Cooking Floyd: It's Ice Cream Season!!!

Into late fall and through the winter I forget how wonderful homemade ice cream is.  I suppose it has something to do with the chilly weather although I love ice cream year round.  I did make pumpkin ice cream and cinnamon ice cream for Thanksgiving but mostly I'm happy with a double chocolate caramel Magnum bar.

But summer's in full swing and the fruits and berries are rolling in so I thought I'd kick off with an ice cream that has no summer fruit in it at all - Thai Ice Cream!

Foraging Floyd: Wineberries

Ronald Reagan is not high on my list of Presidents I Admire.  I mean, the man's administration had ketchup designated as a vegetable.  And now those wacky Republicans are at it again designating pizza as a vegetable (OK, actually the tomato paste ON the pizza) !

But what Ronnie did get right was designating the month of July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of July as National Ice Cream Day.  Just in time for homemade ice cream to be studded and flavored with all the gorgeous summer fruits ripening now!  Yesterday Michael headed off to forage wineberries while I was trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of leftover cream and buttermilk.  Yep, you know where this is going...

Cooking Floyd: Peach and Earl Grey Ice Cream

Spring rains and dry summers combine to turn out superior stone fruits and this year's peaches and nectarines are superb!  I'm done with squirreling away various peach preserves and we're concentrating on fresh eating while the peaches last.  Yesterday at the grocery store that carries local fruit I noticed they had nectarines as well as peaches and the nectarines were a good bit cheaper per pound and box then the peaches.  I bought a few and had one on the way home and they are wonderful.  Just so you know, you can swap out the peaches for nectarines in any of the peach recipes I've posted.

Last night's dinner was barbequed chicken and roasted ears of corn, with cucumbers in dilled sour cream followed by Michael's favorite flavor of ice cream, homemade peach.