Cartoons and Caricatures

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

Today it is once again time for Rain's Art and Dinner Date. This week she is asking for cartoons and caricatures.  

My photos aren't great, but my drawings in my daily journal are definitely cartoon-like. I don't spend a lot of time drawing them. That is my daily journal "rule", basically so I can keep up with daily journaling   I color them with some water based Faber-Castell markers.

And you can see why I'm not happy using a  Moleskin journal this year as you can see ghosts from the other side of the page. GRRR.

And for food this week, let me share this homemade coffee ice cream shake or what we here In New Hampshire call a frappe (pronounced frap). 

I love ice cream when it's hot, but one of the problems going out to buy a cone or dish is that you usually get more than you really need. Now don't get me wrong, I still love going out for an ice cream Sunday lunch, which is what my husband and I do weekly during ice cream weather. But sometimes during the week, I would just love a few bites to take the edge off my sweet tooth.

I have an ice cream maker I can use with my mixer, but it does entail freezing the bowl and beater, which means making room in the freezer. Then I need to make and chill the base, turn the base into ice cream in the frozen bowl and then freeze the newly made ice cream. When I noticed that there was a new Ninja Creami ice cream maker on the market, I was curious and looked into it.

This ice cream maker was a little more than I wanted to spend, but then Amazon Prime Days came along and they had it for $70 off, plus I had an Amazon gift card, so I decided I could get the price down to where I wanted. Now I can make pints  of ice cream without quite so much fuss. To use the Creami, you make your mix and then pour it in to fill the pint container to the fill line. Then freeze for 24 hours. After a few minutes in the machine, you have a pint of ice cream.

Yes, I could go out and buy a pint of ice cream, and I don't really  need another appliance on my kitchen counter, but at least now my husband and I can customize what we want. Plus it is fun to make your own ice cream. As I explained to my husband when I bought it and he was looking at me with one of those you're wasting your money looks, I can make all kinds of flavors of lighter ice cream and fruit sorbets, which aren't always easy to find at the store.

Now the hubby is into his own private pints of chocolate chip and cookie  ice cream, and I haven't seen that you're wasting your money look again. Smile!

I made a batch of coffee ice cream with 1 tbsp cream cheese, 3/4 of sugar (or sugar substitute), 3/4 c. of heavy cream, 1 c. of coffee flavored whole milk, and 1 tsp. of instant coffee granules. I put them all in a bowl together, heated them for just over 1 minute in my microwave and then used a whisk to mix them completely. Once mixed, I pour them into my Creami pint container and put it in the freezer for 24 hours. The next day I made my pint of coffee ice cream.

The creami has a milkshake button (a big selling point for me-grin), and I put 3 small scoops of ice cream and a 1/2 c. of skim milk into a clean pint container, ran it through the Creami and ended up in a few minutes with this very yummy coffee frappe. 

And I might add, a frappe that is not as big as one bought at the ice cream counter would be.

And no, I am not advertising or getting any money for writing this. I'm just excited to be making little ice cream treats for myself.  And I hope my waistline doesn't mind all little treats either-smile again.

Maybe  in the long run my new appliance will be collecting dust on my counter, but then again, maybe not. Only time will answer that question.

Thanks for visiting!