Camping in Vermont & New Hampshire

Hello everyone I just got back from a wonderful camping trip! I went to Vermont & New Hampshire! We got to see a raccoon in New Hampshire and heard the awesome call of three Bard owls while in Vermont. Also in Vermont we went to the Cabot cheese factory in Cabot,VT and later in the trip went to the famous Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory! Finally another thing in VT that we did is go kyacking! Then on Saturday morning we started the 12 hour drive home.

Blackberry Ice Cream

Last week I picked blackberries at a local "pick-your-own" place. They were amazing

The berries were so sweet and delicious, I knew they would be perfect for making ice cream.


I started with a recipe I found over on White on Rice Couple but adjusted it a bit to suit what I had on hand, along with a few added inspirations.

My final recipe is as follows:


Ingredients:

• 2 c Whole Milk
• 1 c sugar
• 1 c Heavy Whipping Cream
• 4 Egg Yolks
• 2 inch piece Vanilla Bean
• 2 c pureed Blackberries (I used 20 oz. which is how much I had left by the time I made the ice cream!)
• Zest of 1 Lemon

Instructions:

1. Pour the milk and cream into a pot.
2. Zest your lemon and slice the vanilla bean in half, extracting the seeds with the tip of a knife, and add it all to the pot of milk and cream (including the bean part of the vanilla!).
3. Warm the milk mixture, but be careful not to let it boil!
4. When the milk mixture is steamy, add the sugar.
5. Whisk egg yolks medium bowl. Slowly pour the warm milk mixture into the eggs, stirring constantly. 
6. Pour the milk & egg mixture back into the same pot you already used.
7. Heat the milk & egg mixture over medium heat. Make sure you stir constantly so lumps don't form. Do this until it thickens up a bit. If you have a thermometer, you can stop when the custard reaches 170 degrees farenheit. Pour the custard through a fine mesh strainer into a medium sized metal bowl.
8. Mix in the blackberry puree (also run this through the strainer to separate the seeds!)
9. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
10. If you have the patience, once it's cooled down, chill the custard thoroughly in the fridge for a couple of hours. Otherwise, when it's good and chilled, pour the mixture into your ice cream maker. Make sure your mixture is cold! Adding hot custard to your ice cream maker will only melt the ice in the canister, and you'll end up with soup.
11. Churn in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

A couple notes:

I used 1 cup of sugar, but in the end I found it a bit sweet, so I'd probably go with 3/4 of a cup next time. You can always taste your custard at the end and add more sugar if it's not sweet enough, but it's hard to take it out after the fact!

The original recipe called for closer to 24 oz. of blackberries, but I only had 20 oz. so that's what I used, and it turned out great!

Next time I'd go easy on the lemon zest, if not omit it all together. In the end it almost overpowered the blackberry flavor. It was still tasty, but it tasted more like cake batter with blackberry undertones, rather than a very berry flavor.

The nice thing about making ice cream is that it's really flexible. You can adjust the ingredients a little hear and their to suit your tastes, or to try something new. If you ever go to a pick-your-own fruit place, I highly recommend keeping a batch of ice cream in mind.

World of Tanks Tech Trees

These are the 4 tech trees in World of Tanks. They show the tanks you can research in this game for the 4 countries that you can play. You use these tech trees to see what is available for use in game play.

American Tech Tree

Soviet Tech Tree

German Tech Tree

French Tech Tree

Holtby

Check out this photo of Holtby. It is awesome. You will love it.

See, you loved it didn't you?

New Ice

This video is a must watch for everyone. It's a time lapse movie of the ice crew at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex putting down the first layers of new ice after a recent summer power outage caused the ice in the rink to melt.



It's a fun thing to watch so enjoy!

Mushrooms, Brussel Sprouts, and Bacon

This recipe is awesome. It sounds simple, but don't let that deceive you. The flavors are quite complex and heavenly. If you make this recipe once, you will love it forever!

Ingredients:
Coconut Oil (Tablespoon)
Soy Sauce (a few drops)
Equal amounts of:
Bacon
Mushrooms
Brussel Sprouts

First, mince the Brussel Sprouts, Bacon and Mushrooms.
Then in the pan put in coconut oil.
Next when the pan is hot, put in the bacon.
After about 5 minutes put in the Mushrooms.
When the Mushrooms are soft put in the brussel sprouts.
Make sure to keep stirring the ingredients and at the very end when everything is cooked, pour in just a few drops of soy sauce to bring out the natural flavors that are already mingling in the pan.

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire

Right now I'm reading the Hunger Games: Catching Fire for the second time. It's such a great book. It's exciting. The words that are used in it are so good. The plot is well thought out with twists and turns that will keep you guessing. I recommend this book for people who read the first book in the Hunger Games, or someone who likes good books.

Here's a photo of the cover so you can recognize it in the store:

Have you read this book? If so, I'd love to know what you thought about it. If not, let me know if you read it! Thanks for stopping by.

My New Blog

Hi my name is Max. Welcome to my new blog. I plan to write about a lot of cool thinks like Hockey, Cooking, Books, Miniatures, and World of Tanks.

Here is a random photo for your viewing pleasure:

Thanks for reading, and get ready for some really awesome blog posts to come!