just few of the cards I’ve made as of late.  I’d been slacking a bit on my etsy store inventory but figured it was time to get back at it.