Birthday's need Ice Cream

My first and I feel most important tip for successful food shopping is making a list and sticking to it, although I realized today that another tip would be to remember to bring the list with you to the supermarket! On my lunch break I took a nice walk to the Village Supermarket in Roslindale expecting to pick up a few things and then I realized that I forgot the list!  I knew what I was planning to make, I knew that I had some of the ingredients at home, make a long story short I did pretty good, left with mostly all the ingredients to my fabulous dinner and a few other treasures as well.

Monday was my birthday...so last night after work, I invited my besties over for dinner, cake and homemade ice cream. This year, like many others, my family knows that my favorite gifts are kitchen related. My parents bought me a few sets of serving ware, my brother-in-law left me a surprise of a non-electric food processor (pretty cool) and my sister bought me a bright pink ice cream machine!

Usually when I invite friends or family over for dinner after work, I want to make sure that the dinner that I am preparing for them is quick and easy, and doesn’t need a lot of my attention while its cooking. I got home at 6:15ish, mixed a chocolate cake mix, threw the cupcakes in the oven and started on my chicken. I decided to make grilled chicken wings and chicken drumsticks, linguica (Portuguese sausage) and Italian Sausages. With a quick marinade of beer, and Montreal steak seasoning chicken were ready to go. Seems easy right, until the grill ran out of gas J, no big deal, just borrowed the neighbors! (picture below is of Beer Can Chicken, made a few weeks back, same spices and flavoring, just with a whole chicken)

The night before I was playing around and learning about my new Ice Cream machine. I was reading the recipes and found one for coffee heath bar crunch!!! If you know anything about me, you know that that is my all time favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor. The easy recipe of whole milk, sugar, and instant coffee seemed like a no brainier. I mixed it together, and saved it in the fridge for dessert. While we were sitting down for dinner last night, I turned on the machine, poured in the coffee and milk mixture and let it roll. After we ate, it was perfectly frozen and ready for cones and sprinkles!

***Great Birthday this year with my family and friends. Thanks for all your love and support!

Beer Can Chicken

Coffee Soft Serve, Before the Health Bar took it over