A Cookbook Challenge

I've joined a Cookbook Challenge being hosted by the lovely Uniflame who blogs at She Likes Bento. I met Uniflame through the weekly Weekend Cooking blog event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Uniflame came up with this challenge as means to motivate home cooks to cook from the many cookbooks we have stashed on our bookshelves but never seem to get around to actually using. I know I have many cookbooks that I've bought and enjoyed reading, but have yet to actually tried a single one of the recipes. I tend to cook more from memory or recipes from cooking magazines.

The challenge is really straight forward. Choose your level [by the number of recipes you'll try] and cook at least one recipe from the cookbooks you choose to use. You can use any number of cookbooks, but you must choose a cookbook from which you rarely use.

You don't have to write a review of the cookbook or even post the recipes on your blog if you don't want to, but it is welcomed, if not encouraged. You can opt to just post what you made and your thoughts on the dish and or the cookbook. You can also share your progress in the challenge with photos. It's really pretty flexible.

The challenge runs October through November, so you can jump in and participate at anytime between now and November 30.

My Cookbooks [photo taken July 28, 2012]
Also my collection of Everyday Food magazines
and a few library books,

I've chosen the following cookbooks to use for this challenge:

Indian Regional Classics by Julie Sahni 
Autumn by Susan Branch 
The Pumpkin Cookbook edited by Nicola Hill 
Holiday Baking by Sara Perry
German Cookery by Elizabeth Schuler

I'll start out with the plan to prepare one recipe from each cookbook which would put me at the Creative Croissant level of 3-5 recipes. Perhaps I'll be inspired to do more as I go along.

For more information about the challenge and to sign up, visit Uniflame HERE.

Hope you'll join me!

Do you own cookbooks from which you've never tried a single recipe? 
What's your excuse? 

Bloggiesta Finish Line

I participated in Bloggiesta over the weekend and wow! What a cool blog event. I finally made some blog-improvements that I've wanted to get to for quite some time, but simply never set aside the time to do. I learned a lot more than I expected and I even accomplished some tasks that weren't even on my list. Overall, I'm quite pleased with my first Bloggiesta experience.

What I did:

• Added social media buttons to my sidebar. There's one for email, twitter, goodreads, instagram and facebook.
• Added pages along the top of my blog under my header. I still have some editing to do with the page content including updating a lot of post labels so posts get sorted to the right places, but I'm pretty psyched I got this project going. I like how it gives an overview of the things I like to blog about.
• Backed up my blog content! My first time doing so in the nearly 5 years I've had my blog and really easy to do [on Blogger, at least]. The Book Vixen has clear instructions [with pictures!] HERE. I also backed up my template. FYI: I had trouble with the back up generating a .xml file onto my hard drive using Safari, but when I tried using Firefox, I had no problems.
• Added a Creative Commons license to the blog. Felicia with Geeky Book Girl's Blog has a great article on copyright info for bloggers. Mostly to do with photos and images, but also creative commons license. You can read her article HERE.
• I met some new bloggers! I had hoped to be even more social than I was, but I had a lot of work to do around here, not to mention all the regular weekend stuff at home with my family and so on. I'm still going to try to hop around to other participant's wrap-up posts to make some new acquaintances.
• Completed THREE Bloggiesta mini-challenges [possibly four]: 

1. 20 Discussion Post Ideas for your Book Blog hosted by Tanya Patrice at Girlxoxo.com
2. Grade Yourself! Use a Web Grader by Smash Attack at Smash Attack Reads.
3. Evernote mini-challenge by Joy from Joy's Book Blog.
4. I also wrote up a FTC disclaimer, a review policy and my contest terms and conditions. I haven't posted the two former yet, but they are written, and I already posted the latter in my Happy Birthday Giveaway post yesterday. Most of this I learned from Donna H. at Girl Reads Books. This might count as my 4th mini-challenge.

• I read through almost all of the other very informative mini-challenges even though I didn't get around to doing them. I learned so much last weekend. Even a bit of html doing those social media buttons. 

By the way, if you haven't visited my Happy Birthday Giveaway post yet, please do! I'm giving away a subscription to a cool magazine, ebook or similarly valued gift from The Book Depository.

Hope you had a productive Bloggiesta, too, if you participated! :)

The next Bloggiesta is March 29-31, 2013 so mark your calendars!

A Happy Birthday Giveaway!

It's that time of year again-- it's my birthday today. The calendar has rolled over again all too quickly, but I'm not complaining (much) because I have so much for which to celebrate!

44 years strong. :)

First and foremost, my health. I may not be at the trimmest I've ever been in my life, but I'm more active and fitter than I've probably ever been in my entire life. Biking--sometimes for so many miles that even I can't believe, running, strength training, going to the gym. I eat well and my blood pressure and cholesterol are excellent. I feel great!

Second, I have a wonderful husband with whom I'm still in love. A man who still makes my heart skip a beat and my girl parts sing after more than two decades since our first kiss. TMI but it's true!

I have two beautiful, healthy, amazing daughters who keep me on my toes and may have contributed to a few gray hairs, but I wouldn't want it any other way. It is joy to be a part of their journey from birth to the amazing young women they are becoming. I love them with my whole being.

I have many people in my life who I am lucky to call friends. Friends to whom I know I can turn in times of need and in times of joy.

Lastly, I am grateful for how fortunate I am to have a home, plenty of healthy food and clean water, access to good medical care and the opportunity to live life to the fullest within our means.

I am exceptionally grateful for my life and the people with whom I am lucky to share it. I truly have a lot to celebrate on this birthday and I hope you have the same in your life every day.

In my tradition of celebrating my birthday on my blog, I'm giving away a birthday gift to one lucky person. I'm gifting one lucky winner a one year's subscription to either Everyday Food Magazine or Whole Living Magazine--both my current favorite publications. Note: I am not affiliated in any way with these magazines, Omnimedia, Inc. or their affiliates. I'm merely a fan who wants to share the goodness.

October 2012 issue

I have been a subscriber to Everyday Food Magazine for several years now and look forward to every issue. The recipes are simple, easy and delicious. Each issue contains recipes and food preparation ideas to enhance the daily cooking of both the beginner cook or the experienced home cook.

October 2012 issue

Whole Living magazine is new to me in the last year. Whole Living magazine is a sponsor for the Danskin Triathlon and gifted participants with a complimentary one year subscription to their magazine. My subscription started in the summer of 2011 and I was hooked with the first issue. This magazine is chock full of recipes, nutrition and health news and information, as well as ideas, suggestions and inspiration for living a whole, healthy lifestyle--"body+soul in balance." Many of the recipes are vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free.



To enter my birthday giveaway, all you need to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below and then leave a comment in the comment section below telling me what your favorite autumn comfort food is. Mine is pumpkin anything. :)

Here are the terms and conditions of this giveaway:

• Giveaway runs from today, October 1, 2012 through Monday, October 8, 2012 at 12:01 am EST. All entries received after the close of the giveaway will be disqualified.
• You must be 18 years or older to enter.
• No purchase necessary to win and void where prohibited.
• Magazine subscriptions can only be gifted to residents of the US. I am willing to work with an international winner, however, with an ebook or a gift purchased of equal or lesser value from thebookdepository.com as long as they deliver to your country.
• Prize value: US $15
• Odds of winning are dependent on the number of entries received.
• One winner will be drawn on October 8, 2012 and notified by email within 48 hours. Winner will have one week from my email to get back to me with their gift choice and mailing address or their gift will be forfeited and a new winner will be chosen.
• Contact information [email and address] will only be used for the purposes of contacting the winner and prize delivery. Information will not be saved, sold or used for any other purpose.

By entering your name in the Rafflecopter form and in the comment section below, you agree to these terms and conditions.

This is my first time using Rafflecopter, so please bear with me as I learn how to use it.. hopefully it's as easy as all the testimonials say it is. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to subscribe to the comments of this post by email so you're kept in the loop about the giveaway. Thanks!

Good luck!


Note: Special thanks to Donna H. who blogs at Girl Who Reads for her very informative articles about the laws regarding hosting contests and giveaways on blogs. I highly recommend you check them out.

Thursday Bloggiesta Edition
Tips on Thursday: Giveaways a Rafflecopter giveaway

In Death Series Reading Challenge: September 2012

Interested in joining the Challenge? Anyone is welcome to join in at any time of the year at wherever in the series you currently are. See the sign up post HERE and join the fun!

Did you read any In Death series books this month?

CHALLENGE PARTICIPANTS:
Link up any In Death posts you made this month here. If you made a post on your blog, whether it be a review or commentary, please grab the link to your post and enter in the comments below along with your name so we can find each other's latest In Death posts easily. You can also just use the link to your goodreads or other virtual bookshelf as well.

BOOK REVIEW: 
I still have Salvation in Death on the nightstand bookmarked to page twenty something and haven't picked it up in several weeks. So no review from me this month.. :(

SERIES DISCUSSION:
This month's series discussion is extremely self-serving.

How do I get out of this In Death reading slump I'm in? 

I'm stuck and I can't move forward! Help!

If anyone has series discussion suggestions, please drop me an email. I have shiny new social media icons up at the top of my sidebar. Just click on the little mail icon and zip me an email.

Bloggiesta: Starting Line

Bloggiesta is officially underway! This is my first time participating in Bloggiesta so I'm pretty excited to make some improvements, learn some new tricks and meet new bloggers in the process. I'm admittedly not so great at time management, so hopefully I'll be able to actually follow through with some of my intentions!

Bloggiesta is group blog event that brings bloggers together for a weekend of blog improvements, mini challenges designed to teach improved productivity and blog management and twitter parties. Of course you can make blog improvements any time you want, but doing it alongside other bloggers turns tackling your to-do list into a party!

Bloggiesta is hosted this year by Suey of It's All About Books and Danielle from There's A Book and takes place Sept. 28-30.

Sign up for Bloggiesta HERE.  More than 200 bloggers are signed up!

Starting line posts are linked HERE.

Mini-Challenges are posted HERE.

Twitter parties! Friday Sept. 28  9-11pm EST
                         Saturday Sept. 29  noon-2pm EST
                         Sunday, Sept. 30  5-7pm EST

Just follow @Bloggiesta and the hash tag #Bloggiesta on twitter for parties and general blogger interaction.

My to-do list is quite ambitious, but I'm listing it all anyway and hoping to accomplish as much as I can.  Honestly, I'll be happy if I'm able to check one or two things off my list by the end of the weekend.

1. Back up blog! I've never done this before.. 
2. Add those cute little buttons to my sidebar. RSS feeds, Twitter, goodreads, instagram, email, etc..
3. Create some pages. About me, On my bookshelf, In the kitchen, In the Garden, Health & Fitness, Travel & Adventures, Arts & Crafts 
4. Update photos. Remove and or credit photos not my own.
5. Add creative commons copyright thingy [need to figure this out] 
6. Consolidate my separate blogs See how she runs... [fitness logs] and The happily ever after... book archives [lists of monthly reads since 2008] into my main blog. Maybe their own page here? 
7. Start the process of making a unique, artistic header graphic. At least explore some options. My sources of inspiration: Angieville and Lurve A La Mode
8. Participate in a few of the mini challenges. Quite a few of them are even relevant to my to-do list!
9. Re-organize and update all the blogs in my feed reader. 
10. Meet new bloggers through Bloggiesta!!!! I love making new friends, don't you?

Unrelated to Bloggiesta, I've got quite a few other book and blog related things I'd love to get to by the end of the weekend:

1. Elemental Assassin Read Along discussion 
2. Read first three chapters of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book for The Graveyard Read Along that starts Monday! 
3. Finish reading this month's book club pick: Cold Fire by Kate Elliot 
4. Finish and post book review of The Rift Walker by Clay and Susan Griffith 
5. Weekend Cooking post 
6. In Death Series Reading Challenge: September 2012 post

I told you my list was ambitious. ;)


Is there anything about my blog that YOU think needs improvement?  Please let me know! I'm open to suggestions.

Where in the World Are You Reading: Waiting

Where in the World Are You Reading? is a fun new monthly themed meme that started over the summer by Trish [Love Laugh Insanity], Lisa [Books Lists Life] and Kelly [The Written World].  This is a book meme that encourages readers to share the places they're reading or getting their books around the world. Visit the links below for more details and follow the #wwread hash tag on twitter for more buzz!

For information about the meme, and how it got started, visit this Intro to Where in the World Are You Reading post.

For this month's link up and see where in the world other readers are reading while they are waiting, visit Lisa's blog HERE.

Where in the World Do I Read While Waiting? Well....

Every once in a while, I read when I'm sitting in the car waiting for my daughters to get out of school, IF I brought a book or magazine along or IF I am reading an ebook at the time. Otherwise I usually just read email or my twitter stream. ; ) 

Same as above when I'm waiting in a doctor's or dentist's office. But not at the DMV because OMG there's no line anymore! Who is the genius that fixed THAT after decades of torture?! 

I read in bed some nights, waiting for my husband to come to bed. 

I read in bed some nights when my husband is already in bed with me except he's fast asleep and I'm waiting to finish one more chapter before I go to sleep, too. 

I never, ever, ever read in the middle of the day, waiting to get motivated to do other things such as laundry, bills, mopping the floors, doing the dishes, etc. Nope. Which is why this photo below doesn't even exist! 

Reading while waiting to do other things.. 

Where in the world do YOU read while waiting? 

Want to join in? Next month's theme is Coffee Shop, Café, etc. and will be hosted by Trish.

Get bitten by 'The Spider' with The Elemental Assassin Series Read Along

The Book Vixen and Smash Attack Reads are hosting a Read Along of The Elemental Assassin series by Jennifer Estep. This urban fantasy series features a kick ass female assassin named Gin Blanco known by her street name "The Spider." I have been wanting to read this series for ages. Just ask nath. She loves this series and every time she posts a review of the next book, all my comments are the same--'I want/need/must read this series!' So I'm  finally going to do it. Thanks to a big ole kick in the butt from The Book Vixen and Smash Attack Reads. What better motivation than to have deadlines and cool book people with whom to chat about the books, right? So if you've always wanted to read this series or if you're simply curious, why not grab the first book and see what you think? I may only be 70something pages in the first book, but already Gin has got my attention and I'm feeling the intensity of this character and her world.

There are currently seven full length novels and several novellas out already. For the read along, we're going to read one novel per month starting with Spider's Bite this month and ending with Deadly Sting [ the 8th book which will be released March 26, 2013] in April.

Visit the announcement post HERE for more information about the read along including links to the books on amazon.

Do you read the Elemental Assassin Series by Jennifer Estep? 

What are your overall impressions of the series? 

Which book is your favorite so far?

PLEASE NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS. I'm allergic. ;)

Vegan Basil Pesto

The perfect recipe for harvesting all that basil in your garden at the end of the summer! 

Pesto is one of those foods that every home cook should know how to make. It's quick, easy, tasty, versatile and impressive. Well, at least impressive to your family and friends who don't know how easy it really is to make. Once you know the basic method of making pesto, you can get really creative with the variety of herbs or greens and nuts you use to make different flavors.

This recipe for basil pesto happens to be my personal favorite. It also happens to be vegan, simply because I prefer to make my pestos without Parmesan cheese. The first few times I ever had pesto, I thought it was okay, but kind of strong. Yet I loved the way it smelled and always wanted to love it more. Then one day I tried pesto my friend's homemade pesto and I was won over. Her secret? No Parmesan cheese! I started making my pesto without Parmesan cheese, too, and haven't turned back since. I think I just find the basil and Parmesan are just two very strong flavors and the way the compete with each other in traditional pesto just doesn't appeal to me, although I adore both of these ingredients separately. Anyway, if you normally aren't crazy about pesto maybe give this vegan variation a try and see if it doesn't win you over.

Pesto! 

Vegan Basil Pesto
Once you make homemade pesto a few times, you won't need to measure ingredients anymore.. you'll just pull the ingredients together in your food processor, give it a whirl and have perfect pesto every time. 

2 cups tightly packed fresh basil leaves 
2 cups tightly packed fresh parsley leaves 
4 garlic cloves 
1/2 cup pecan pieces 
olive oil [1/3 to 1/2 cup] 
kosher salt [1/2 to 1 teaspoon]

1. Add the basil, parsley, garlic and pecans into the bowl of your food processor and process it until finely chopped. 

Add basil, parsley, garlic and pecans
to food processor bowl

Note: You can do this in steps if you prefer, processing the garlic and pecans first until finely chopped, then adding the basil and parsley and processing a bit more before proceeding with step 2 below. 

Process until finely chopped.

2. While the processor is running, drizzle olive oil through the food chute until the pesto reaches the desired consistency. This can require anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 cup of olive oil. 

Add olive oil and process until
 pesto is smooth.

3. Add a generous sprinkle of salt and give the pesto a few more whirls in the food processor. 
4. Use the pesto immediately in your favorite pesto recipe. 
5. Store any left over pesto in a clean glass jar in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for long term storage. 

Storing Pesto:
For best flavor, store pesto in a clean glass jar with a tightly fitting lid. Drizzle olive oil over the surface of the pesto until it is covered. This will help prevent the basil from oxidizing and turning a darker color. For best flavor, consistency and presentation, pesto should be used within a few days, although I have stored it a bit longer without any problems. It's a good idea to freeze whatever pesto you don't use within a few days.

Freezing Pesto:
This pesto freezes well. Again, store pesto in small, clean glass jars with tightly fitting lids and drizzle olive oil over the top until the surface of the pesto is covered with oil. It's also nice to freeze pesto in ice cube trays and then transfer the pesto cubes to freezer safe bags. Then when you need just need a tablespoon or two of pesto, it's at the ready. For best results use within 6 months, but I have used frozen pesto within 12 months.

How to use pesto:
+use as a sauce for pasta or gnocchi, diluting it a bit with the cooking water used to boil the pasta or gnocchi.
+use in a cream sauce for pasta--especially delicious with seafood.
+as a base on pizza instead of tomato sauce. See HERE.
+as a dip or spread on slices of rustic bread as an appetizer
+add a teaspoon or two to bowls of soup before serving.
+dot on top of tomato halves and roast
+as a spread on your favorite hot or cold sandwich
+drizzle over roasted vegetables such as eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, etc.

Do you like pesto? How do you use it?

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Weekend Cooking, a weekly blog event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food related post to share--a food related book review (fiction or nonfiction), cookbook review, movie review, a recipe, random thoughts, gadgets, food quotations, photographs, etc. Please visit Beth's blog for more information and join the fun! 

Note: your post does not have to be posted on the weekend, but do visit Beth's blog over the weekend to link up your post. 

Library Loot LVII

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries! This week's Library Loot is at Marg's. 

Here is my latest library loot. This is from two different visits to two different local libraries--my town library and the library from the next town over which is actually closer to my house! Oh, plus a new release from the latter mentioned library that I asked my friend to get me because they don't allow out of town residents to borrow their new releases. And books are considered new releases for a whole year! Kills me. Thank goodness I have a few friends in that town who don't mind getting on the hold lists for me. ; )
 
Deep Kiss of Winter by Kresley Cole and Gena Showalter
Pleasure of A Dark Prince by Kresley Cole

I've been on a roll re-reading and catching up with Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark (IAD) series, filling in the gaps of the books I don't already own with trips to the library. Omg this series is like candy! You stick your hand in the jar and you just want more, more, more! You can't stop eating. It's such a fun series. It's FUNNY and fun and lovable and adventurous and the characters go through hell for each other and their loved ones and get so torn up over their promises, their allegiances and their desires. It's oodles of alpha fun mixed with some seriously kick ass modern women who know what they want, or at least have a wild time figuring it all out. Anyway, I read Deep Kiss of Winter last week. LOVED the IAD story of Daniela the half Valkyrie and half Ice Fey Maiden and the vampire Murdoch Wroth. I wasn't crazy about the Gena Showalter short which is from her Alien Huntress series. The characters fell kinda flat for me and it just seemed everyone's motives were all just based on sex and instant desire without a whole heck of a lot of emotion. You can read my review of this book on goodreads HERE.

Next up is Pleasure of A Dark Prince, book NINE (!) in the IAD series. This one is the story of the Valkyrie named Lucia the Huntress [the Archer]--and Garreth MacRieve, Prince of the Lykae [werewolves]. This story is taking place around the same time as the other stories in this series, so in the beginning, Garreth doesn't yet know that his brother and the true King of the Lykae, Lachlain MacRieve still lives and is in fact in hot pursuit of his mate, the darling and timid half vampire, half Valkyrie Emma. That's book two. Anyway, I've already over a hundred pages into this story and really enjoying it. I like Lucia a lot and love the way Garreth is just over the moon for her. They're pretty darned adorable. I put it down, though, to read my September TBR Challenge book which I ended up not finishing in time anyway. Can't wait to get back to Pleasure of A Dark Prince soon!

Dream Lake by Lisa Kleypas 
This is third book in Ms. Kleypas' latest contemporary romance / chick lit Friday Harbor series. I'm looking forward to reading this one. The main character, Sam Nolan has some serious problems that will require a woman with patient and generous heart.

I haven't borrowed graphic novels in a while, so I browsed the shelves hoping to find some that might be fitting for the RIP VII reading event going on now. Here's what I brought home:




The Arrival by Shaun Tan.
Critically acclaimed, this one.

Fables: The Dark Ages 
by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Peter Gross, Andrew Pepoy, 
Michael Allred and David Hahn.
Winner of Twelve Eisner Awards! Saw this one on Marg's blog and I know Kelly reads them, too, so when I saw this one at the library, I grabbed it. I couldn't tell which book it is in the series, but it was the only one of the series my library had. Turns out it's the 12th one! Ho hum. Think I might like to hunt this series down and start with the 1st book.

Edgar Allen Poe's Tales of Death and Dementia
by Edgar Allen Poe, Illustrated by Gris Grimly
This is a re-loot. Borrowed it earlier this year and never got around to reading it. Thought it would be a great RIP book. It's actually a picture book for teens! I hope to review it and maybe post some images of the illustrations and text inside.

You just KNOW I had to go check out the new cookbook shelf, too. I do that every visit. Here's what I'm reading in cookbooks right now:

 
Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round
by Marisa McClellan.
Written by a popular food blogger. So many food bloggers are writing their own cookbooks these days. Such an awesome opportunity for the home cook. Really fantastic. Anyway, if you visit my blog regularly, you know I love making food from scratch, including jams and more recently canned tomatoes. Looking forward to finding some inspiration and recipes to try with this one.

Preserve It! by Lynda Brown
This cook was right next to Food in Jars, so I thought it would be a nice complement to my cookbook reading this week.

What are you reading from your library right now?

What was the last cookbook you bought or borrowed from the library?

REVIEW: Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer

Operation Use My Ice Cream Maker

Back in July, Trish from Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity announced her latest kitchen challenge--Operation Use My Ice Cream Maker. I just looooove ice cream (and other frozen desserts) and already own an ice cream maker so I was very excited to join Trish in this challenge. I posted about Ice Cream Makers and Ice Cream Cookbooks in August and vowed to make some homemade ice cream recipes. I made one. Last Saturday, I finally pulled out the ice cream maker and made the most fabulous homemade ice cream I've ever made in my life! Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams At Home by Jeni Britton Bauer. Wow.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams At Home by Jeni Britton Bauer 
If you love ice cream, like to try gourmet flavors and enjoy making something unique from scratch in your own kitchen with wholesome ingredients, you must buy an ice cream maker and the cookbook Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer. Trust me. You will not be disappointed.

I bought Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home cookbook earlier this year and spent a lot of time actually reading this book. Not just thumbing through the recipes, but actually reading it cover to cover. I loved reading about Jeni's unique artisan ice creams from the creative flavor combinations to her perfected methodology to her recommended food complements to her recipes. After much internal debate and polling my family members I decided on making Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream. ZOMG. It was incredible. Not too rich, not too sweet, perfect pistachio flavor, wonderful smooth texture. If all of the recipes in this cookbook are as good as this one? I am so doomed.

The method for most of the ice creams is very similar. The steps are a bit more involved than simply mixing milk, cream, sugar and fruit or chocolate or other flavoring AND it involves a few bowls and a pot, but it is so worth it.

There's a really fantastic article on the food website Food 52 written by Jeni herself about how to make Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Base. She outlines some of the advance prep you need to do so that when you go into the kitchen to actually make the ice cream, the process runs smoothly and you're not fumbling around for another bowl, pouring and mixing things while you need to be stirring that, and so on. It's really helpful to have everything measured and bowls ready before you begin. There are useful pictures, too.

The Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream is made with real pistachios that are first gently roasted on a cookie sheet in the oven for a few minutes, then processed in a food processor until you have a smooth pistachio paste or nut butter. The color is a mellow yellow-green and buttery, sweet smell and taste.

The pistachio paste is then whisked with a bit of cream cheese and a pinch of sea salt. Later it is added to a milk, cream and sugar base that's been cooked and thickened with a bit of cornstarch. The mixture is then transferred to a freezer zip-top bag and submerged in a bowl of ice and water to cool. After about 30 minutes, the ice cream mixture is poured into the container of the ice cream maker and churned for about 25 minutes or until a thick soft serve consistency.
 
Note: I use the Cuisinart 1 1/2 Quart Automatic Ice Cream Maker and am very happy with it. This is also the ice cream maker that the author used to test all of her recipes for the cookbook.

Now you're supposed to quickly transfer the ice cream into a container, cover the surface of the ice cream with parchment paper to protect it from air and then ripen the ice cream in the freezer for at least 4 hours before serving. We ate some first. We couldn't resist!

Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream
{Right out of the ice cream maker--I couldn't wait!}

The next evening we had scoops of Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream for dessert and everyone was blown away by the quality of flavor and texture of this ice cream. It was perfect. And since this was the evening after my big bike event [107 miles, 9110 ft elev, 8hrs, 4670 calories], I didn't even feel guilty about indulging in a second scoop! Sorry I don't have photos of this ice cream perfection after it was firm and scoopable. I was really tired by this time of the evening after riding in the Gran Fondo all day and just forgot!

Since the ice cream recipes use pretty much the same base recipe with different ingredient combinations for the flavors, I'm confident they'll all provide similarly fantastic results. Next I'm going to make the Roasted Pumpkin 5-Spice Ice Cream and Baked Apple Sorbet. I can't wait!

I highly recommend this cookbook. If you already have an ice cream maker, you need to get this cookbook. If you've been thinking about getting an ice cream maker, go ahead and get one, but get this cookbook, too.

I give Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams At Home 5 out of 5 stars on goodreads.

GRADE: A

Visit Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at their website http://www.jenis.com/ and their blog http://jenisplendid.typepad.com . You can also follow them on twitter @jenisicecreams and on instagram with the same username.

Note: I purchased this cookbook with my own money and have not been compensated in any way for this review which is entirely my own opinion.

Be sure to visit Trish's blog today, too for her Operation Use My Ice Cream Maker post. She was more thorough with her challenge and made several ice creams, frozen yogurts and frozen desserts. Lots of photos, too! Mmmm! 

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Weekend Cooking, a weekly blog event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food related post to share--a food related book review (fiction or nonfiction), cookbook review, movie review, a recipe, random thoughts, gadgets, food quotations, photographs, etc. Please visit Beth's blog for more information and join the fun! 

Note: your post does not have to be posted on the weekend, but do visit Beth's blog over the weekend to link up your post.