If you can't bake ...

During the hot weather we do less 'cooking' in our kitchen and subsequently Abigail gets less baking fun, in an attempt to keep the house as cool as possible! (Oh to have proper AC!) It's something she loves to do, so this summer I've found that a great alternative has been to make ice-cream ... which depending on the recipe requires very little or no heating at all!!

While we still make the butterscotch ice cream from my very first recipe blog entry back in September last year ... we've been branching out with different yummy flavours too. Yesterday we made a chocolate orange batch but have yet to sample it. (I hope it tastes good because the last 3 new recipes I've tried for family meals haven't been great, I don't want a fourth yucky recipe in a row!!!) Another one we love is Oreo mint. Recently I made that one for a pot luck lunch as one of the desserts and came home with an empty tub!! Just goes to show that it's not only my family's biased opinion that it tastes good!!

Those last two flavours some from the Ben & Jerry's, Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert book. Something I bought over 10 years ago and which has sat on my shelf until last summer when I finally opened it! Why did it take me so long? To be honest, I bought it as a present for a friend and it never quite made it to them! Oooooooops!!! When I lived in Tanzania I borrowed an ice-cream maker with another friend, who manage to lose the instructions manual including the recipe pages. I felt so bad about it that when we returned the maker (minus the instructions) I vowed to replace them with something special. The next time I was in the UK I found the Ben & Jerry's book and put it in a large envelope to send but never got round to actually putting an address or stamps on it! I guess subconsciously I thought I couldn't use it all this time because it 'belonged' to someone else!!!

So if you can identify yourself as the owner of that ice-cream maker ... I'm really sorry!!! Maybe if I put enough ice-cream recipes in my blog, including ones from the book it will in some way make up for it!! ;o) As Oreo's are very American, I thought I'd include the Oreo mint one today, while we still live in the States!! Enjoy ... this recipe makes a generous and very delicious 1 quart!

2/3 cup coarsely chopped Oreo cookies
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons peppermint extract

Place chopped cookies in a bowl, cover & refrigerate
Whisk eggs til light & fluffy, 1-2 minutes
Whisk in sugar, a little at a time til completely blended then about a minute more
Pour in cream & milk and whisk to blend
Add peppermint extract, blend again
Transfer mixture to ice cream maker and freeze
Once the ice-cream stiffens and just before you empty it into a tub in the freezer, add in the chopped cookies.

(Sorry the recipe bit isn't formatted as I usually do with bullet points etc ... 'Blogger' won't let me do it without blanking out the text for some reason today!!)