Peach Ice-Cream

What do you do in hot weather, with a punnet of peaches that need to be eaten right now? A whole punnet being too many to eat, I made peach ice cream.
The recipe starts from my trusty cornstarch base. I usually make it with cream, but this time it was just milk (as I didn't have any cream in the fridge). Made the base a bit thicker than usual (slightly higher proportion of cornstarch to liquid), to allow for the fact that the peaches would thin it again slightly. It wasn't quite frozen when we had some, but I think the texture will turn out somewhere between ice-cream and sorbet. I don't think it was peachy enough, but Duncan said it was fine. If I try this again, I'll possibly add another peach, and maybe a few raspberries.

Peach Ice-Cream
300ml + 50ml milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp vanilla
Dash lime juice
2 peaches, peeled and pureed
1 peach, peeled and chopped small

Put the 300ml milk and sugar in a saucepan. Heat gently until it begins to steam.
Meanwhile, mix the cornstarch with the remaining 50 ml milk.
Once the mixture in the pan is steaming, add the milk/cornflour mixture.
Cook, stirring, until it starts to thicken.
Reduce heat to low and stir for about 5 minutes until thick.
Stir in vanilla.
Remove from the heat (I pour into a jug, for easier handling later) and leave to cool slightly.
Add the lime juice to the peach puree, then add this to the base. Mix thoroughly, then add the chopped peaches.
From here, follow your preferred freezing method - I transfer to my ice-cream maker, churn until mostly frozen, then transfer to a freezer box and freeze until set.

Sweetcorn Soup with Chicken

Leftover sweetcorn from Monday's dinner. Leftover chicken from last night. What to have for lunch? Sweetcorn soup with chicken. Inspired by Nigella.

Keep some of the sweetcorn aside, and put the rest in a blender, along with a chopped spring onion. Add a little stock, and blitz. Tip into saucepan, add a little milk and stock to thin. Heat. Add the rest of the sweetcorn, and the chopped chicken. Salt and pepper to taste.

Quick lunch for one.

Three Chimneys: Marmalade

First time making marmalade. Lots of boiling and slicing of peel. I'm not sure at the moment if it's actually going to set. Some of the jars still look a bit runny, and the peel isn't totally evenly distributed. Still, if it doesn't work I'm sure there's plenty I can do with it (there's enough for a good number of hot marmalade puddings, possible with some marmalade ice-cream on the side, and a marmalade cookie). And there's a few oranges left to try again. Or find something else to do with. What else can you do with marmalade oranges?

Three Chimneys: Celery, Apple and Chestnut Soup

Made as my contribution to Christmas dinner. Interesting. Made some adjustments to it as I as going - added a few more chestnuts than the recipe called for. I wasn't that happy with it - too much apple, not enough of the other ingredients. Still, everybody ate it.

Three Chimneys: Baked Stuffed Apples

Well, it's December so I start thinking about Christmas. This recipe needed mincemeat, so I bought a jar and made this and a batch of mince pies. Both were delicious. The recipe wanted the apples to be baked with sherry. Didn't have any, so I used dark rum instead.