Blueberry Ice Cream

Making ice cream is so easy and simple. It’s a great way to use some of those summer berries. Plus, you can pronounce every ingredient in it. That’s a big plus these days.

I made some blueberry ice cream today. I used an electric ice cream maker.


Here is the ingredient list.

2 pints blueberries (one frozen one fresh)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1-2 drops cinnamon essential oil
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups half and half
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix 1 pint blueberries, sugars, cinnamon, whipping cream, half and half and vanilla extract in a bowl.
Pour mixture into an ice cream maker.
Add ice and rock salt as instructed.



After 10 minutes add the frozen berries.

Hint - freeze berries in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Once they are frozen you can place them in a bowl to store. Otherwise they will stick together and not make for the perfect combination of berries and cream.

After another 10 minutes your ice cream is ready to soft serve. Place in an air tight container in the freezer and take out 15 minutes before serving to soften.



So good and fresh. You can make ice cream out of anything you have lots of. Mint ice cream is amazing. Just use peppermint or spearmint essential oil. You can even try exotic blends such as rosemary and orange!

Let your imagination fly. And have a cool summer!

Look for essential oils at my web site: Please e-mail me for information and web site address. settersrun360@gmail.com

Tower Gardens

I met Nancy Couch the other day while taking a brewery tour in Marietta.
She mentioned that she has a business called Tower Garden.

Photo Credit: Tower Gardens

What is a Tower Garden? I went to Nancy’s site to find out and here is what it said. “Tower Garden® is a state-of-the-art vertical aeroponic growing system. It’s perfect for rooftops, patios, balconies, terraces—just about any relatively sunny place outside.” The web site also says the Tower Garden will yield up to 30% more produce on average compared to traditional gardening methods.

Reminds me of the “Living with the Land” exhibit at Epcot where trees and vines grow in soil-less environments.

You can buy one for a one time payment of $525 plus shipping and tax - compared to buying organic
at the market - it pays for itself many times over!!  And you can make 12 payments
of $45!!!   It comes with everything you need to start and maintain a garden including specially formulated plant food and gourmet seeds. You can have up to 20 plants per tower. An extension kit can be purchased which will allow you to grow up to 28 plants in one tower.

Photo Credit: Nancy Couch

Soil free means there isn’t any weeding. You can place it on patios, decks, porches, balconies, terraces or rooftop garden areas. This is great news for city folk who really would like to step outside and pick salad fixings or tomatoes for sandwiches.

You don’t have to grow vegetables or fruit. You can also grow herbs or flowers. You will need to germinate the seeds and then transfer them into the Garden Tower. It will grow anything except root vegetables, grapevines, bushes, and trees.

Having a Garden Tower is not all maintenance free so you will still need to do some work. You may still have to combat garden pests and algae buildup. And of course you'll need to feed the plants.

If you are interested, here is Nancy’s web page.

http://couch.towergarden.com/content/towergarden/en-us.html#.VZ2OBSjjJUQ

Just another innovative way to Grow It First!

Patak Butcher

Robert and I went to Patak Butcher the other day. Our friends Joanna and Herman have been telling us about this place forever so we finally decided to make the trip and we are glad we did.

Patak Butcher has been open since 1981 and they have a wide variety of meats from all around the world. Patak sausages are hand-made, twisted and smoked in their factory with no substitutes or fillers.

Photo Credit: Patak

Fresh products include Ground Chuck, Beef Roladen, Ox Tail, Pork Chops and many others. Remember that if you come on Monday this selection will be very limited.

Thanks to the twin Fessman smokehouses they can produce up to 20,000 pounds of product per day. You can purchase Canadian Bacon, Smoked Salmon or Trout and Smoked Pork Chops to name a few.

Photo Credit: Patak

Their cured products are dried in a specialized Travaglini Italian drying room so they have plenty of space for a variety of meats. Dried cured products include but aren’t limited to Westphalian Ham, Hungarian Segelli, Moldavia Salami and German Landjager. You can ask for a taste of anything you’d like.

They also carry a wide variety of imported items from around the world. These include cheeses, chocolates, cookies, jams and condiments.

The bread is amazing. Get a round of European bread while you're there. Or maybe some good rye.

Photo Credit: Stephanie M. on Yelp

Be ready to stand in line. It’s become quite a popular place. Especially right before a holiday. Make friends with the people around you. We met Erica who had been going to Patak for 20 years and she helped us so much. She’s the one who suggested the European bread, the pork tenderloin stuffed with sausage and explained what many of the products were and the best way to cook them.

The hours of operation and directions can be found on this link:

http://www.patakmeats.com/Operations.html

It’s worth the trip!