Beautiful Breakfast

My son ran in the Vancouver Sun Run this last Sunday and needed a good breakfast. It ended up being coconut/banana multigrain pancakes with yogurt.  Yum.

I’ve been experimenting with food photography and Instagram, so I whisked the few leftover pancakes onto mom’s gorgeous old Noritake China and plucked some bluebells from the garden.

This is a new medium for me. It’s a lot of fun to create, to paint, with food and fabric and bits from the garden or the pantry.  I’m loving this new-found form of expression. This practice reminds me that there is beauty in every day and every moment.  And celebrates it.

Frozen

When I told a friend of mine I wanted to get an ice-cream maker to try making my own treats, she gave me hers. She said: “I’ve just never used it – it’s been sitting here forever – you can have it”.

Well, that was a while ago! It then sat in the pantry downstairs with all the other seldom used appliances for over a year…funny how that works. I had a fabulous no-work-and-all-play weekend last week, after coming off a huge all-encompassing couple months of work – and making ice-cream was on my fun list.

I looked at a number of the recipes, but I can’t eat eggs. Many of them are made with a pre-cooked custard. Then I found there were a couple frozen yogurt recipes that were very simple and had only a few ingredients.

So my first try was this: 2 cups of full fat Greek yogurt (vanilla) plus one cup of whipping cream. I flavored it with 2 T of instant coffee and a ¼ c of white sugar, mixed with 2T of boiling water to mix and dissolve it a bit. I whisked this all together and put it in the machine. Presto! 20 minutes later it was thick and creamy and I put it in containers to firm up.

I used tiny little plastic containers for single servings and later, when firm, I held the containers under a warm water tap for a few seconds and then popped them out on to a plate. Great idea for a make-ahead dinner party dessert! And pretty tasty too! Summertime, here we come.