Jamaica!

Perfect place to sip a pina colada and enjoy the ocean breeze.

Our family vacation this year was an escape to a tropical paradise.  And it was sorely needed.  This summer is crazy... and stressful.  We are trying to sell our house (so not happening in this market apparently), repair our rental house and put it on the market (thank goodness for fantastic friends who pitched in and did more in a weekend than we could have gotten done in a month of weekends!) all the while Mark works full time and travels for his job.  And I work part time.  Plus the kids are out of school...

View from our room

We had planned on going on a two week cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean.  We were going to visit Italy, Greece, Israel, Turkey and Egypt. Visit the area of the world where six major religions were born, see the ancient centers of western art, architecture, philosophy and science.  Glassblowing, metal work, volcanoes and pyramids-- it was going to be a vacation to remember.  And it was going to be busy, busy, busy!

Life intervened... as it often does.  And what looked at first like a disappointment ended up being... well, perfect.  We crashed on a lovely white sand beach, swam in warm turquoise waters, and enjoyed the tropical weather of Jamaica in July.  Paradise!  It was so very relaxing and fun.  And just what we needed.

Jamaica.







Recipes inspired by Jamaica are in the pipeline.  So sip a pina colada and come back for mango banana bread, jerk chicken and more.

Ice Cream Trifecta!

Mmmm, it was a good time in ice cream world around here over the weekend.  Oh, baby!  Vanilla, cinnamon and a wicked dark chocolate.  Pull up a chair.  Let me tell ya about them...

Wicked dark chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla

Vanilla Ice Cream

Vanilla ice cream was a tough one for me.  I tried a couple of recipes that weren't good.  I think part of it is that those of us who could eat ice cream at one point have a well ingrained memory of what vanilla ice cream should be.  Plus vanilla is a complex but delicate flavor.  Unlike chocolate, where the strong flavor of the chocolate can hide a multitude of "sins", vanilla can be easily overpowered.

I tried hemp milk for the first attempt.  It had a really bitter aftertaste.  Yick.  The second batch had sucanat in it.  Blech.  The taste of the sucunat overpowered the vanilla.  While we like sucunat in quinoa chocolate chip cookies and banana bread, it was too much for the vanilla. The third attempt was better but still had a strong taste from the demara sugar that my younger son didn't like.  (He poured chocolate sauce over the ice cream and ate it anyway.  It didn't slow him down too much.)   But, really, is a stand alone vanilla too much to ask?  

So fourth time's a charm...