Piquant

Quick & easy no cook ice cream recipe

I love bargain shopping - so much so that I can't resist kitchen appliances that will let me make products I could more easily buy.

There was the fresh pasta maker I bought when a chain cooking store closed out. More recently, there was the tabletop ice cream freezer I bought for a whopping 50 percent off.

Today I broke that little ice cream churning machine in with a batch of no cook Mango ice cream. I modified a recipe for Vanilla ice cream that I found at the Eagle Brand website.

What a creamy, dreamy frozen treat!

Easy no cook mango ice cream

Ingredients

• 1 cup half-and-half or light cream
• 2 very ripe mangoes, peeled & pitted
• 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk

Puree all ingredients in a food processor. Pour into the mixing canister of an electric ice cream freezer. Churn for 20-40 minutes or until desired consistency is achieved. Remove from canister and freeze well before serving.

Strawberry chocolate daifukumochi

My son just came home from Tokyo bearing daifukumochi, Japanese sweets typically made from glutinous rice cake and red bean paste.

They are delicious!

Last year he brought me green tea flavor. This year's treat was strawberry chocolate.

I'm used to buying daifukumochi in the Asian markets, but they really aren't the same quality.

There's just a little something missing, texturally and flavor-wise.

These little bites are sublime, soft and slightly chewy, with the sweet tang of  strawberry tempered by a tiny but rich dark chocolate drop.  Amazing!

Food styling: art of beautiful cookbooks, TV, blogs & more

Ever wonder how food porn is shot?  Wonder no more.

Food stylists make dishes - some real, some not so real - ready for their cameos.   

From the plates and utensils you use, to the arrangement of the food (hint: work in layers), there is method to the madness: make the food the star or hero, in the parlance of food stylists.

Styled food looks good enough to eat, but you might not want to dig in since it's probably been handled enough to render it unsafe for consumption.  

For the DIYer, there are plenty of videos and books on food styling, including Food Styling for Photographers: A Guide to Creating Your Own Appetizing Art by Linda Bellingham, Jean Ann Bybee and Brad G. Rogers.  Includes recipes for food styling success as well as a list of must-haves for your food styling tool kit.

Fake Ice Cream Recipe 

from Food Styling for Photographers

Supplies

1. 3 small frosting tubs; Strawberry, Chocolate, French Vanilla.
2. 3 standard issue powdered sugar.
3. Wood skewers.
4. Cones

Process

1. Start with frosting in the processor and pulse a couple time.
2. Slowly add the powdered sugar and pulse as you go until it gets to a point it is no longer sticky.
3. Put it in a plastic bag and knead it to a ball.
4. Use and ice cream scoop inside of the bag to develop the scoop.

iCarly's bedroom is so Candyland we love it!

I'm just a  teenage girl at heart.

Watching iCarly with my son is a guilty pleasure.  Carly's adorable, smart and funny - and lives in Seattle. 

For those of you who don't have tween kids, Carly is a  tech geek who produces her own web show with BFFs Freddie and Sam, doing ridiculous stunts that only a tween (and his childlike Mommy) could love.

Of course, everyone loves her.  She lives in an adult-free home and what tween doesn't dream of that (theoretically adult & older but goofy brother Spencer counter doesn't). 

Until this week, all we've ever seen is the set of iCarly and the home's living room.  Carly's bedroom was  like the secret garden.

Not any more.  It's a tween girl dream. Sweet!

Personally, I'd be happy with the purple bed with built-in custom speakers. Though I could do without the Church Pants & Ointment 500 pillows, I love the bedding with its gray, pink and purple modern floral duvet and its bird-on-a-telephone-wire pillow covers.

But most of all, I love the gummi motif and Candyland atmosphere.