Sweet tooth: cake and gelato

I've been having a horrible sweet tooth lately. It seems it's always that way when you're trying to eat healthy! I made a couple of things this past week. I made the icebox cake again that I made last week, only this time using chocolate chip cookies. It was so tasty! I used Chips Ahoy, but you could use any kind of cookie, even homemade ones if you have the time.


I also got a hankering for some pistachio gelato. I got the The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato and Sorbetto from the Borders closeout sale, and decided to give it a try. You make the plain base (it's a custard base), and chill it (and let your ice cream maker bowl freeze) overnight. Then you grind up some pistachios and blend them into the base, and put it in the ice cream maker.


Five minutes before you're done, throw in some whole pistachios. I thought this was super delicious, but I used a coffee grinder to grind up the pistachios and next time I might use the food processor to try to get a good paste. I might also exclude the whole pistachios so it's creamy all the way through. Not bad for a first try at gelato, though!


Now I have my eye on some blueberries in the freezer. Time to bake a pie?