OMC! Oh My Cannoli! ~ Ice Cream

Most of you know that I just love cannolis, the Sicilian pastry treat - consisting of a shell made of fried pastry dough that is filled with a sweet, creamy filling containing ricotta.  I have made a Cannoli Cheesecake for the holidays and now that we are in the heat of the summer I had to make Cannoli Ice Cream.  I did and it was really good, it has all the good flavors of a cannoli in a refreshing summer ice cream.  You have to try it!  Here's the recipe:

2 cups whole milk ricotta
1 Tablespoon grated orange zest
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg 
2 cups whipping cream
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup crushed cannoli shells

Put ricotta and zest in a food processor and process until blended.  Add condensed milk and egg and blend.  Add whipping cream, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar and process until blended.  Pour this mixture into a 2 quart container, cover and refrigerate 1 1/2 -2 hours until well chilled.  Then pour mixture into prepared ice cream maker and churn for about 15 minutes until soft serve consistency.  Then add chocolate chips and crushed cannoli shells and churn for 5 more minutes until well blended.  Pour this mixture into a 2 quart container and freeze for a few hours until firm and desired consistency.  
* If making without an Ice Cream maker - I would suggest the following:  Follow all instructions up till the ice cream maker instructions, instead transfer mixture to freezer for about 4 hours, stirring with a fork 1/2 way through,  or until you reach a soft serve consistency.  Then add chocolate chips and crushed cannoli shells, blend well, then cover and freeze an additional 4 hours or overnight until firm or desired consistency.
**Note - this makes almost 2 quarts of ice cream so is best for a 2 quart ice cream maker, I did make it in my 1 1/2 quart maker and it reached well up to the very top - after churning I had to stir again to make sure everything was blended, and it was a little messy, but I didn't mind.  If you want to avoid this decrease ingredients a little bit proportionately.


Just churned - soft serve consistency

After being scraped out of ice cream chamber, yes I ate all the remnants for testing purposes :)

 

 

Enjoy!!

Homemade Plum Jam

I have a plum tree ~ on my front lawn,  about every other year I get a big crop of plums.  But the birds get to them first - they peck at them, they fall on the lawn and go splat :(  We mostly spend our time picking up the mess of plums off the lawn.  But this year I tried to save some and pick some out of the tree before they fell, not an easy task - because most of them grow very high.  I was able to salvage a bunch and asked my facebook friends  for suggestions on what to make with them.  What great responses I got and the overwhelming and convincing suggestion was to make plum jam.   They were making me hungry with comments like these:"
Plum jam...best in the world
It has always been a favorite here..alittle tart and sweet at the same time. On a nice hot buttered biscuit its just simply fantastic
I also vote for Plum Jam, too! Easy and delicious and can be enjoyed all year round! Have fun with your plums!!
We always made plum jelly or preserves!!! Yummy!!
I used to make plum jelly every Labor Day when we lived in VT. Beautiful purple color!
Jelly!
Jam!
So there was my decision, now to look for a recipe.  I found an easy one from a great book "Rustic Fruit Desserts":  
 
available here:
http://astore.amazon.com/rosscoubak-20/detail/1580089763

You can use any fruit with this recipe:
2 cups peeled and chopped plums or other fruit
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon


Put all ingredients in a medium, heavy saucepan and cook over high heat, stir occasionally to avoid any burning on bottom of pan.  Skim off any foam that gathers on the surface.  Attach a candy thermometer to the side of pan, boil the jam for at least 5 minutes, and until the temperature reaches 221 degrees.  Remove from heat and store in a mason jar in the refrigerator.  This jam will keep for a few weeks.

My plums cut up

In the pot with sugar and lemon juice, getting ready to become jam :)

 Inside the jar, it really turned into jam!

Goes good on a corn muffin!

My first jam, yay!

             Now the plums I was able to save were not the purplest, the flesh was more orange/yellow so it yielded the jam above.  The taste was very fresh and delicious, in between a plum-nectarine taste.  If you use very ripe purple plums you should yield a purple jam like some of my readers.  I am going to try this again if I could get some really ripe ones from my tree, or from the farmstand.  Thanks everyone for encouraging me to make jam - it's opened a whole new food world for me!!!

Now it's your turn, go ahead try it out with your favorite fruit :)