Key Lime Pie Ice Cream and Spiced Carrot Muffins

By Natalie

For lunch we went to Cheese Cake Factory and I enjoyed a delicious portobello mushroom burger. The fries were excellent. We didn't get any cheese cake, sad day.

I made Key Lime Pie Ice Cream. I had extra key limes from making a key lime pie for Father's Day. This ice cream is pretty tangy. I added some crushed graham crackers as a topping. There are quite a few recipes out there, I chose the one that didn't require cooking and waiting around for it to cool. I thought about skipping the step of refrigerating, but I think it made a huge difference. It allowed the ice cream to get really creamy before I put it in the ice cream maker. You should definitely try it, especially if you like squeezing 1 pound of tiny key limes.

My best gal pal, Jennie is trying a vegan experiment this summer. I wanted to help her out a little, so I decided to make her some muffins. I was perusing The Happy Herbivore cookbook and decided to make Spiced Carrot muffins (the link is to the cupcakes, which are very similar to the muffins). This was the recipe in which I had everything on hand. The great thing about making vegan muffins is you an eat as much batter at you want! These are really tasty and moist. I didn't have any ground cloves, so I just subbed with pumpkin pie spice. I want to try the Chocolate Zucchini muffins next.

Father's Day Dinner

By Natalie

I made dinner and dessert for my Dad. It was delicious!

 Barley is a good boy waiting for a piece of chicken!

 Micah cooked this beer can chicken on the Big Green Egg at 225 degrees for about 2 hours. It was very flavorful and juicy.

One of my Dad's all time favorites is potato salad. He loves to eat it with gumbo or on top of pretty much anything. I on the other hand strongly dislike it.  I  made myself a side of mashers.

 I got this recipe from Elly Says Opa. Notice Key Lime Pie is not green. Yellow Key Lime pie is the real deal. I waited until just before serving before I add the heavy whipping cream.

 I served cinnamon ice cream alongside the Key Lime pie. If you like drinking the milk after you've had Cinnamon Toast cereal, this is the ice cream for you. I added 1 tbsp of cinnamon, which is a tad too much. I think next time I'll try 2-3 tsp. I used the vanilla ice cream starters from Williams-Sonoma.