Raspberry Coconut Ice Cream and Cinnamon Swirl Muffins

Another kind of ice cream: raspberry/coconut. A very simple recipe once again: I puréed about a cup (I think, I didn’t measure those) of frozen raspberries in a food processor, added 3/4 cup of rice milk, puréed some more, strained the mixture through a sieve to remove the seeds, added half a cup of coconut milk and 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons of agave, chilled that for a couple of hours and put it in the ice cream machine.

The result is pretty good. I’m not sure if I really like the taste of coconut milk in ice cream. It doesn’t have a strong flavour in here, but you can tell that it’s there. My parents said they kind of like that taste, so I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll try again with a creamier, better kind of coconut milk (this can was really cheap). I sprinkled some shredded coconut on top, which does make it more delicious.

Cinnamon Swirl Muffins, recipe by SusanV. I already wanted to make them when I first read her post, but when Mihl and Liz also posted about how much they loved these muffins, I knew I just had to try the recipe. Well, my fellow bloggers were right, these muffins are really good! I bet they would have been even better if I’d had nutmeg, but I couldn’t find that. My Dad and I both searched the entire kitchen for half an hour, but we really couldn’t find it anywhere, while we always have a little mill with a whole nutmeg in it, a tin of ground nutmeg AND a package of whole nutmegs lying around. My Mom eventually found a little plastic bag with three nutmegs in it (after I’d already taken the muffins out of the oven), but the other kinds still haven’t been found. Strange.

But anyway, the muffins are still great, even without nutmeg. I just had a little trouble getting them out of the muffin pan (I used a silicon one), so the bottoms are all damaged. I only photographed their good side, though, so you can’t see it in the picture!

To end this post, I think last night’s dinner deserves a mention: Stir-Fried Peas and Tofu, from Authentic Chinese Cuisine by Bryanna Clark Grogan (Look, I’m trying to eat with chopsticks!). This is the first thing I tried from this cookbook and not bad at all! I liked making a Chinese-style dish myself at home, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied. The tofu could have been better. I used peanut oil to fry it in, but it wouldn’t become nice and crispy and only a tiny bit brown. In the end I almost burned it, so I just went on and added the broth and other ingredients, but I would’ve liked to have fried it for a bit longer. My mom suggested we might need to buy a new wok, because this one is pretty old, but I’m not sure if that was it. Oh well, this was still a nice stir-fry.

I think I’m gonna go and enjoy the nice weather now, have a great day!