Tag: ice cream

Mary, Recipes

all you need is (mango) love – mango granita

It’s been hot. The heat has made me thankful for tank tops, ice cold water, air conditioned movie theaters, and delicious frozen treats. And while it is super fun to go out and get some ice cream at a shop, sometimes it’s nice to try making it yourself at home, too.

I was at Jake’s again for the weekend and Jake has been wanting me to try making a mango sorbet for quite some time. We had it at Khan’s Cave for my Dad’s birthday back in April and liked it so much that we wanted to try making it at home. We finally got our hands on some ripe mangoes so I could experiment and try making this frozen treat.

Just about every sorbet recipe I read talked about using an ice cream maker to chill the sorbet. I didn’t have one of those on hand so I decided to try making a granita instead, which is sort of a cross between a sorbet and an Italian ice. You don’t need much to make this! Just a few ingredients, a long pan, a fork, a freezer and some time to kill.

[the cast of characters]

You need three things: ripe mangoes, lime juice, and sugar. That’s it!

[cubed mango]

Jake and I were able to pick up a couple of ripe mangoes for fairly cheap at the Farmer’s Market in Lemon Grove. Mangoes are kind of a bitch to cube. They’ve got that crazy, fibery pit in the middle making them hard to cut through. I managed to just slice around it in pieces and cut off the peel as I went. I used both mangoes for this.

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Normal Heights, Products, San Diego County, Mary

viva pops / normal heights – san diego, ca

Hot summer days demand cool and refreshing treats. The frozen treats made at Viva Pops in Normal Heights is definitely a good option for any warm day with their mix of creative flavors. I don’t know of any other place that puts goat cheese into a frozen treat. That right there is reason enough to swing by and check this place out.

Here’s their menu from the day that we visited. The menu changes and rotates and frequently, considering everything is made fresh at the store and depends on local produce to create their frozen treats. Some of the flavors that really caught my eye were the Lavender Lemonade, the Tri-Color Melon (which is made with three different types of melon) and the Key Lime Pie bars.

I was also impressed to see that they make dog pops so your pup can also have a treat! The dog pops are sold by donations, which are donated to Second Chance Dog Rescue. Tugged at my heart strings a little to hear that. Sadly I didn’t have Maya with me that afternoon, otherwise she would gotten a dog viva pop!

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Mary, La Jolla, San Diego County

la jolla brew house / la jolla – san diego, ca

I don’t usually document negative experiences but:

A) I’m tired
B) I decided I don’t care
C) I’m doing a service for you guys, right?
D) I’m too tired to think of a D.

Anyway. Bear (bare? no, definitely bear. I’m definitely tired if I’m leaving these inane comments in) with me for a few minutes.

I had a Groupon for the La Jolla Brew House and I dragged Jake along with me since the coupon was about to expire. It seemed like a really good deal – two burgers, plus desserts and two beers or sodas for $18.

There was a little bit of a wait so I put my name down on the list and we wandered over to a couch to sit for awhile. It was a nice evening and we were out on a patio. The garage doors were up and people were enjoying the evening. I got a kick out of seeing puppies on the patio. Dog friendly! I love it. We kind of bugged out for awhile waiting for our table. We were told the wait would be about 20-30 minutes. No problem.

[playing the waiting game on the patio]

I kept peeking over to the hostess stand and noticed there were less and less people over there, but still, we were never called. It was over 30 minutes later when I poked Jake and asked him to go check. A few minutes later he came back and sat down.

“She said we’re next. She skipped us.”
“What?”
“When I asked, she said my name was already called. Then I told her the name put down was Mary and she kind of freaked out a little.”
“She got caught lying, that’s why!”
“Yeah, that was obvious. She just skipped us.”
“Lame.”

Not an impressive start if you ask me.

[page two of stapled together menus]

We were given these stapled together menu’s to look over though since I had the Groupon, there wasn’t much choice. We could have a classic cheeseburger, a mushroom swiss burger or a BH burger. Both came with either fries or sweet potato fries and either 2 pints of beer or 2 16-ounce sodas (+ dessert).

[sunset trivia]

They were doing trivia that night, hosted by Sunset Trivia. The guy came over and quickly explained the rules to us. They were over halfway through the trivia, but we did it anyway. It was totally fun! They have three different categories each round and you put down the amount of points you want to bet for each round. You write your answer down plus the points you’re betting. The guy calling out the questions also keeps score for you.

I didn’t even have to suggest a something for our team name. I just looked at Jake and he wrote down the above. Jake knows me so well!

[mushroom swiss burger / regular fries]

I got the mushroom swiss burger. You can see that my cheese is just slightly melted on my burger. The burger was only warm to the touch. It tasted okay, nothing special really. Standard button mushrooms that were slightly sauteed, mild seasoning on the burger. It was cooked to medium rare per my specifications. The burger was just really lacking… something. Flavor. Oomph. Heat. Something! The fries were not very hot, not very crisp and not very good. The best I can say about my meal was that it was “meh”.
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