Mango, vanilla ice cream

Well have you ever heard of oatmeal that is toasted then used as a topping instead of being boiled? I do not know what came upon me but suddenly it seemed like a good idea, especially if it is mixed with something unexpected like cayenne powder or chile flakes. The pecans are superfluous, there is a three pound bag of them sitting there. 

The oatmeal is toasted in a small pan until it turns color then the pecans are added to the same pan. The pecans begin to smoke much faster than the oatmeal. Cayenne and a little sea salt added to finish. 

The fresh mango is acidified with fresh lime juice. 

ARTS !

Mango arts. These things are fun. They each have a large pit positioned in the center that is shaped like a disc. The disc runs in agreement to an apparent seam discernible by regarding the stem as a bellybutton. 

Almost all these fruits are helped with lime, but you know what? I debated here internally with myself it seems because the image of aged balsamic kept appearing over and over but not at the critical moment of getting out a lime. Plus, I have a new lime squeezer which is turning out to be too small. 

*  rolled oats

*  broken pecans

*  cayenne powder

*  sea salt

Ordinarily I would make my own ice cream but right now I do not feel like it. The components of the ice cream maker must all be pre-frozen to hasten the process of churning the flavored cream mixture. The freezer is full so there isn't enough room for all of that. When I looked in the store for the type of ice cream that I wanted I was surprised that the simplest flavors are the more difficult to locate. 

Here is something unrelated to food. 

I've been working on a pop-up card, here and there off and on, for a week. I produced four versions of the same idea. Each version has its problems, has its faults, each is salvageable and serviceable, and each contributed to understanding a mechanism and its limitations. I suppose I could take pictures of those three trials, I still have them under a chair. They do something very interesting when the standing up grid inside the card is trimmed because it is too big to fit when the card is closed, even though the paper grid inside is gobbling up the maximum amount of available background pages that are oriented so that the grid fits best. 

Here is a page that describes the pop-up card. 

I feel a little bad because time ran out for this project. I have ideas to fill out the background and to build out the edges by adding content directly to the outer edges of the grid, hedges, gates, flowerbeds, characters.