Ice cream and magic mouthwash

Tonight we churned the vanilla ice cream base we made on Sunday. I just dropped it in the freezer and I think it turned out very nicely. It's basically a variant of the Hazelnut Gelato recipe found in the Joy of Cooking. We omit the hazelnut components and added vanilla beans instead.

For this go around, I've also experimented with adding 2 tablespoons of rum to the recipe. Usually with this recipe, the ice cream is soft and creamy at first, but as it sits in the freezer, it turns rock hard and is difficult to get out of the container. So I had an idea. In a stout (yes, stout as in Guinness) ice cream I made last year, I found that the ice cream remained soft and creamy for a week after the initial freeze. I'm thinking that it's due to having a small quantity of alcohol in it, which lowers the freezing point of the mixture allowing it to remain a little creamier. I'll let you know how this alteration turns out.

By the way, the stout ice cream was a homemade recipe and ended up being one of our best yet. It didn't taste like beer at all (we used 3/4 can of Murphy's Irish stout per 1/2 qt ice cream), but more like frozen coffee with lots of cream and sugar. It was delicious.

I've been pretty achy and sore today, but managed to keep away from the analgesics until this evening. They provide only a little relief, but hopefully I'm on the upswing from the last round of chemo. It also looks like the chemo has finally taken its toll on the lips and gums, which are getting a little sore. To fix this, the people at the cancer center prescribed something called 'Magic Mouthwash', which has a numbing agent in it and some antibacterial stuff. It tastes like pepto bismol, but if nothing else, it's interesting for the name. :)

The garden is just throwing tomatoes at us, and we're rapidly becoming overwhelmed. Jane is canning a lot of it, but it's tough to keep up. I'm picturing lots of tomato soup this winter.