Salty Sweet Surprise

Safeway Select Limited Edition Salted Pretzel Caramel Ice Cream has to be one of the best flavors of ice cream on the planet. This was on sale 2 for $6 at my local Von's and I just decided to try it. All I can say is it's an orgasm in a bowl. Sweet creamy vanilla ice cream laced with ground pretzel bits, salt and swirls of caramel. Mr Mine and I have taken to watching an episode of Firefly each night while eating a small bowl of this divine heavenliness. Who knew?

I actually just bought the last two that they had in stock at the store today, because the thought of running out saddens me. I'm thinking I may have to try making my own version of this. It might be time to break out the old ice cream maker that we got for Christmas from my cousin and her husband year before last. 

We made several sorbets with it when we initially got it, but I have yet to try making actual ice cream. Two of the three sorbets came out pretty well, we did a Raspberry Mint, a Lemon Basil, and then a simple Orange Sorbet. The orange one came out pretty awful but I loved the other two.


I was thinking about giving this recipe that I found a try for the Salted Pretzel Caramel:

Salted Caramel Pretzel Ice Cream
caramel adapted from Food Network

Ingredients:

-2 cups half and half
-1 cup heavy cream
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch salt
-2 cups coarsely chopped pretzels

for the salted caramel sauce
-1 cup packed brown sugar
-1/2 cup half and half
-4 tbsp butter
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-1/2 tsp sea salt

Directions:
1. To make the ice cream base, combine half and half, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt in a blender. Blend until smooth. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate overnight or until completely chilled.
2. The next day, prepare your caramel sauce. Mix the brown sugar, half and half, butter, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, whisking gently, for 5-7 minutes, until slightly thickened. Add the vanilla and cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and pour into a separate bowl to cool to room temperature.
3. Place the ice cream base mixture into the ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. Once ice cream is thick and nearly finished, add pretzels (you may need to add some of them after you finish churning to evenly distribute).
4. Layer the ice cream and the caramel in your ice cream storage container, beginning and ending with the ice cream. Freeze at least four hours, until firm.

The only change that I might make is instead of coarsely chopping the pretels I might grind them up finely. The Safeway Select version seems to have done that and it is the perfect consistency. 

Dedication Inspiration

So because I knew if I didn't go I would spend another lazy day entirely in bed I dragged my butt to the gym. Mr Mine has been trying to get me to go and I realize that once I am out of the house my productivity quadruples. So into the gym I went, not really expecting much. Initially we both started out on the exercise bikes for a warm-up. After about 3 miles I felt warm enough to launch into my one activity that I am allowed at the gym these days, walking. Since I had forgotten my earbuds and my phone was almost dead anyways I chose a machine that was in front of one of the big tvs so that I could at least watch and read while I worked.

The girl next to me was definitely running a marathon and sprinting for the finish line while doing it. I think she was actually working on her recovery times. While I was walking I watched her sprint for roughly 10 min intervals and then check her heart rate. She'd get off the machine and let it slow down and then get right back on and do it again. A bit intimidating and inspirational to watch. After She had done this about 4 times the woman with her, who was apparently her coach, came up and high-fived her. Telling her that it was her best run yet and that they were definitely on track for the following year's race. Not sure what that race was, but I was proud of this girl and I had no clue who she was. In fact, I opted to tell her just that as she was working through her cool down process. I could tell she was a little embarrassed by the attention, but she asked what had happened to my back. I told her I had broken it and that this (walking) was the only thing I was allowed to do. And she responded by saying, "yeah I have had a lot of injuries, you just need to stay focused on what you CAN do, instead of all the things that you can't." I thought that was pretty sage advice. So I stayed on the treadmill for an additional 10 minutes and felt pretty exhilarated when I got off. 400 cal burned, 5 miles traveled. I'd call that a successful first day at the gym :)

What a nice way to settle into the middle of my day. To keep the energy flowing, I finally drove to my dance studio and put myself officially on medical leave. Something I should have done months ago but hadn't managed to motivate myself. I was pleasently surprised to run into my pole teacher Ms Suavity while I was there. I adore this woman so seeing her was just like having an extra ray of sunshine in my day. 

Jessism of the Week: My Obsession

I am absolutely over-the-moon obsessed with Olallieberries. What are olallieberries you say? Only the single best invention I have ever had the pleasure to put in my mouth. These little beauties were developed at Oregon State in the 1930s by a berry genius named George Waldo and released into the wild in 1950.

"The olallieberry (pronounced oh-la-leh, sometimes spelled ollalieberry, olallaberry, olalliberry, ollalaberry or ollaliberry) is a cross between the loganberryand the youngberry, each of which is itself a cross between blackberry and another berry (raspberry and dewberry, respectively)." - wikipedia, epicurious food dictionary

My first enchanting encounter with these delightful morsels was on a trip to Hearst Castle when my husband and I stopped in Cambria, CA for a bite to eat. Our lunch place of choice was Linn's Restaurant, where we were introduced to the mouthwatering Olallieberry Pie. The taste is so deliciously tart and sweet that it is mind boggling. It was love at first bite. Mr Mine and I immediately both fell in love with the Olallieberry to the point where we even had Olallieberry for our wedding pie last year instead of the traditional cake. We had two frozen pies shipped from Linn's Restaurant and our caterer baked them to perfection! Hmm, maybe I should order one every year for our anniversary. I sense a new tradition in the making...

Recently I was in Solvang, with Mrs Bokeh, and Ms Ianthine and came across a stand selling Olallieberry Jam. If I thought I loved the pie, I am enraptured by the jam. And the obsession continues! YUM!

Pizza and...

Monday, July 23

You know that you are in good company when just chatting away makes a 13 hr trip seem like a 3-4 hour trip. Even with our numerous pit stops for drinks, libations, and gas. After waking up at 4am and doing the shortest 13 hr drive ever, we arrived, and it was only roughly 4pm. There were still many hours before we would be able to retire at a reasonable hour. So we ordered pizza and curled up on our respective couches with books to do some well earned reading.  Having brought only What to Expect Before You’re Expecting and The Devil in the White City with me Ms Ianthine was more than happy to suggest several of the books in her enormous library.

Delighted to have new reading material, I settled on a quirky romance novel which involved women jousting and men in tights. It was extremely nice to just spend some companionable time inhaling nonsensical hilarity and just allowing ourselves to breathe after the long day cooped in the car. I love that we share the joy of reading and that we were both perfectly happy to just be in the same room no entertainment necessary. 

Travel Log

Sorry for the latest lull in posts but I have been up in San Luis Obispo for Mr and Mrs Verve's wedding. We were crafting/DIYing up a storm in the days leading up to it. I have plenty of pictures to share with you about it in the coming weeks. Right now I am just completely beat. This will be the first night I get to bed before 1:00 am since I started my journey just this past wednesday. I hope to catch up on some blogs in the next few days since so much has happened that I want to tell you about! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. 

Sweet Dreams,
Jess

The Winding Road

Monday, Aug 23

Ms Ianthine and I were up this morning before the crack of dawn. (Where does that expression come from?) A long trip ahead, we settled ourselves and the lovely Ms Xochi into the car for our trip from Detroit to Charlotte. A twelve hour drive if we were lucky.

So we chatted about life, what we have been up to, what we want to change, drama bombs, our cats, books, and just about anything really. And the trip just flew by. Before we knew it we were only 2 hours from home. Time really does fly when you are having fun. I love road trips with great friends. Ms Ianthine I'd drive anywhere with you!

We resorted to music for the last leg of our journey and I fell in love with Ms Ianthine's workout playlist. Great, upbeat, gets your body moving music. She was kind enough to burn me a copy of it to take home with me. Can't wait to upload it to my Amazon Cloud! 

Drama Bombs

When you love two people very much, and they no longer love each other. It always makes life difficult. Couples and long term friendships have been terminating all around me for the past 3 years and it's hard to watch. Even harder to know what to do afterwards. In most of these cases I have just tried to be there for both parties. It's easier when it involves family, or someone who is like family. Otherwise, it's hard to choose. F-That, I'm selfish, I don't WANT to choose. I don't like losing friends. So I keep walking the middle ground. Is that the right thing to do? I don't know. I'm still working it out. 

The Baby Shower

I love Jack and Jill baby showers because it allows the men to be celebrated as much as the women. And since it definitely takes two to make these marvelous creations I think they both deserve the credit! Ms Ianthine and I made our final stop of the day at the main event of my trip. Mr & Mrs Pentagon's Babyshower. We created an awesome Diaper Bike in preparation for the big day and were excited to show it off!

Ms Ianthine and I    |    Our Awesome Diaper Bike

There was lots of simply yummy food. My favorite's being the prettily decorated Cake Balls. They were delicious, and I may or may not have eaten 3 or....5.

It was fun watching the happy couple open up all of their crazy shower gifts. My favorite though was a special surprise from Mrs Pentagon's mom. She wrapped Mrs Pentagon's own baby blanket with a note saying that she had to open it with a special somebody. That special somebody just happened to be the blankets original creator and it was a delight to watch the smiles all around as they opened it together.

And Of course every baby shower would not be complete without BABIES!!!! There was the beautiful darling Miss Mackenzie. Daughter of Mrs Pentagon's Besties Mr & Mrs Smiley.

And two twin boys who were only 5 weeks old. They both look like little orangutans. So absolutely adorable!

Sadly it was over way too soon, but we got some great take home treats! Wine glasses with baby inspired glass charms. A ton of pictures to remember the day by and hopefully sweet dreams after this extremely long and exhausting day.

Brain vs Body

Sorry I have yet to catch you up on all my adventures, but I have been feeling a bit down and sorry for myself. Which makes it hard to motivate myself to write. Immobility and patience are two very hard things for me. It's tough to sit around and do nothing. I am not supposed to lift anything, I'm not supposed to vaccum, I'm always supposed to wear my brace unless I am sleeping or showering. So I like to lay in bed just so that I can take the brace off. But then I feel lazy.

We threw a Showerette for a dear friend yesterday and it was so hard to just stand around and let everyone else carry everything. I'm just not that person. I'm the person who actually enjoys helping other people move. I like testing my strength and working out my muscles. Two things which I can't really do right now. So I am learning about patience. And it's a very trying lesson to learn. I hate to admit it, but I sulk alot.

I know that going for walks is a good form of exercise. But I can't seem to motivate myself to go on them. I feel like I am playing tug-a-war with myself constantly. Brain vs Body, hopefully it will end with everyone being a winner. 

Fusalicious

I think one of my cats vomited on my phone. But it's too early to turn on the light....

It's almost 6am and I feel as though I haven't slept a wink. I'm wide awake and I know I was tossing turning and flipping all night. It's been extremely hot here in LA recently. So last night my husband broke out our airconditioning unit (courtesy of Mr Aside). I'm not that keen on AC but last night it felt Great! Unfortunately it apparently took out our main fuse in its enthusiasm to keep us from melting. I wondered why our apartment felt so dark!

No idea what time it went out. But I have a feeling it was fighting with our Cat Genie over who needed more power. I guess all the little people lost out in the end...

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Ticking Claws

Depression has claws. And they seem to be stuck in me. I don't even really feel depressed. I more feel...compressed. Like agitated energy that wants to explode but has no way of doing it. No soccer, no dance, I can't even go into a cleaning frenzy. My hands are tied, or my back is rather. I feel as though I am a paraplegic even though I can walk. It's hard to follow rules when the pain is not a reminder. You see, I don't have pain except in certain positions. Which are only a small part of the things I have been told I cannot do. I feel anxious and angry. Stubborn, I want to go running, lift weights, do pull-ups and everything else that has been denied me these past few months. Five more weeks until I get to see the doctor. It makes me want to pull out all my hair in frustration.

Glad for the Grad

At my age, and I know that 33 is not really that old, there is nothing that makes you feel older than going to a High School Graduation party. You stand around and think about how young and innocent the Grads are. Thinking thoughts like "oh just you wait" and "wow, I can't even remember how it felt to first start college". You think about how many years it's been since you graduated (ouch, has it really been that many??). And maybe reminisce a little about first kisses, first dates, and any other firsts (or fifths) that you want to throw in there. 

Since this trip has been all about seeing my old high school friends I found it fitting that Ms Ianthine's cousin Tim was having his graduation party the same weekend I was in town for Mr & Mrs Pentagon's Babyshower. Since I was staying with her she asked if I wouldn't mind attending and cited the things that make you a sucker for grad parties. Mostaccioli, potato salad, cake, and more Mostaccioli...

So our third stop of the day was to swing by and congratulate Tim on surviving high school mayhem and wishing him every chance for success in his future at OU. This particular grad party, being of modern times, included not only the delightful cake and "wall of shame, but a Photo Booth, a slushee machine, and a fondue fountain. Fun, yum, and YUM! I'm sad to say that due to our tight schedule for the day we actually ended up heading out right after the rest of Ms Ianthine's family arrived. We completely missed out on both the magnificent mostaccioli AND the cake. 

Frittata and Friends

Ms Ianthine and I headed up to Clawson, MI saturday morning for our first stop of the day, brunch with our friend Ms Stark. We met up with Ms Stark and she recommended that we try the one of her favorite breakfast stops, Frittata. The breakfast menu offers a wide variety of dishes, including lemon ricotta pancakes, eggs benedict, poached eggs lorraine, and of course, several mouth watering variations of the frittata. 

We arrived just before the brunch rush. The servers who were bustling about frantically took a while to seat us, but as we weren't in a big hurry we didn't mind. Once seated with a menu in hand it was hard to choose what to try as everything sounded great! This is the problem I have with not being a picky eater, no limitations. I settled on the house favorite which was a chicken and artichoke laden frittata and ordered some french toast for the table to share. Wouldn't you know that I have been so spoiled in LA being able to find pretty much any restaurant's menu online that I didn't bother writing down the names of any of the dishes. I really enjoyed my fritatta and in fact ate every single bite even though I know that I probably should have stopped half way through. It was just so delicious I couldn't bear the thought of wasting it!

Once we were finished with breakfast we headed back to Ms Stark's so that I could take some pics of the crazy cats residing with her. I have never in my life seen such a "big-boned" cat.

Shower Prep: The Diaper Bike

In light of the impending Pentagon's Babyshower, Ms Ianthine and I decided we needed to get our butts in gear to create the ultimate shower gift, The Diaper Bike. You may have possibly heard of Diaper Cakes which have apparently been all the rage recently. Well, we decided to take that a step farther with a little help from Google. Because you know what happens when you google "better than Diaper Cake"? You got it, you get the Diaper Bike.

This would be a quick and easy gift, if Baby Stores were layed out in a sensible manner. But it seems that they decide to put a little bit of everything everywhere. So it took several hours of running around to different stores trying to acquire all the necessary ingredients. We gave up after an hour of searching for items specifically on the Registry. It just wasn't going to happen. So we instead tried to stay within the color guidelines and opted for "the cuteness factor" when it came to picking things that seemed to be eluding us.

Unfortunately we were so tired once we finally got home to put it together that I completely forgot to take step-by-step pictures along the way. You can find the tutorial we used here. The only thing we did differently is that we didn't use any pins. Enjoy :)

Catching Up

One of the people that I wanted to make sure that I saw while I was in MI was Mr Galley. My mother and Mr Galley used to work together teaching at a Special Education school. I used to go into work with my mom frequently and I'd always stop by to visit his room. In fact most of my teenage summers were spent at that school. I had a lot of good times helping my mom out with her gym and swim classes. Nothing like spending the summer in the pool, even if it was indoors.

Mr Galley and I

Mr Mine and I asked Mr Galley to officiate our wedding last year and he did an absolutely fantastic job. I wanted to let him know how much we appreciated him doing that. So Friday afternoon I headed over and had a lovely visit. It was extremely nice to sit and chat. Catching up on our traveling stories and comparing trip tickets. Thank you so much Mr Galley! We love you!

The Pentagons

Thursday Dinner with The Pentagons

Meet my dear friends, Mr & Mrs Pentagon. Really they should be Dr & Dr Pentagon but I figured that would just get confusing so Mr & Mrs they shall be. I met Mrs Pentagon when I was 17 on our high school track team. We bonded over heart wrenching losses, hot track coaches, and whatever else teenage girls pour their hearts out over. We sat together on the bus after every track meet and in between races where you found one the other was usually close by.

Mrs Pentagon and I at my '97 Graduation Party

I was a Senior and she was a Sophomore, but we just seemed to click. I can't tell you the first moment I met her, but she immediately became an important part of my life. When I went away for college we stayed in touch, but over the years drifted apart. I saw her whenever we were both in our hometown but  once I had moved out of state that happened less and less frequently. Until we were down to an annual or even bi-annual phone call. It just so happened that 6 years ago I woke up one morning at 8am and happened to call her for our annual check-in. I had been living in LaLa land for 5 months figured that it would at least be 11am her time and not a big deal on a saturday. Imagine my surprise when she grumpily answered the phone and corrected my misconception by letting me know she was in my time zone. Not only was she in my time zone, but she was living in LaLa land for the summer doing an internship. In fact she had been working less than a mile from me for the past two months! We immediately made plans to meet up and fell back into our long lost friendship. A little tenuous at first, but since that day we have both been to each others weddings and those annual phone calls are now more like monthly phone calls, the time inbetween peppered with emails, texts and now even blogs :)

I am grateful to have her back in my life and I absolutely adore her Mr Pentagon. I think that they are wonderful together. I can't wait to celebrate their new little life coming into the world.

Unexpected Sister Time

Ms Bliss and I. Cheers!

I found myself with a fairly free evening on Thursday night. Mr Timbre was out for the evening and I was waiting on a lot of people to get back to me. When enexpectedly my Sis, Ms Bliss, called. She wanted to know how I was doing and when I told her of my waiting pattern she invited me over for dinner. Ms Bliss was also in MI this weekend. Her best friend Ms Carolina was getting married and my sister just happened to be her MOH.

So I headed over to join the bride and bridesmaids for a drink and some girl chat. It was fun hearing Ms Carolina's mother and mother-in-law tell the stories about how they heard of their daughter/son relationship. Too soon I needed to be on my way to my next engagment. Time to see The Pentagons!

Tickling the Ivories

I miss having a piano. When I was younger I took lessons for several years. I wasn't a very technical player, but I loved to figure out songs by ear. And most of the songs that I played were from memory. Now, it seems that everywhere I turn someone new is taking lessons and I am envious. So when staying at Mr Timbre’s house I took advantage of the chance to play his beautiful piano. I was chagrinned to realize that I have almost completely lost all of the pieces that I used to have memorized. I wonder if I can talk Mr Mine into us getting a piano....