Notes from my Kitchen 15 - Birthday Supper

For my husbands supper I decided to make our family favourites. Everyone contributed to the meal, even my sons. This made our family birthday feast special in its simplicity by our combined thought and contribution in deciding on the menu and cooking the meal.

Fish and oven baked chips (recipe from my book) with minted peas, picked and shelled by my sons. They also helped pick the lemon thyme and parsley for the simple butter, herb and lemon sauce I served with the oven roasted salmon. We enjoyed some sparkling cloudy lemonade I made earlier in the day (see my blog on lemons) with our meal.
And for dessert (or pudding as it's known in our home), I made my favourite crunchy caramel ice-cream. Using the cream from our dairy, I made caramel sauce with a twist - crunchy caramel bits. Here's the recipe:

1 batch homemade caramel sauce (see my blog)
3 large egg whites (I use the yolks to make a cheesecake)
600ml double thick cream
1t vanilla extract

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Loosely whip the cream and fold in the cooled caramel sauce. Add the vanilla. Then fold in the egg whites a little at a time. Freeze and serve!

Hint : to get crunchy bits in the caramel sauce do this. When the water and sugar start to turn to caramel, use a wooden spoon to smash up any bits of crystalised sugar that have started to form. Allow the caramel to develop and leave the sugar crystals to make the crunchy bits.