My ice cream maker is god. I swear. Strawberry ice cream has always been one of my favourite flavours.. but I have a problem with the store bought kind (aside from the lactose). You see, I hate fruit chunks in store bought things. The berries in yogurt and ice cream are always gooey and soggy and stringy… gross!! It just really bothers me. For the longest time I wanted to chalk it up to frozen fruit that they’re using… but when I make smoothies and homemade ice cream using that, mine are okay. The chunks stay solid. So needless to say the strawberry ice cream that is in grocery stores I hate. It’s a real pain to find a nice ice creamery every time you want some strawberry ice cream if you’re a weirdo and hate chunks like me!

So I made up this lovely recipe! And since summer is around the corner and it’s starting to get really warm, I thought now would be a good time to share it with you guys. So here it is,  strawberries & cream ice cream, with crushed walnuts!

Strawberry Ice Cream

3 cups (lactose free) milk
1 cup + 2 tbsp (lactose free) cream
1 cup sugar
2 heaping tbsp plain greek yogurt
3/4 cup strawberry puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey

Combine the milk, cream and sugar together in a large pitcher and mix together. Add the yogurt next while continuing to stir, make sure the yogurt gets mixed in as thoroughly as possible. Set aside and create your strawberry puree in a blender. (I like to throw in a little more than a cup of strawberries – frozen or fresh, with a splash of water and blend for about a minute.) Add in the purre, vanilla, sugar and honey and mix again.

Following your ice cream maker manual’s directions, pour the mixture into the machine. While the machine is doing it’s thing, cut up some strawberries in to small bite sized chunks – I used already frozen ones for this because I ran out of fresh ones. Add them to the ice cream about 5 minutes before its done. My machine takes about 25-30 minutes, so I add them around the 20-25 minute mark. At this point you can also add the crushed walnuts, or you can set them aside and just garnish your ice cream with them when you’re ready to enjoy some!

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, here’s a good website with a few different options of how to make ice cream without one.

Also just to let you guys know I decided to go ahead and make a facebook page for the blog! I’d love it if you’d like it (that sounds really weird to me) you can do so here.

Posted in Desert, Food, ice cream • 2 Comments

I’m a little late on this one… I had a really bad stomach flu for the past 3 days and this is the first day I’m able to sit up and keep food down. I know mother’s day has come and gone, but I still wanted to say something anyways.

First of all, Happy Mothers Day to all the blogging mama’s out there! Secondly, Happy Mother’s Day to my own wonderful mom!

Without her, I wouldn’t know how to make a website. She helped me learn the basics and also how to create animated gifs at the tender age of 9. (They were awful. If you want a blast from the past you can check out the website & some gifs my sister and I made here) She taught me that make-up goes on your face, not your sister’s porcelain dolls. (Sorry Lauren.) And most importantly she’s taught me how to be a good person and helped me become the lady that I am today. 

Thanks Mom.

Posted in A Day In The Life, Blabber • 2 Comments

Diana and I decided to throw a little surprise tea party for Beth’s birthday! It was super yummy, super fun, and some how we managed to keep it a secret from the girl and she was completely surprised. We consumed Salted Caramel by DAVIDsTEA (Beth’s favourite), sangria and had quite the spread. It was a wonderful afternoon and thankfully the rain decided to hold off for us.

Menu

Cucumber & cream cheese tea sandwiches
Scones with lemon curd
Peite toast crackers with summer sausage, mozzarella and sprouts
Strawberries & blackberries
White tropical sangria
Salted caramel tea
Vanilla ombre cake, garnished with blackberries and mint leaves

Posted in A Day In The Life • 10 Comments

Avocado’s are one of my favourite things on earth. Bagel’s have always been my weakness. Ever tried a gluten free bagel? Yeah they suck. Until I met Udi’s. It’s really nice to finally be able to enjoy a good bagel again. Their breads and pizza crust are pretty good too! (Homemade bread is of course better.. but I’m lazy and don’t have a bread maker.) I’ve recently started playing around with avocados a little more. I just loveeee them.

This sandwich though is easily one of my new favourites. It’s nice and easy and so yummy. Toasted bagel, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes and cream cheese. Bam. Party in your mouth.

I’m also finding myself strangely addicted to almond milk lately. So. Good.

Today I went to a little event in Toronto called the Gluten Free Garage. It was my first year going, (I had to work last year boo) and it was a lot of fun. There is a ton of different vendors with samples and it’s a great way to find new products for yourself. It’s also pretty educational too!

One thing though that really caught my eye though was a company called Nutrilish who is going to be coming out with a monthly box subscription of gluten free products. (So it’s kinda like glymm box, birchbox, juelp box etc. but with gluten free food!) I’m so excited for it to launch. One of the hardest things about going gluten free is there is a lot of products out there that aren’t too great, and its a continuos struggle for me to find new GOOD gluten free products.

Also remember how in my last post I was so excited that it was getting warmer? Well two days after I posted that it snowed haha. Silly Canada. But it was 20C today and it was wonnnnnderful. Hopefully it stays around this time.

Oh and one more thing! Something really cool about the feedly app for google chrome – it adds this little icon to the bottom right hand corner of your browser so you can easily add blogs/rss feeds to your feedly list! (read more about feedly here)

Posted in Food, Gluten Free • 2 Comments

Sprinnnng! I’m so excited that the weather is (even though wet) starting to get warmer and the days are getting longer. It’s such a nice feeling on the days I get off work at 7 or later that it’s still partially light out. It’s the best feeling! I don’t mind the rain. I love sitting down with a cup of tea and just watching it. That and it’s good for the flowers ;). A few are starting to poke out of the ground in our garden.

I’m really excited for spring for so many reasons. I can finally paint my furniture for my room soon.. it’s been way to cold to do it and I wouldn’t dare attempt it inside. I’m a messy painter. The Zoo! The Toronto Zoo is one of my favourite places in spring. The animals are always more active and fun to watch before the summer heat sets in. Being able to wear dresses without thick tights, saying bye to heavy winter jackets. Oh and BBQ season!!!

I’m also excited to start sharing some outfit posts again. I’m going to be honest here, I have zero motivation to do them in the winter. I usually don’t have anyone to take the photos for me so I rely on a tripod and just takes longer that way. I’m a big baby in the winter, (and yes I’m Canadian) and just don’t like the way the photos turn out when I’ve tried taking them indoors.

Another thing I’m looking forward to is getting back into geocaching again. I know there are lots of people who still cache in the winter (and some caches that are designed around it) but yeah.. back to me being a big baby. I’m a bad Canadian I know. I’m mostly just excited about being able to spend almost all day outside again.

I remember it being so much warmer this time last year too. I think that’s just making me want spring extra bad. But I know it’s finally right around the corner! (You watch, I just jinxed it.) Is the weather spring like yet where you guys are? Do you have any big plans or things you’re excited to do in the Spring?!

Also, I feel like I should mention it even though I’m sure many of you are probably already aware but something that’s going to be effecting us bloggers (late) spring is that Google Reader is retiring. It’s not set to happen unit June 1st. If you use Google Reader to follow my blog and don’t want to stop your subscription, you’re going to have to find another way to follow. my top choice (and what I’ve switched to as well) is Feedly.

Feedly is very similar to google reader and you can set it up so that it will automatically import your RSS feed from Google.  It has a few different layout choices as well including one that is almost identical to reader’s interface if you prefer it, or you can select a more visual approach with thumbnails and a summary (how I use it). It’s a web based app that you can also use on your iPad, iPhone, Android or Kindle. I use it both on my computer and iPad.

Some other ways to follow as well are subscribing directly to the RSS feed, or through Bloglovin’, Twitter, or you can check out this article by Life Hacker with a list of google reader alternatives and find one that suits your own needs.

I’m curious now – how do you guys follow this blog? Either way, I’m so thankful that you do! Thanks for stickin’ around kids :)

Posted in A Day In The Life, Blabber, Photography • 1 Comment