Durham Food Trucks: Part 2

I am newly in love with The Parlour, a new ice cream truck that has popped up in Durham. Their flavors are so complex, yet refreshing. You can really tell that they put a lot of thought and time into crafting every single flavor in their selections. 

The fabulous ice cream artisans of The Parlour.

Vegan options too!

Honey chai. Chocolate banana coconut. Vietnamese Coffee. What's not to love? 

In all honesty, I'm a really picky ice cream eater and I usually won't even touch grocery store ice creams, especially since we've taken to making our own ice cream these days (we make a killer strawberry!). So, it typically takes a lot of uniqueness in flavor and texture to make me swoon. 

And indeed The Parlour has done just that! 

Follow them on twitter @parlourdurham to track them down.

Have a wonderful Monday! 

Dining In: Nashville, TN

The Nashville food scene is not one that we extensively researched before heading out there so we kind of randomly stumbled upon several great eateries and coffee shops. My top favorite was Crema. A fabulous local coffee shop with delicious coffee offerings. We had the cuban and the vietnamese coffees. YUM-O. 

2. Cupcake Collection. Cupcakes for $1.65 and there was a massive line to get them.

3. Marche Artisan Foods. A beautiful cafe, bakery, and bistro with a delicious quinoa salad. Definitely going to try to make this at home. 

4. I Dream of Weenie. It wasn't open, but I dreamed of hot dogs. 

5. Pied Piper Ice Cream. This place reminds me of the little ice cream shops in Austin. 

6. The Cocoa Tree. Chocolate confections galore. 

7. Kalamata's. Lip-smacking good Mediterranean food in the middle of Nashville. Who knew? 

8. Rumba. Asian fusion. Great ambience, innovative drinks, and average food. 

All in all, a great view of Nashville. Honky tonks and all. This trip really made me miss Austin, which is perfect as we head out there in a couple of weeks!!! 

Dining In: Asheville, NC

My weekend in Asheville was filled with time at the gorgeous spa at Grove Park Inn, leisurely walks around eclectic little shops (where I found a sun hat!), and lots of yummy food. (The Husband was there for a conference so he probably had much less fun than I did :P).  One of our stops was Bouchon Street Food, which is a more casual version of the full-on French restaurant next door (called Bouchon, of course). 

The food was undeniably French with country style pork and duck pate, a ham and cheese crepe with a duck egg, and escargot! It was SO good. 

For a late brunch, we braved the long lines at Tupelo Honey Cafe. Luckily, we got seated at the bar where we could watch while our food was being prepared. After the long wait, the biscuits and black raspberry jam hit the spot. So did the fried green tomatoes with goat cheese grits. YUM.  

The Eggs Beddy was delicious, although I wished my yolk was a little more runny, and The Husband's fried chicken and biscuits were surprisingly good for fried white meat!

We then ventured to Chocolate Fetish for some scrumptious chocolate treats. Flavors pictured include Champagne, Dragon's Breath (wasabi and sesame), Basil Pistachio, and Pistachio Frog.

Final stop before heading home was at Ultimate Ice Cream, which reportedly is some of the best ice cream that some reviewers have ever tasted. The Flaky Coconut and Butter Pecan were true to flavor and wonderfully creamy. 

All in all, Asheville is a little treasure in the mountains. We'll definitely be returning for more. 

Have a great weekend! 

Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

This past weekend for a fabulous grilled quesadilla dinner our friends brought over a massive container of liquid nitrogen to make dessert. Imagine my excitement after watching Top Chef, Richard Blais, use liquid nitrogen in almost every tasty creation on the show. For dessert we made vanilla bean and mango and strawberry ice creams.

The pictures speak for themselves, but I must say that liquid nitrogen creates the smoothest ice cream.

Sorry, we ate the ice cream so quickly that there was nothing left to take a picture of. However, I don't think this will be the last of our nitrogen adventures.

Have a great weekend!

Sunday Dinner

Yesterday was a fabulously warm Sunday. After an entire day of cleaning, dusting, and laundry washing, dinner needed to be hearty, filling, and no-nonsensibly good. Warm weather = grilling! I can't wait until the longer days allow for grilling and dining outside for hours to come.

We had sweet italian sausage and beef hamburgers with thickly-sliced, toasted bread. Grilled tomatoes, asparagus, and shrimp were perfect accompaniments.

Dessert was grilled pears with candied pistachios and Ben and Jerry's pistachio ice cream. Yum!

Let's hope there is a lot more warm weather to come!

Rum Raisin Ice Cream

The Husband decided to make run raisin ice cream... in the beginning of winter... I don't know why. So after a confusing trip to the liquor store, which apparently in NC are all owned by the government (oh, how I miss Texas), we got our ice cream underway.

The ice cream recipe can be found in Mark Bittman's "How to cook everything," which I've mentioned before.

Rum raisin soakage.

Many egg yolks... for this recipe.

Egg and run raisin mixture combine.

Into the ice cream machine for churning! 

Gingerbread cookies a la mode. 

Happy ice cream churning!