Vanilla Chelan Cherry Ice Cream with Valrhona Chocolate Pearls. A Farmers' Market Special

   Our Farmers' Market is going strong here in Sonoma. There's always a Friday Morning Organic Market no matter what the season, but what everyone waits for every year is the kickoff of the Summer Tuesday Night Farmer's Market. That's when most of the town can be found sprawled out on the Plaza lawn with their picnic baskets. Everyone comes to the Tuesday Night Farmer's Market and they don't just come for the socializing They come for the amazing produce.
 
   There are 3 types of fruit that I am giant crow in the trees crazy about. Pomegranates, Figs and Cherries. Unfortunately, these fruits have a very short season so when they're available, I will knock you over to get to them. I'm not kidding. The most delicate of these seems to be the cherries. Too much sun, no cherries, too much rain, no cherries. Last Spring, we had a lot of late rain and boom, overnight the bountiful cherries I was seeing on all the trees were gone. But  sometimes it's just right. That's the case right now. We have hit cherry perfection here in Sonoma. That's why I'm taking advantage of whatever I can get my mitts on since the weather here in Wine Country can turn on a dime this time of year. The cherries we've been getting here in Sonoma are not Bing cherries. Those will be along in a few weeks. What I've been buying are early cherries known as Chelan.

I think there's almost no better way to enjoy cherries than in vanilla ice cream and while we're at it, adding a little bit of dark chocolate never hurt anything either. Far from it. While I was at the market looking for chocolate to chunk up for the ice cream, Alan handed me a container of chocolate pearls made by Valrhona.

Cherries and pearls they seem made for each other.

Vanilla Cherry Ice Cream With Valhrona Chocolate Pearls

Here's What You Need:

3/4 cup of sugar
2 cups of whipping cream
1 and 1/2 cups of milk
1 cup of pitted quartered cherries
1/4 cup of chocolate pearls or 1/2 cup of small chocolate pieces.
2 tsps of vanilla extract

Here's What To Do:

Wash and pit the cherries. I use my OXO Cherry Pitter.

Cut the cherries in half and in half again to have nice bite sized pieces. Set aside.
In a large bowl mix together: 1 and 1/2 cup of milk and 3/4 cup of sugar.
When this is well mixed and the sugar dissolved, add in 2 cups of whipping cream.
Add in the vanilla.
Whisk everything together well and pour it into an ice cream machine.
Churn for about 20 minutes then add in the cherry pieces.

And the chocolate pearls or pieces.

The reason for waiting 20 minutes is you want the ice cream to be soft yet firm enough to support the cherries and chocolate pieces so they don't all fall to the bottom of the machine and are well distributed through the ice cream.
Let the machine churn for another 8 minutes or so, or until the ice cream is ready to be scooped into a container and put into the freezer.
Let the ice cream "age" in the freezer for an hour or so, for the best texture.
Serve it up!
  

   If you like cherries, vanilla and chocolate, then this ice cream is for you.

   But, life isn't all just ponies and rainbows and cherry vanilla ice cream with chocolate pearls. I'm going to be having a bowl of nettle soup for dinner this evening and no wicked stepmother was involved. It turns out that nettles are one of Springs' delicacies. Who knew. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori  

5 Minute Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream. Yes 5 Minutes. Plus a Giveaway.

   Lately there have been two things I've been hearing about non stop. One is jeggings, those tight jean legging things. Now, I had them confused with pajama jeans and just said "no no no!" If you haven't heard of pajama jeans, they're usually shown on late night TV along with those dipilatory infomercials where ladies are running feathers along their upper lip to prove how smooth everything is.
 
   "Pajama jeans where style meets comfort." This intersection is not on any GPS I've ever encountered and I think I'd have a better chance of finding Narnia in my closet. Believe me, if I could find the corner of Style and Comfort, I'd already be living there.

I always equated pajama jeans as the step right before this.

But no, I'm been informed that jeggings are actually quite stylish and all the best jeans designers are featuring them and all the stores are carrying them.

I did a search, and Bloomies has reams of these things, I may just have to pay a visit to San Francisco... or not, since they do remind me of something I burned when the 80's ended. But what goes around comes around again and again and again.

   There is something else out there however that has gone viral. Something that I haven't had/seen /eaten before, and that is 5 Minute Ice Cream.  I know there are 7 Minute Abs, and of course Father Guido Sarducci's 5 Minute University.



   But 5 Minute Ice Cream?? Really? 5 Minutes? It seemed like everyone but me was making it. My friend Farmgirl Gourmet whipped some up, I happened to read her recipe during a very very hot Sonoma day and of course couldn't wait to try it myself. Of course the next day we had a cool spell so I had to wait a week. But finally I whipped some up and it really, truly works. In 5 minutes. I had purchased an OXO cherry pitter  and fresh local cherries were on sale.

Of course this recipe can be made with any frozen fruit but I had that pitter and was dying to use it. 

Five Minute Ice Cream

Here's what You Need:

1 lb of frozen or fresh frozen fruit (I used cherries)
3 to 4 tsps of sugar
6 oz of fresh vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup of chopped dark chocolate

Here's What To Do:

Wash, dry, and pit the fruit if using fresh fruit.

Halve the pitted cherries and put them in a dish in a single layer in the freezer.

Freeze them.
Of course if you are using already frozen fruit, you don't need to do any of this. Thus the 5 minute part.
Put the frozen fruit, yogurt, and sugar into a blender or food processor and pulse until it's soft and creamy.
During the last few pulses add in the bits of chopped chocolate.
That's it. It's done. Serve it up, you've got ice cream baby!

   This will give you about 6 servings of ice cream, and boy is it good and fresh and without that giant sugar rush that most desserts bring. I'm looking forward to trying it with other summer fruits, and I also think I'm going to use plain unsweetened, unflavored yogurt and see how that works. Do I recommend this? Yes!! It's also a lot of fun to let your guests watch their ice cream getting whipped up right before their eyes.
 
   Now if you'd like to try this but you don't have a cherry pitter, let me offer you this. I was sent a cherry pitter by the OXO people, but since I already have one of my own, I'm going to pass this one along to someone who can put it to god use. Just leave a comment  as to what you'd like to use your pitter for and I'll be choosing a winner via random.org on August 1st. Because of shipping issues, only US residents are eligible. So don't worry about pitting. It just got a whole lot easier. PS: it works on olives too! Tapande season is coming.
 
   What else is coming? Another cherry treat to ease us from the summer into those fall dishes. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori And finally just because, I'm thinking of  numbers, here's the 1950's classic Sixty Minute Man. Just think how much of this ice cream you could make in all that time even though I don't quite think that's what they're singing about.