Caitlin turns 22!

The baby of the family turned 22 yesterday! A relaxed day with lunch out, then a movie with Cyrous. Afterwards we headed out for our favorite Chinese restaurant. We have been going here since before Caitlin was born, so the waiters have seen her grow up! Before we went, she opened some gifts from the family.

We gave there these Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes. Aren't they cute?!

Over the past 24 years that we have lived in the area, this has been our go to Chinese restaurant, and over those years it has been remodeled at least twice that I remember, the second one most recently. Now it looks pretty fancy. It is a favorite of the near by college kids over at Saint Mary's University. It has the best pot stickers and hot and sour soup!!! Last night everything tasted super yummy.
They have a tradition here, that on your birthday you wear one of their colorful hats, and get your picture taken. Up until recently, they would tape all the photos to the wall. There must have been a thousand or so. They took them all down when they remodeled, and scanned everyone of them, to put on the digital screen that you can see to the right of Cyrous' head. Caitlin has one up there, when she turned 15 I believe. So Kenny the waiter, took this photo to add to the collection.
They gave her a little bean cake dessert.
Then it was back home to eat chocolate cake, and per requested by Caitlin, homemade peanut butter ice cream.
When the ice cream was almost done, I threw in these chopped up peanut butter cups. Man was it good.


The rest went into the freezer.

If you have one of these ice cream makers, you have to try this recipe. It is so simple, and 20 min later you have the best peanut butter ice cream!

So as a little gift, to celebrate Caitlin's birthday, I will give you this super easy recipe.

Peanut butter ice cream

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 cup whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, combine the creamy peanut butter and sugar with an electric hand mixer and beat until smooth

2. Add the mil and blend on low speed for about 2 minutes until the mixture is smooth and the sugar has been dissolved.

3 Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla with a mixing spoon or a whisk.

4. cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

5. When ready, pour the ice cream base into your frozen ice cream maker bowl.

6. Let mix until thickened, about 15-20 minutes. If you are adding in candies or peanuts, add them in the last 5 min of mixing.

Pour into a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 2 hours.

* We ate it right when it was finished. I just ate some this afternoon though, after it was in the freezer all night, and it was more the consistency of store bought.

I would recommend natural peanut butter, instead of commercial, because you can cut some of the sugar that way, and it tastes so good! You can use Reese's of course, but we used these.

Enjoy!!!