How to make lavender ice cream

How to make lavender ice cream

It is lavender season again. I just adore the plant, there are endless things that you can do with it, it smells divine, looks great AND it keeps the bees happy!

I like to harvest some of our lavender each year and make something with it, so this year we have made lavender ice cream. It tastes amazing…. here is what we did;

We used…

Ingredients

Four eggs yolks (we made meringues with the leftover whites!)

1 tablespoon of fresh lavender buds

140 g of sugar

250 ml milk

250 ml cream (one standard carton)

Red and blue food colouring (optional)

 

And then…

 

Lavender2

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan over a low heat and add the lavender (we used one tablespoon, but for a stronger flavour this can be increased, up to three tablespoons, if you really like a strong lavender taste).

2. Leave the lavender in the warming milk for five to ten minutes.

3. Add the sugar to the warm milk and stir until completely dissolved.

4. Crack the eggs, separate and place the four yolks in a bowl.

5. Whisk the egg yolks thoroughly with a fork.

6. Add the warmed milk to the egg yolks, one tablespoon at a time initially, and stirring constantly. You want to make sure that the milk is not too hot and that the eggs don’t scramble! You can strain the flowers from the milk before adding to the egg yolks but we left them in until the very end.

7. Once about half of the milk has been added, the rest of the milk can be poured in, mixing all the time.

8. Return the mixture to the saucepan and keep stirring, over a low heat, until the mixture thickens.

9. Turn off the heat and strain into a clean, dry bowl, to remove the lavender flowers.

10. Add the cream to the bowl, stirring continuously.

11. If you want to make your ice cream more “lavender” coloured then mix in some red and blue food colouring until you get the desired colour. We used about two drops of red to every one drop of blue.

12. And then it is time to turn it into ice cream, either using an ice cream machine or, as we did, place it in a shallow plastic container, add a lid and freeze; check on it every hour and stir up gently with a fork to mix and break up the crystals, until you are happy with the texture of your ice cream.

Lavender Ice cream 2

Next time we make it we are thinking of trying this (to combine science and ice cream making… how cool is that?!).

Lavender Icecream

 

Enjoy!

If you want to see what else we have made with lavender check out this post, or this photo tutorial on how to make a lavender wand!

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And a little something else … The Boot’s Maternity and Infant Parenting Blog Awards 2015 are still open for voting. If you like what I do here and have a minute to spare I’d really appreciate your vote; You just need to click the image below and scroll down to the “Best Parenting Blog” section under “For the Family”; Many thanks! 

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Mystery Creature of the week – it is a mammal with an unusual ability

Mystery Creature of the week – it is a mammal with an unusual ability

This week’s Mystery Creature is a very unusual mammal… can you name it?

MCAug17

Image credit: Lip Kee Yap.

 

If you know what it is let me know here or on social media. If you don’t why not do a bit of research or, better yet, entertain the kids for an hour by setting them the challenge!

Remember to check back at the end of the week to find out all about this very interesting creature.

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And a little something else … The Boot’s Maternity and Infant Parenting Blog Awards 2015 are still open for voting. If you like what I do here and have a minute to spare I’d really appreciate your vote; You just need to click the image below and scroll down to the “Best Parenting Blog” section under “For the Family”; Many thanks! 

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Mystery Creature revealed – Guianan Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola rupicola)

Mystery Creature revealed – Guianan Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola rupicola)

How did you do with this week’s Mystery Creature? A pretty extravagant bird don’t you think? It was the Guianan cock of the rock (Rupicola rupicola), a native South American passerine.

Guianan Cock-of-the-rock; Image credit: Allan Hopkins
Guianan Cock-of-the-rock; Image credit: Allan Hopkins

 

Here are ten interesting facts about this beautiful bird:

  1. The colours are amazing, aren’t they? But as is common in the world of birds, these bright colours are just for the men (sexual dimorphism). The females are adorned with more muted colours and lack the large orange plumage of the lower back. However they do have the very distinctive, fan-like crest that makes these birds so easy to identify.
  1. Not surprisingly… the males are brightly coloured to attract a mate. They participate in a Lek, and gather with many other males in a display of feather pluming and vocal calling in order to be noticed by a female.
  1. Although they usually prefer the safety of the dense forest vegetation, for lekking, the males claim their space in an open area of the forest.
  1. When the females pick their suitor they do so by pecking him on the back. Very romantic!
  1. These are solitary birds, only coming together for breeding purposes. The female nests and rears the young hatchlings alone. They prefer high rocky terrain and caves for breeding, hence the name ‘cock of the rock’.
  1. The female will build a saucer like nest out of mud, twigs and other forest foliage on the sheer face of a cliff, cave or bolder. This extreme nesting area helps protect the nest from predation. She lays two eggs.
  1. Although these birds have a diet rich in fruit, they are also thought to occasionally supplement their diets with insects, small frogs and possibly small reptiles.
  1. They themselves are preyed on primarily by Harpy Eagles, Hawk Eagles and Forest Falcons. Snakes and owls are also a common threat.
  1. They make some very interesting sounds, from the crow, cat and chicken like mating calls of the males, to the unusual foraging sounds of both sexes that is apparently likened to ‘a rubber duck being strangled’.
  1. The wings of the male produce a whistling sound in flight.

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And a little something else … The Boot’s Maternity and Infant Parenting Blog Awards 2015 are still open for voting. If you like what I do here and have a minute to spare I’d really appreciate your vote; You just need to click the image below and scroll down to the “Best Parenting Blog” section under “For the Family”; Many thanks! 

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The flying ant invasion

The flying ant invasion

The flying ant invasion of 2015 is upon us, at least in Dublin anyway. It seems they are everywhere and people are naturally a bit put out; but is there an advantage to all of this, and what exactly is the reason for this infestation?

Ants with wings… is this something new?

Not really. There is no one species of winged ants but many species will produce wings during a certain stage of the life cycle of the colony. As we all know, ants like to be busy so if all the chores are done, the larder is full, the young are being tended to and the queen is happy, well there is really only one job left to do…. procreate!

And it is a lot easier to get out there and find the right ant for you if you can grow a pair of wings for a while!

To put it a little more scientifically… in mature, thriving colonies, some eggs, treated under the right conditions, will produce winged ants, both male and female. The females are virgin queens with the potential to start a new colony of their own. The males, well, they have only one thing on their mind!

Carpenter_ant_drone_wiki
Image credit: Bruce Marlin;

Why so many?

The newly produced winged ants will remain in the colony until conditions are right for what is referred to as the Nuptial flight. These flights are very weather dependant, requiring warm temperatures with little chance of strong wind or rain. The ants will all leave the colony together in one coordinated flight. This is also synchronised with the flight of ants for neighbouring colonies.

The large numbers serve two purposes….

  • firstly, they increase the chances of a significant number of ants surviving predation and successfully mating and starting new colonies
  • secondly, where reproduction is concerned, it is always a good idea to widen the gene pool. The large swarms of flying ants from many different colonies allows cross breeding and the creation of a stronger genetic line.

 

What happens to the winged ants after the “deed is done”?

After mating both the male and female ants lose their wings.

The female will often mate with several males during the mating process but this will be the only time in her life that she will mate. She stores the male sperm in a pouch in her body called the spermatheca. After mating she will dig a nest to start her own colony… the sex on her offspring is decided by her. All fertilised eggs are female, all non fertilised eggs are male.

When she starts a colony she will produce only female ants, each of which will be infertile and wingless. The queen tends to the first set of eggs on her own but once the worker ants are reared they will tend to her every need and the needs of the colony.

The males? Well they actually die soon after mating… it is their sole purpose.. tough job but what a noble one!

 

And why is this of any interest to us?

I agree that it is not so pleasant having a face full of crawling ants every time you step out the door but if we look closely at these tiny creatures we have a lot to learn from them; from their engineering mastery to their incredible social networking, ants definitely deserve a second look.

 

From engineering to traffic control

Firstly, ants are known for their impressive architectural skills. In a very short space of time they can build incredible structures from just a pile of dirt. What is even more impressive is how they seem to work as a unified “machine”, without an apparent hierarchy of “foreman” and “worker”.  We have much to learn by cracking to simple “rules” that they follow and we could apply this knowledge to such diverse areas as engineering, traffic control, cell biology and robotics.

 

Strengthening our social standing

Ants are incredibly social creatures. Without their social interaction, they face a much shorter life span and even seem to lose the ability to digest food. Working together they can achieve the unthinkable.


They are eusocial creatures, along with termites and some bees, wasps and aphids. A eusocial society usually expressed division of labour, an overlap of generations to help with care of the young and adults sharing living space. The advantages of such living arrangements include better protection (safety in numbers) and a more likely chance for a regular food supply. It can be argued that we humans are also eusocial creatures in a somewhat fragile existence and can better address any precarious imbalances with a greater understanding of how eusocial insects, such as the ant, sustain and strengthen their social system.

 

Learning how our brain works

Science shines a spotlight on the similarities between the communication within an ant colony and the workings of the human brain.  It seems both operate very efficiently without any one direct control centre and, just like no two brains are exactly alike this is also true for each ant colony.

Maybe all this will show these tiny creatures in a new light and make their hair tangling flightless frustrating at this time of year.

Have you spotted them en mass in your area? Don’t despair, it doesn’t last long and, for the ant it is a life or death event, for us humans, it is a small inconvenience.

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And a little something else … I am delighted to see my blog listed among some favourite bloggers in the Boots Maternity and Infant Parenting Blog Awards 2015. If you like what I do here and have a minute to spare I’d really appreciate your vote; You just need to click the image below and scroll down to the “Best Parenting Blog” section under “For the Family”; Many thanks! 

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Mystery Creature of the week – an orange extravagance!

Mystery Creature of the week – an orange extravagance!

This week I am returning to the somewhat neglected Mystery Creature series, this feathered one is very bright and… orange; Do you know what it is?

MysteryCreature10Aug2015

 

End of week update: Did you guess it? You can see what it was here and find out ten interesting facts about this beautiful bird.

***

And a little something else … I am delighted to see my blog listed among some favourite bloggers in the Boots Maternity and Infant Parenting Blog Awards 2015. If you like what I do here and have a minute to spare I’d really appreciate your vote; You just need to click the image below and scroll down to the “Best Parenting Blog” section under “For the Family”; Many thanks! 

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Volcanoes – a bit of science, facts and an experiment to try

Volcanoes – a bit of science, facts and an experiment to try

Who doesn’t love the volcano experiment? We will get to that in a minute, but before you go running for the vinegar and bread soda do you want to learn a little about them?

Firstly, what is a Volcano?

It is basically just a hole in the Earth’s crust. The word Volcano comes from Vulcan, the Roman God of Fire. Most volcanoes occur at weak spots in the Earth’s crust.

Scientists that study volcanoes are called Vulcanologists!

Scientists use a scale to measure the strength of volcanic eruption – it is called the Volcanic Explosive Index (VEI).

The VEI scale ranges from 0 to 8; volcanic eruptions of 8 are called super volcanoes.

photo credit: image49374 via photopin (license)
photo credit: image49374 via photopin (license)

 

How about a bit of history?

Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii, Italy erupted in 79 AD killing all the inhabitants of the city. Everything was covered in a thick layer of ash preserving the scene as a snapshot in time.

The last super volcano to erupt was Toba on Summatra in Indonesia, 74,000 years ago. It spewed so much volcanic ash into the air that it blotted out the Sun, causing a volcanic winter that lasted nearly six years.

Krakatoa in Indonesia erupted in 1883 spewing hot ash more than 50km into the air. The force of the explosion was heard as far away as Australia and caused a tsunami.

Ever wonder what comes out of an erupting volcano?

When a volcano erupts it spews out hot liquid rock, dust, ash, rocks and poisonous gases. Magma is hot liquid rock contained under the Earth’s surface. When magma escapes from a volcano it is called lava.

Volcanic bombs are hot lumps of molten rock shot out of a volcano when it erupts. As they shoot into the air they
cool and fall to Earth as solid rock.

Did you know… the largest volcanic bombs recorded were from the eruption of Mount Asama in Japan and were
up to six metres in diameter?

How are volcanoes classifying?

Volcanoes can be classed as…

  • active (erupt regularly)
  • dormant (have erupted within recorded history but not of late)
  • extinct (have not erupted within recorded history)

They can also be defined by their shape:

  • shield volcanoes are dome shaped
  • cinder cone volcanoes have erupted from  one single vent
  • strato or compsite volcanoes are tall with layers of magma and rock

What is Pumice?

Pumice is a type of volcanic rock, formed when frothy lava cools quickly? It is a very light rock that can float on water!

photo credit: Airfall pumice (~1065 A.D. eruption of Medicine Lake Volcano's Glass Mountain eruptive center, northern California, USA) via photopin (license)
Pumice; photo credit: Airfall pumice (~1065 A.D. eruption of Medicine Lake Volcano’s Glass Mountain eruptive center, northern California, USA) via photopin (license)

And the largest volcano is…?

The largest volcano on Earth is thought to be Tamu Massiff off the coast of Japan, and is completely contained under the Pacific Ocean.

The largest volcano in our solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars. It is slightly narrower than Tamu Massiff but has a larger overall mass.

Olympus Mons - image source NASA
Olympus Mons – image source NASA

Finally to the experiment – how to make your own volcano:

You will need: an empty jar, vinegar, bread soda, water, washing up liquid, food colouring and modelling clay

What to do: 

You will use the jar as the volcano. If you want to make it look more realistic you can cover it in modelling clay, shaping it like a volcano and let this dry overnight.

To make the volcano erupt, first add some water into the jar (about one third full). Add a big squirt of washing up liquid and a few drops of red food colouring.

Add one large tablespoon of bread soda and stir well. Place the volcano in a clear plastic basin or deep tray.

Finally add vinegar, filling to near the top of the jar. Stand back and watch the fun!

To get the volcano going again just add more vinegar and bread soda!

What is happening?

The vinegar and bread soda react to form carbon dioxide gas. This gas gets trapped in bubbles formed by the washing up liquid making the lava appear thick and foamy.