Summer doldrums cooking

I’m sure a lot of people enter August with summer doldrums where you absolutely don’t want to cook anything because it’s hot, you’re bored with pretty much everything you usually make when it’s this warm, and you’ve made enough summer dinner salads and gazpachos. I’ve been there for several weeks.

So, this weekend I decided to do something about that. For me, that means tackling something – or two somethings – that I’ve never made before.

The first thing I worked on this weekend is recreating my Mommy’s amazing peach ice cream. I grew up with her hand-cranking an old-fashioned ice cream maker with the ice and rock salt – what a mess - and decided that was way too much like work for me. I broke down a couple of months ago and got a tabletop Cuisinart ice cream maker and set out to see if I could recreate her amazing ice cream concoctions. I’ve gone slowly – starting with the New York Times’ “master ice cream recipe” which gives so many options to add different ingredients to make different versions. I started with French vanilla (the second time I added Heath toffee bits – omg, so good) and strawberry. 

Today, I decided to try to make Mommy’s best: peach ice cream. The NY Times recipe is delicious – it makes twice as much as my Cuisinart can make in one serving – so tomorrow I’ll have to freeze the rest! It calls to cook the peaches and then puree. I think next time I’ll keep some of the peaches in small pieces and not puree all of them. Still delicious – and will keep working on making the recipe mine!

My second recipe for this weekend was something I’ve never tried in all my years of cooking: focaccia. Kneading and using yeast absolutely terrify me – so I found a Bon Appetit recipe for No-Knead Focaccia. 

I started the dough yesterday – and this morning took it out of the fridge to rise. It worked!! It was a super easy recipe for someone who’s never tried anything like it. It was a huge success. 

We ate some, kept a few pieces back for tomorrow, and froze the rest. I kept it simple and didn’t add any herbs – but now that I know I can do it, there are so many options I can try next time!

It was fun to take a weekend when I’ve been so OVER cooking and try a couple of new things. Looking forward to fall – my favorite time of the year to cook! I have a ham bone in the freezer just waiting for cooked beans with ham!