Outgoing Mail and Peach Ice Cream

We went to the orchard a couple weekends ago and got tons of apples and peaches. I adapted the strawberry ice cream recipe I had made earlier for peaches!

Roasting the peaches for a few minutes to get some of the liquid out:

Then they are pureed and added to the ice cream base. It didn't turn out super peachy, even though I added twice as much puree as I did for the strawberries. I had even more puree left over though and we ended up spooning it over the ice cream, which made it delightfully peachy.

Some recent outgoing mail:

I'm finally sending the postcard (lower left) that came with the Griffin and Sabine book!

I thought this cow from National Geographic was so cute. And an old French postcard going out to a French friend in West Virginia.

Back to blogging?

Well, I felt the urge to post on here again. This past weekend I went through old boxes of mail and found many letters from people I met through blogging. Made me want to start up again. Another inspiration is Mary Ann Moss and her blog Dispatch From LA. I just love her blog and seeing all the wonderful things she gets up to, sketchbookery and beautiful gardens, etc. So inspiring.

The old boxes of mail also inspired me to do a bit more collage type stuff. Recently I've been making envelopes out of one piece of paper, and seeing old mail made me want to get more into scraps and gluing again. Here are a few postcards and envelopes I made this weekend.

What else have I been getting up to? Last weekend I made the first ice cream of the summer. Mint chocolate chip ice cream with mint from our backyard!! I've made ice cream in past summers and it never really turned out well. The flavor was good, but the consistency was not that amazing creamy ice cream texture. I'd been using recipes from online, but not too long ago Clayton bought me an ice cream cookbook: Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. OMG. This time it was perfect and now I'm obsessed.

Here's the mint soaking in the ice cream base to impart its flavor:

The same day I made chocolate covered cherries with the leftover melted chocolate from the ice cream. So decadent.

And this past weekend I made strawberry ice cream. You roast the strawberries a very short time to reduce the amount of liquid. I think I needed to get a little more out, the icecream had some ice crystals in spots. But, it was so delicious.

About to be roasted:

I think the next two flavors for the coming weeks will be lemon and chocolate peanut butter!