Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream

It is assumed that I will have an iced coffee with condensed milk every time we go out for Vietnamese food, so I was pretty excited to find a recipe for iced coffee ice cream in David Lebovit's "Perfect Scoop".
One time after a foreseeable breakup one of my friends commented that "she looked good on paper". He was referring to education, stage of life, and matched off similarities to himself without thinking if it would be a good match for him. I kind of feel the same for this ice cream. On paper I was in love with the idea of this. I love Vietnamese food, condensed milk and coffee. I didn't think that cream and coffee would be a bad choice for something that I eat before bed. Laying wide awake with a gut full of condensed milk isn't what I'm looking for so unfortunately I had to breakup with this recipe almost immediately. This ice cream was good but had a different texture than other ice creams. I am not sure if I would make it again because I prefer ice cream at night. I think this would be a great palate cleanser or with dessert but it's not something to eat a bowl of during a movie.

We did a double recipe. It makes about 1 liter for the normal recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/2 cups brewed espresso
• 1/2 cup half and half
• Big pinch of espresso

 Directions:

This is the easiest thing to put together just whisk it up and dump it into the ice cream maker.

Jamaican Beef Patties

I have been going to "Keith's Deli" for lunch since I was a kid. My dad took me for a sausage sub and I was hooked. Over the years I started trying some of the other things on the menu. The Jamaican beef patties have become the "extra" thing that I order when I'm feeling glutenous. I was surprised how good mine turned out but they weren't as good as Keith's. The pastry turned out amazing but my filling wasn't up to par (I didn't have all the ingredients). I also stained our counter rolling out the dough.

Fettucine Carbonara

Growing up I was not exposed to "Italian" food beyond spaghetti and Pizza Hut. When I met Jess I became exposed to a new world of food because of her Italian lineage.  Carbonara was something her mom specializes in and the combination of crispy pork, soft onion and a creamy cheese sauce made it an instant favourite of mine. The recipe is pretty easy and unless you don't like meat, cheese and pasta you will probably love it. I only have a photo of the finished product because most of the magic happens in a closed pot.

Carmine's Bolognese Sauce

Jess and I just got back from a trip to New York where we had some of the most amazing food of our lives. My favourite was Carmine's restaurant. Carmine's specialises in "Family Serving" Italian food. Since it was just the two of us we ended up getting a meat and a pasta. This was about 30 pounds of food. The Spaghetti Bolognese was the best I have ever eaten. I immediately started looking for a copy cat recipe and found this one as the starting point of my own. I really didn't change much from "Anna's" version other than the way that I prepared some of the ingredients and some of the cooking times. This will be my "go to" sauce recipe. It tasted exactly like Carmine's. This made sauce for a ravenous family of five with some leftover... don't forget your fat pants!