Can anyone tell me how to make homemade yogurt? It’s something that I would really like to learn how to do, and I don’t want to buy the machine from Williams Sonoma - although a new gadget would be fun!

Anyways, if you can help, please let me know!

Thanks!

Well, I certainly have time to finish this post today! One of my dogs is sick, and that’s a side effect from being boarded. One out of the three usually comes home with a tummyache. It’s now 4:45 a.m. and I am wide awake. I can’t just lay in bed thinking of all the things I have to do today, so it’s easier to get up and get the day started. So armed with an iced espresso, here is the gelato recipe I started two days ago.

While we were in California, we stopped into the local Barnes and Noble store to browse (which is one of my favorite things to do) and I saw the current La Cucina Italiana magazine - and right on the cover was “How to make authentic Gelato!” Now according to them, a gelato maker paddle turns more slowly than an American ice cream maker, which means less air is put into the final product. So the end result should be a dense and creamy. For the first time, I actually used my thermometer while I cooked the custard, and I have to say, it made my life much easier. No guesswork - boom, once it hit the right temp, I took it off the heat. And I was rewarded with a perfectly cooked gelato base. I let the mixture chill overnight, and processed it yesterday morning. It was one of the few things that I didn’t ruin.

The end result? It’s very rich, and very fluffy. I’m sure that’s my machines doing - since the paddle spins so quickly, it whips it up and creates a mousse like dessert. Now, none of this is bad, just not the final effect I was hoping for.

I’ll scoop some later, take a better photo, and let you know how everyone else likes it.

Vanilla Gelato

5 large egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
2 ¼ cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick.

Combine milk and cream in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally, and heat just until bubbles pop around the pan’s edges. Remove from heat.

Whisk about 1/3 of hot milk mixture into the egg yolks, then add egg mixture back into saucepan. Heat mixture over medium low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and registers 170-175 on instant read thermometer. Do not allow to boil or the mixture will break.

Strain mixture into another bowl and place that bowl into an ice bath. Stir frequently to speed the cooling process. Once the custard is cool, add the vanilla extract.

Chill for several hours and then freeze according to your ice cream makers instructions.

So Kelly over at Baking with the Boys decided to put the proverbial sticky note on me - the 6 Random Things that you never wanted have been dying to know about me -

Here’s the rules and legal fine print:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Well, let’s get started, shall we? (Don’t say you weren’t warned!)

1. 12 years ago, I was a highly paid Vice President of an engineering company - and children were the last thing on my mind. I’m still not sure how it happened. You might have to ask my husband.

2. Although I couldn’t pass Algebra in high school to save my life, my whole professional career has been in finance. Go figure. (ha! literally!) And my high school counselor told me I would never amount to anything.

3. When I was 18, my mother tried to get me to attend cooking school in Belgium. By myself. My brother offered to dress in drag if he could come with me. Needless to say, I never went. And my brother never did fit into my clothes.

4. I didn’t leave home until I was married. The food was great, the accommodations were spectacular, and my parents are awesome people. Why would I want to leave?

5. My long term goal is to be able to complete a sentence, finish a thought and not do 12 things at once. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

6. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have a blog that people would actually read, comment on and enjoy. Ok, so no one has ever said they enjoy it - except my dad! Hi Dad!

Now, before someone else gets to them, I tag:

April at Abby Sweets

Cecilia at A Spoonful of Sucre

Jenny at All Things Edible

Sabrina and Alexander at Cooking with the Kids

Dianne at Dianne’s Dishes

Judy of Judy’s Gross Eats

How many ways could I mess up today? Well, let’s see -

1. The lemon frozen yogurt base - I forgot to turn the dispenser to the “off” position, so as I was pouring the liquid into the machine, it was running out of the bottom. The dogs were ice skating in the mess, and the miniature pinscher looked like she had yellow chicken pox.

2. Chocolate chip cookies - I had frozen balls of dough, ready to be baked. I set the timer, and promptly forgot all about them. Overdone, to say the least.

3. Pizza dough - I didn’t oil the inside of the bowl well enough, so the dough stuck to the bowl. I lost about a fourth of the dough. Doesn’t sound too bad, until you read #4 -

4. Pizza - part 2 - The pizza stone was preheating in the barbecue for oh, say, an HOUR? It was way too hot! The first crust was burned beyond recognition. And then David says, “Where’s the rest of the pizza?” Uh, the kids ate it?

By 5:30, I had poured myself a glass of wine, and called it a day. Tomorrow will be better.

Besides, Sabrina helped me feel better - she and I made ricotta bread. It’s proofing now.

Oh, and the vanilla gelato turned out well. Although, to me, it tastes like vanilla ice cream. That’s not bad, just not what I was going for. I’ll take pictures and post the recipe tomorrow. Although that’s what I said yesterday! I know what you’re thinking - SLACKER!

David and I had a bit of bad news last night. David had a longtime friend whose name is Mike. They had been friends for many years. Mike had a girlfriend named Suzie, and we used to double date. They came to our wedding, and I remember Suzie telling me how much she enjoyed my wedding.

Then Mike and Suzie got engaged. Suzie was planning her bridal shower but I was unable to attend because I had to work. Well, Mike got so angry with me, they wouldn’t speak to us anymore. True story.

Flash forward 13 years. A mutual friend emailed David that Suzie passed away 2 days ago from breast cancer. She was only 38 years old. She left behind two children aged 8 and 5.

I am sad not only for those two children who aren’t capable of understanding that Mommy isn’t coming home anymore, but for her parents as well. They will never be the same. Life has forever changed for all of them, in a way they NEVER could have imagined.

When I think back to my wedding day, I realize that there are quite a few people who have passed away since then. All of them were young. All of them are terribly missed.

Well, things sure took a change for the worst this morning. After I finished my blog post, complete with pictures from the Griffith Observatory yesterday, I woke the kids around 8:30 a.m.

And guess what? Sabrina came down with the same stomach virus that I had. Ruh roh. I only just started feeling better today - don’t forget, it started Monday morning for me. David and I looked at each other, and I said, “I’ll have us packed and ready in 20 minutes.” What’s the point of staying? We were scheduled to leave Friday morning anyways, and I didn’t feel like sitting in the room watching the wallpaper peel. So we loaded up, and we made it back to Vegas in under 4 hours. Yeah, I was driving between 80-100 mph. It was awesome. No traffic - just a smooth ride. I like long car rides - I get alot of thinking done. The kids were busy watching movies on David’s computer so it was a really enjoyable drive. Oh, and David was quiet too! ahahahahahaha!

We gathered the pups from the vets, and much to my surprise, not only did they bathe all three dogs, they also washed their bedding and had everything ready for me. Ahh, that was a relief!

Sabrina is more comfortable now, she’s resting and watching “Ace of Cakes”. Both kids are anxious to get cooking again - we had 3 days of bad dinners. It seems like there was an epidemic of bad service and bad food. Last night we had dinner with my parents, and my dads fish came out cold. Twenty five minutes later, his food still hadn’t shown up. He was just about to tell the waitstaff to take the fish and stick it when the manager showed up with a new plate.

But anyways, we are back in the 107 degree heat with 3% humidity. Oh yay. It was nice not waking up feeling like your mouth was stuffed with cotton. But, as nice as it is to go away, it’s also nice to come home.

And I couldn’t help myself - as soon as I unpacked, I made gelato base, which I’ll finish tomorrow and if it’s as good as it looks, I’ll post the recipe!

Yesterday it was Sabrina’s turn to chose where to spend the first half of the day. It was a toss up between Getty Museum, or the Griffith Observatory. Now the Observatory just underwent a $93 million dollar renovation. It wasn’t even open on our last trip here. Sabrina loves studying astronomy, so the prospect of seeing the worlds largest telescope won her over.

The view from the entrance was amazing - almost scary because we were on top of the mountain. And did I mention I’m afraid of heights?

The center black semi-circle is the telescope - it retracts at night. There are two smaller telescopes on each side as well. The one on the right is open…

So after waiting an hour for the Observatory to open (it opens at noon during the week) we experienced a prime example of what my father calls PPP - pretty poor planning. There are roughly 300-400 people waiting in line for tickets. There are only 2 people selling tickets. The line is so long, we are standing in the sun waiting. Oh, wait, there is a credit card kiosk inside! David took off to get in line for the machine - great, he’s 4th in line. This is so much better. Whew - wait, what’s this? There is a  woman at the front of the line and she is buying 250 tickets. Okay, but the machine limit is 8 tickets per transaction. And there is only one machine.  So guess how long this is going to take? After half an hour, and no end in sight, David gave up. People were getting hostile, and the planetarium show was sold out at that point.

Poor Sabrina. She was soooo disappointed. Oh, but wait - there are exhibits you can wander through without buying a ticket! So what did we see?

Well, we saw the moon - and the little blue dot on the lower right side is a piece of the moon that the first astronauts brought back after the very first lunar landing.

And then we saw Mars, Jupiter and Saturn:

And Planet Earth:

And the Milky Way - which made me hungry for a candy bar………..

So at least the trip wasn’t a total bust.  There were quite a few other interesting displays so she got her fill of astronomy for the day.

And after this? We went straight to the beach - where the kids made friends with a family visiting from Idaho, and all the kids collected sand crabs for two hours. David and I sat under the umbrella, watching them and wishing that we had brought the margarita machine! How cool would that have been?

On the agenda today? I haven’t a clue. I’ll get back to you on that!

Although I was still under the weather yesterday, and much to Sabrina’s dismay, we spent the day at Universal Studios. I haven’t been there in at least 25 years. Wow!

The first thing that struck me was the admission price - $64 per person? Yikes!! Plus $12 to park, unless of course we wanted to upgrade to premier parking for $20. And the difference? A 10 minute walk. Okkkaaaayyy.

So now we are finally inside the park. We headed straight for the studio tour, but along the way Alexander got sidetracked by a shark:

Whew! That was close!

Moving right along, we hopped on the tram for the 45 minute studio tour. We were able to see the sections that were burned last month from the fire. The first display was the cars from The Fast and The Furious. They did a cute little dance routine - Sabrina liked this part best.

Then the destruction scene from War of The Worlds, a flash flood, and the Jurassic Park dinosaurs. The kids weren’t too crazy about that part!

After the tour was over, David and Alexander went to the Jurassic Park ride, and Sabrina and I wandered through the stores. She despises roller coasters, so we went into a Spongebob shop and I found Plankton! He’s my favorite character, but I wasn’t going to spend $14 for a little stuffed toy - but here he is:

Not the girl in the hat, but the little guy with one eye!

The picture is a little blurry because Sabrina was trying to use the close-up feature on the camera.

The boys also went on the new Mummy ride, and the Simpsons ride. Alexander loved them all! He’s really become so adventurous in the past few years.

It was definitely an experience, but like most theme parks (aside from Sea World), it’s going to be a long time before we head back to this one.

Today? The Griffith Observatory, and the beach!

Have a great day!

When we take a vacation, my motto is “The hotel room is only for sleeping! Let’s go and see everything!”

I don’t want to sit in the room and watch pay per view movies - we can do that at home.

So right after we checked in, we headed to the beach.

The only downer so far - I seem to have a bit of a stomach bug - but better me than one of the kids. Today I am still not feeling great, but I don’t want to waste this glorious weather so we are heading out to Universal Studios.

To see more of yesterday’s beach fun, head over to Cooking With The Kids.

This weeks TWD comes to us from Melissa of It’s Melissa’s Kitchen. When I saw her choice, my first reaction was, “How great! Something quick and easy!”

Until I saw the directions. How could something so simple be so complicated? Look, I’m not the sharpest crayon in the box, but what was the point of the whole food processor thing? Pudding should be made from scratch on the cooktop, strained through a sieve and eaten. In that order.

However, in the interest of trying a new method, I acquiesced and used my stick blender since I only made 1/2 of the recipe. And, I had pie dough leftover from last weeks pie-ettes, so I baked up mini crusts and made a chocolate cream pie!

It was very smooth and creamy - and while I will make the pudding again, I will stick with my regular cooking method.

I also have to confess - I only made one pie - I ate the rest of the pudding straight out of the bowl. It was gooooooood!