Blackberry Pinot Chocolate Gelato = Yum!

The other day, I had a hankering for gelato.  Blackberry gelato.  I love berries, but blackberries are the best ones.  Whole Foods had a special on them, so I bought a whole bunch with the intention of making gelato. But I couldn't find a decent recipe for it.

I found a strawberry gelato recipe on Epicurious and decided to use that as a jumping off point:  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fresh-Strawberry-Gelato-352676

To the left you see the milk, cream, sugar, cornstarch mixture (heated and cooling over an ice bath).  To the right are my pureed blackberries.   I was just going to mix the two together and get on with it, but decided to live up to my Boozy Baker reputation and add some Pinot Noir that I had opened from night before.

Once mixed together, the mixture started to resemble something close to heaven.  Really, isn't that so pretty?   I put it into the ice cream maker to get things churning.  Decided that it still needed a little something else, so I added a few handful of mini chocolate chips.  The whole thing ended up pretty good.  I think the ice cream maker wasn't fully cooled so the gelato didn't firm up enough before I put it in the freezer, so the texture isn't where I want it to be.  But the taste is!

So I wanted to wait to post this blog until I had taken a picture of the final product.  Well, I've eaten all the gelato so there's no way to take a picture of it.  But believe me when I tell you, it was beautiful.

NOTE TO MY BLOGGER SELF - take pictures of food before you eat it all!  I'm such a pig.

Moving!

Very exciting that I just purchased my first home!  I mean, really exciting.  I have dreamt about owning my own place for a long time and it's hard to believe that it's finally happened.   What I didn't dream about was what it would be like to actually furnish a place and make it feel like a home.

That's what the place looked like the day I moved, on May 7th.  Sadly, it's been more than a month and not much has changed.  All the furniture Dave and I had was old and worn out, so we decided to replace everything!  Turns out when you're buying stuff to have FOREVER there's a lot more pressure to buy nice stuff that you want to look at for the next 15 years.   I've been a little bit stressed about it, but am finding it so much fun to look at the design mags and figure out how I want the place to look. 

 Phurba, however, does not seemed stressed at all and, in fact, as far as we can tell, absolutely loves her new place!  We put in a dog door for her, and she thinks that's about the best thing ever.    There's a great walking trail right from our house.  She and I have already fallen into our morning walk routine - a 45 minute canal walk with lots of squirrels for her to chase.  

The only bummer on the new house is the electric range and oven!  Blast!  I said I would never go electric.  I was amazed at how quickly I compromised my ideals to have this house.  Whatever.  Sue me. I love the house and I'm not leaving. 

There's lots to do - the yardwork, upgrading the electrical, buying a square bathmat for outside of the shower (not hard to find until you're looking for one!), ordering blinds, hanging pictures, figuring out the best pizza delivery for the new address - the list is endless.  

I'm loving every minute!