Going green

I never gave much thought to pregnancy cravings.  When I was pregnant with Brianna, the biggest food issue I had was actually an aversion, rather than a craving.  I didn't want much of anything to do with meat.  Any kind.  I can remember sitting in our living room on Thanksgiving (at 7 months pregnant), giving direction to Jamie and our friend Paul as they were in the kitchen trying to cook the turkey.  I had more or less told them that if they wanted turkey, they'd have to make it themselves.  It was interesting.  =)  I did have a bit of a craving toward the end, for Nestle butterscotch chips.  Normally I find them incredibly sweet, but I went through several bags over the last couple months before Brianna was born, eating them straight up (not even in cookies or anything).

With Gillian, though, I really got a taste of the whole crazy craving thing.  I was pregnant with G during a Texas summer.  So it wouldn't seem unusual that I might eat a little ice cream.  Well, it's safe to say I ate more than a little.  Not that I ate a lot at one time, it was just a scoop or so a day.  For months.  Like, about four months.  Only one flavor--HEB Creamy Creations mint chocolate chip.  It's a lovely pale green color, with the best bits of chocolate in it.  I ate that ice cream every single day for months.  I'm afraid to even think about just how many gallons of it I consumed over the summer, one scoop at a time.  Jamie would suggest other flavors once in a while, but the only one I really wanted was mint chocolate chip.  After G was born, the craving went away, and I've only occasionally eaten it in the four years since.

Now to be fair, part of that is because I hardly ever buy ice cream anymore.  It's too much fun to make my own. =)  This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe gave me another good opportunity to play around with ice cream.  Katrina of Baking and Boys picked the delicious Ganache Ice Cream for us to make this week.  I know it's delicious because I've made it several times before.  The first time was almost exactly 2 years ago, when I blogged about it as part of an event for World Breastfeeding Week.  Since then I've made it quite a few times, playing around with different additions.  I was having a hard time deciding what variation to make for this post, then I had a great idea.  Chocolate mint chip.

No, that's not quite the same as mint chocolate chip.  In this case, I added mint chips to chocolate ice cream, rather than the other way around.  The idea was partly inspired by my blogging friend Tracey.  A while back, she mentioned that she likes Guittard Green Mint Chips, but has a hard time finding them.  That reminded me that I had some stashed away in my pantry.  (I can sometimes find them here, mainly during the holidays.)  Ever since then, I've been looking for something good to use them in.  They seemed like the perfect addition for this ice cream!  The only thing that worried me was that full-size chips can be hard to eat--literally--in ice cream.  So I used a tip that I learned from Alice Medrich for making homemade chocolate chunks.  You melt the chocolate (I used 115g, or about 4 ounces), spread it on a sheet of parchment paper, and freeze it.  Then you chop the sheet of chocolate into small bits and keep them in the freezer until you're ready to add them to the ice cream.  The only other addition I made to the ice cream was a couple tablespoons of rum.  I find that most chocolate ice creams freeze very hard, and a bit of alcohol helps make it easier to scoop.

The verdict?  Mmm, we really enjoyed this flavor.  The chocolate ice cream itself has a really great texture.  (It's almost pudding-like when melted.)  Jamie said that he thought it had a nice balance between the chocolate and mint flavors.  I don't feel the need to eat this compulsively, but it won't be at all difficult to eat the rest of the quart.  Brianna and Gillian like all chocolate ice cream, and this was no exception, so I'm sure they'll help with what's left. =)

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it on Katrina's blog.  And be sure to check out this week's links to the other TWD bakers to see what fun they had with this ice cream.