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We had been meaning to make ice cream with the boys all summer, but summer was too busy (or too lazy, take your pick) so we never did that. They did manage to make ice cream with their grandmother, but that was during the day while I was at work, so I didn’t get any of it.

Now that it is the day after Labor Day and school has started, we finally made ice cream at our house. The recipe that we used calls for zip-type plastic baggies, a cheap substitute for the near-indestructible wood and metal ice cream maker that my parents used when I was a kid.

For those not familiar with the plastic-bag method: pour the ingredients into a small plastic bag and seal it, put ice and salt and the small plastic bag into a large plastic bag and seal it, then shake/roll/toss the large plastic bag for several minutes. Here is a picture of the first step.

Apparently, it went fine the first time the kids tried it, at their grandmother’s house. Today, I got to try it with them here, after dinner (“you kids want dessert? Okay, but you have to make it yourselves.”)

Our recipe didn’t say anything about double-bagging the ice cream mixture. I highly recommend using two bags for the ice cream and two bags for the brine solution.

“Why?” you ask.

One reason is that we inadvertently got the extra-pointy ice from our freezer. A couple minutes into the last step, I noticed that the salt/ice mixture was turning brown. I was making chocolate ice cream, and I expected the chocolate to stay in the ice cream. The zip fastener was sealed (I checked), so I just kept going and hoped that the salt wasn’t leaking into the ice cream.

Another reason is that the table was getting wet while I was trying to get the ice cream to freeze. At first it was no big deal – I figured it was just condensation. But the other bag didn’t have that problem. My wife held up the bag and we watched it drip, drip, drip. We double-bagged the whole thing and didn’t have any more problems.

Just double-bag everything beforehand. Or pay extra for the high-quality dull ice. Or just use an old-school, industrial-strength ice cream machine.

One more thing – rinse off the ice cream baggies after you take them out of the brine. The middle child made it about halfway through his ice cream and then was done eating. I hated to see ice cream go to waste, so I started eating it. I took 3 bites, and 2 of them had a granule of salt. Biting into a chunk of salt is not good when you’re expecting strawberry ice cream flavor. I don’t know that biting into a chunk of salt is a good idea any other time either.

Double bagging may help with keeping the salt off the inner bag, but I’d still recommend rinsing off the ice cream bag. Hint: use cold water, otherwise you’ll undo all the work that it took to make the ice cream.

As you learned from yesterday’s post, I took the kids raspberry picking (this year went much better than last year).

And a week before that, we went blueberry picking.

After having experienced both, I will say, contrary to my longstanding view that raspberries are the best fresh fruit, that if you have your choice you should take kids blueberry picking instead of raspberry picking. Here are some reasons why:

• Blueberry plants are friendly. Blueberry bushes don’t hurt you. Raspberry plants have thorns, which causes children to avoid picking the fruit, leaving you to do all the work.
• Blueberries are sturdier. Kids can easily pick blueberries without squishing them. Grab the berry and pull. Raspberries are too delicate for those with not-so-fine motor skills.
• Blueberries are sturdier. I know I already used that point, but it has another aspect: you can pile the bucket full of blueberries and the berries at the bottom will be just fine. Kids can carry a bucket a lot easier than a shallow tray (“No, don’t tip it!”).
• Blueberries are sturdier. Last one with this heading, I promise. Raspberries almost, almost, collapse under their own weight. Drop a ripe blueberry from the table onto the floor, and it bounces nicely. Drop a ripe raspberry on the floor, and it splats. Now when you get home from your picking and your children want to help you wash and sort the fruit into containers for the fridge, which berry would you rather they handle?
• One vote for blueberries is that they don’t spoil so easily. The raspberries that seemed perfect a picking time were too ripe about an hour later, when I was washing and sorting them. Next time we pick raspberries, I am going to pick the ones that are not quite ripe. That way, they’ll be good when we get home. The blueberries stay good for a week or two at home after picking, but raspberries fade quickly after a couple of days.
• The other vote for blueberries: all the kids like them. Our middle child doesn’t really like raspberries, but he’ll eat a bowl full of blueberries quite readily. Note: If you are in charge of watching him, then don’t actually let him eat a whole bowl of blueberries. It’s not good on the digestive system.
• Oh, and blueberries are cheaper too. Blueberries were $1.60 per pound and raspberries were $3.75 per pound.

And now, some gratuitous close-up shots of fruit, compliments of the macro setting on my camera…

A good meal plan is to eat as many different colors as you can. This would normally be something like blueberries, oranges, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, beef, strawberries, jellyfish, etc. The more different colors you eat, the more different nutrients you get.

I put that strategy into action today for lunch – I packed M&Ms.

My earlier post had been about some new chocolate (or chocolatey) cereals. Phoebe had commented that another cereal has joined the breakfast game: Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Little Bites Chocolate.  I have now had a chance to try it.

First of all, cereal names are starting to get way too long. I have thus abbreviated Frosted Mini-Wheats Little Bites Chocolate to FMWLBC. Perhaps the long name contributes to what some are claiming is an identity crisis.

Second, it has a decent taste but that comes at a price: calories.

My updated rankings are:

1. HBOwrcc – it has decent taste with the best nutrition
2. CChex – it has the best taste with the worst nutrition
3. FMWLBC – it has good taste with the worst nutrition
4. SKCD – it has the worst taste with the worst nutrition

And here is the nutrition information:

The only redeeming nutrition factor is that it has a lot of fiber. But there are less-sugary ways to get fiber in your diet if that’s what you want. The other plus is that it uses real sugar and real chocolate, with no corn syrup.

Since this week’s topic seems to be germs, and since my wife bought a 5-pound tub of cookie dough from Costco, I thought I would write that cookie dough is much better before it is cooked.

It is not necessarily a contrasting opinion from my previous post about using paper towels to open bathroom doors. The difference is that one is risky with no reward and the other is risky with a decent reward. Why risk something if there is nothing to be gained? That is why I don’t want to grab bathroom door handles with my bare hands. Or why I am mildly concerned that everyone in the bathroom touches the sink faucet to turn on the water, washes his hands, then touches the freshly-contaminated faucet handle to turn off the water. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of washing your hands?

I am a fan of the automatic faucets, and I have been known to take the suds from my hands and wash the non-automatic faucet handle so that it will be clean for me to touch after I rinse my hands. And I do not pull the paper towel handle with my hand – usually some part of my arm between the wrist and elbow.

But, all that aside, I do enjoy raw cookie dough, even though that term is redundant. Cookie dough, as any dough, is raw. If it were cooked cookie dough, it wouldn’t be dough anymore. It would just be a cookie. I do occasionally think about salmonella as I am eating a spoonful of sugar-and-chocolate goodness. But these days, as long as my cookie dough doesn’t have tomatoes or peanuts or pistachios, I should be okay. Besides, most large-scale food companies use pasteurized eggs, especially for ice cream and eggnog.

I have fond memories of mom’s KitchenAid mixing bowl filled with cookie dough. My favorite was the chocolate chip with M&Ms. My guess is that only a third of that dough ever made it into cookies. It, like hot fudge, was best served on a spoon.

One interesting tidbit: salmonella is named after the guy that discovered the bacterium – Dr. Salmon.

Another interesting thing I learned is that the edible parts of the egg are clean; people get salmonella from dirty shells. From which end of the chicken did the egg come? So wash the shells just before use, and that should be the most help.

This is Some Blog Site’s review of chocolate cereals.  Not the traditional chocolate cereals, aimed at children or certain younger siblings, but the newer varieties: normal cereals that have added a chocolate (or chocolatey) twist.

My results, in order of recommendedness (the first cereal is the most recommended):

1. HBOwrcc – it has medium taste with the best nutrition
2. CChex – it has the best taste with the worst nutrition
3. SKCD – it has the worst taste with the worst nutrition

The descriptive phrase on the Special K box is “chocolatey pieces”: not real chocolate, but some chocolate-like substance.  I tried a piece of chocolatey just by itself, and it didn’t have that much flavor.  The worst part was that it left a waxy coating in my mouth.  It was very disconcerting.  The waxy feeling is not so noticeable while I’m eating the cereal normally (flakes, chocolatey pieces, and milk), but it’s at least in the back of my mind.

How can I give two cereals the worst nutrition?  Chex has more sodium and more calories, but Special K has more saturated fat and more sugar.  Which one is worse depends on what your nutrition needs are.  But either one is worse than Honey Bunches of Oats. Note: all nutrition information is based on 3/4 cup for a serving.

The key?  Special K has high fructose corn syrup, whereas Honey Bunches of Oats has just the regular corn syrup.  And Chex has just corn syrup colids but no high fructoseness.  Syrup solids?  Aren’t those mutually exclusive?

Be careful of the trash cans with lids that flip up when you step on the pedal.  I had cut up some cantaloupe and was trying to throw away the remains.  I stepped on the pedal and tilted the cutting board so the remains would slide into the trash can.

But the lid didn’t flip up right away, so, slightly panicking, I stepped harder on the pedal to get the lid to open before the cantaloupe fell.  The timing didn’t quite work out as intended: the lid did open, but it opened as the cantaloupe was falling.  The cantaloupe hit the lid as it was opening, so the lid threw the remains up and back.  They hit the wall and slid down behind the trash can, between the stove and the cabinets, a very inconvenient place to reach.