Passionfruit Ice Cream

It's an exciting time in our house when the passionfruit lady is back at the markets! Hurrah! Unfortunately do to all the rain and flooding the only crop they've got at the moment is passionfruit, she told me last week that they lost over 15 acres of tomatoes and cucumbers in the recent flooding and three lots of earlier crops over the past 6 or so months.

This is why I love going to the farmers markets. I get to talk to and get to know the people who are producing our food. They know the boys, give them a free bit of this or that every now and then. Yes, we could get all our fruit and veg from the grocery but then we'd be giving our money to big corporations and the farmers that supplied them would be getting a pittance for all their hard work. I know that when we give the passionfruit lady $2.50 for a bag of passionfruit that all of that $2.50 is going to her, her hard working husband and their children that help them on the farm.

I now have two helpers in the kitchen!

These passionfruit were the first of their harvest and oh so delicious. We decided to add to that deliciousness by making passionfruit ice cream! It's just our basic ice cream recipe with the pulp from a few passionfruit stirred through and the vanilla omitted. I can't remember how many passionfruit and even if I could it wouldn't be accurate because it was a case of 'one spoon for the ice cream, one spoon for the boy helping'!

Don't you just love chubby toddler hands?

Our Basic Ice Cream Recipe

Makes 2 litres

1 cup white sugar

1.5 cups milk

3 cups cream

2tbls vanilla essence

Whisk together the sugar and milk to dissolve the milk.

Whisk in the cream and vanilla until combine.

Churn in the ice cream machine for about 30 minutes or frozen like soft serve. 

Transfer to a 2L container and freeze.

Lick the paddle and scoop out the super frozen remnants with a plastic spatula!

Cows ahead!!!

One of the first things that made me feel really 'comfy' after our move was finding a wonderful family owned and run dairy just outside of town. And really, it's not that far out of town. Less than 10 minutes drive and we can have farm fresh milk, cream and butter. I was so surprised to find a local dairy as the country around here is all about the sugar cane. We get cane trains rattling up and down the streets during harvesting season, kids look out windows and see cane harvesters driving down the roads. It's not known to be good dairy country here, but the dairy is nestled along the scenic Mary River surrounded by cane farms. They sell this particular brand of milk in a few of the smaller shops in town but it is much cheaper and a lot more fun to go for a drive out to the dairy once a week and stock up on really yummy milk. In terms of the almighty dollar, the milk we get from the dairy costs a little more than regular supermarket milk, but I'd rather pay a bit more to farmers within the local area than buy cheap, mass produced milk from who-knows-where. I know that this is a small operation, the cows are well looked after and the people running the show are honest and hard-working.

If you drive out to the dairy you buy the milk with the good old honesty system. A large cold room is left unlocked with a little container that you put your money in. We can get fresh milk any time we need, which is especially handy after returning home on Sunday night after a weekend away visiting family! More often than not there is no one there when we go, but once I've run into the lady that runs the dairy. She is absolutely lovely and we had a good old chat about the boys, her grandkids and family, who helps out around the place, all the important things. It really is such a family affair!

A sign warning drivers to watch out for cows! The dairy grazes the cows on both sides of the road so the cows regularly cross to get to greener pastures!

We choose to get the non-homogenised type so it's had a lot less 'fiddling' than normal supermarket milk and it is so much nicer. Really creamy and it tastes like real milk. It's nice too to see the change in the milk depending on the season and what they are eating. As it is illegal to sell raw milk in Australia it has been pasteurised, but it is the closest we'll get to real milk, unless we get a cow. But that is a whole other post! ;) We also get their cream, which comes in 1litre bottles for only $2, bargain! It makes the yummiest home-made ice cream. I have to limit our ice cream making to 2 litres a week though. Actually, I shouldn't say 'our'. I should say I have to limity 'my' ice cream intake to 2 litres a week. I may be slightly addicted to home-made ice cream! I haven't made butter yet, but it's on my list of things to do.

Some of the lovely cows that give us their milk. It is very much appreciated ladies!

I love knowing where our food has come from. I love that Elliot and Archie can get out of the car and say hello to the cows that give us their milk. I love that we're directly supporting a small, family, local business. I love that we're cutting our food miles and having fun doing it!

Planning the week

One of my favourite 'jobs' for the week is planning our menu. I sit down with a couple of cook books (I try to alternate) and my notebook and pen. I generally plan the week on Sunday evening when we're having dinner, or if I'm not so organised, on Monday morning over breakfast. Everyone gets to choose a meal or two (Elliot always suggests sausages or pizza), I choose a couple of things from the books, plus a few things from our regular list that I know the boys will eat. Luckily for me both the boys are big vegetable eaters but this means that we can't have too many meals where the vegies are hidden ie pasta sauce, quiche, soup etc. We've even had a few tantrums and tears because Elliot couldn't see his vegies! Because of this I normally do a few steamed veg to have on the side, just to keep the peace!


I write everything down in a notebook that I then take to the shops. We also have a blackboard in the kitchen that I write the menu on for the week. On the left-hand side of the page I list the days and what meal we'll have, on the right-hand side is the shopping list taking into account what we'll need for all the different meals and general grocery items. I also have an 'extras' section for all the baking, and extra things that need to be done, ice cream, stock, any cheese or yoghurt etc. Below the general grocery list I have two other sections, one for what we'll get from the dairy and one for the butcher. I normally get enough fruit and veg to tide us over until we go to the town markets on Thursday morning.

Elliot helping with the shopping. He loves to hold the list, count out what we need, choose the fruit and veg, help push trolley and pack the bags when we're finished. He's a great helper!

I absolutely feel lost without my menu plan, I get to 4 o'clock and freak out cause there is nothing out for dinner. I also wander aimlessly around the grocery and get a thousand things we don't need and forget the important things like cheese and chocolate!