Mint Chip Goodness

I've been enjoying a kitchen renaissance lately, with my luxurious free time.  Good for the soul, bad for the waistline...

Last week, I made some mint-chip cookies (sorry for the lame photo - I didn't take any until I only had one left. :) Forgive also the crummy photo quality - the kitchen's a wreck, and I want to get back into the habit of posting.)  Anyhow, it was everything I love about mint-chip ice cream, my favorite ice cream flavor, in cookie form!  Peppermint - not spearmint - flavor and green!  I skipped the rolling-pin and cookie-cutter step, opting to roll out balls of dough and flatten them with the bottom of a drinking glass.

I've been making Nutella ice cream that's simply a 1:1 ratio of Nutella and evaporated milk.  It. Is. Heavenly.  Especially straight out of the ice cream maker - sumptuous and silky, almost gelato-like.  So good.  Anyhow, I looked today for more recipes using evaporated milk, but found a ton that use sweetened condensed milk in place of the usual egg custard base.  And when I found a mint chip one, I couldn't resist.  My initial lick off the dasher was pretty good - we'll see how it freezes up.  I particularly love the stracciatella technique - drizzling melted chocolate into the ice cream maker in the last stage of freezing.  It produces softer chocolate flakes instead of hard chips.  If I did it again (and I likely will), I will use chocolate thinned out with some shortening to produce an even softer chocolate flake - aiming for the effect I've tasted in ice creams like Graeter's.  Meanwhile, I'll happily make quick work of this batch. :)

The cookie photo showcases one of my new set of dishes.  It had been almost 13 years since we got our last set of dishes (for our wedding), and they were starting to look a little dated.  Figured a big move would be a good excuse to get a new set, found a group at Pier 1 that I liked, in a variety of patterns, so they coordinate but aren't matchy-matchy.  We have small plates and bowls in the zebra pattern you see, plus plates and bowls in four other similar patterns.  They went on clearance last week, and living on an island, I've found it's important to gobble things up when I can - they might not be there later, and it's not like we can drive to many other stores...