Ice cream recipes & links round-up

Below are some of the posts I've enjoyed this week, but first, by popular demand, homemade ice cream recipes:

• Vanilla ice cream recipe: In a bowl, mix three eggs with one cup of sugar. Heat two cups of half-and-half on the stove until it is just starting to bubble (but before it boils.) Pour the hot half-and-half slowly into the egg mixture, stirring as you pour (you are basically raising its temperature slowly to avoid the eggs turning into scrambled eggs.) Then put the whole mixture back onto the stove on low heat and stir constantly for roughly 10-15 minutes until it starts to thicken up (the typical measure is "when it coats the back of a spoon, it's done.") As soon as it's done, pour another two cups of half-and-half into it to bring the temperature down. Stir in two tablespoons of vanilla, chill the mixture in the fridge (I leave it overnight), and then freeze it in your ice cream maker according the directions.
  
• Yummy variation: substitute two tablespoons of Bailey's Irish Cream for the vanilla.
• Feel free to adjust the sugar level to your taste, and also the fat content of the dairy (some people use only milk, others use mostly cream)-- that's the beauty of homemade ice cream.
• For other ice cream recipes, I highly recommend Ice Cream Ireland-- we ate at their shops twice while in Ireland and they were absolutely delicious-- and there are some wildly creative, fantastic-sounding recipes on the blog (Green Tea and Ginger, Chocolate Whiskey, Brown Bread and Guinness, Strawberry and Sage, etc, etc.) Don't miss the Honeycomb Ice Cream, which was the favorite flavor of 3 of 4 tasters in my family when we visited out of the ten (!) flavors we shared (mine was their Mint Julep, which they don't seem to have a recipe up for yet!)
  
• Now for some posts I enjoyed this week...
• I liked Conspicuous UNconsumption at No Impact Man-- a simple story about impacting others by living by your values. One person alone can't change a culture, but we each can have small ripple effects on others, and who knows how far those will stretch?
• The Dough Roller has 3 Simple Questions That Can Change Your Life, all about identifying your real priorities and values.
• The Festival of Frugality at My Dollar Plan had some great posts, including Free Time or More Money-Which is it? at Greener Pastures.