White Chocolate Ginger Ice Cream for Dessert

I've been reading blogs all along, even while claiming to be too busy/tired/out of memory to post anything. Finally got inspired (read, overcome with guilt thinking I am a slacker) and decided to cook, photograph, and eat, in that order. The mandarin orange bundt cake came out much better the second time, but I still have no photos for that, so more to come later.

Last week I had a good but ultimately less-than-satisfying crab roll for lunch - clearly, more crab was in order to scratch that itch. Dilemma - to buy the ready to go crab meat out of the shell, or buy the whole crab and pick the meat out? Thank god I chose the latter - apparently the guys a the fish counter wanted to reward me for making the right decision cause when I told them I wanted two whole cooked crab, they didn't pull them off the ice in the case, no, they pulled them out of the boiling water steaming hot!! Oh man oh man oh man. The crab was buttery and sweet - as good as I have ever had.

Crab cakes for dinner, with a tomato salad and fresh corn on the side. As Homer would say - can't talk, eating . . . .

For dessert I wanted something rich, but with fruit. So, I searched David Lebovitz's site for an interesting ice cream recipe and came up with the White Chocolate Ginger Ice Cream - simplified as a non-custard ice cream, with fresh figs. . . . .and balsamic vinegar. . . . . A little blurry, yes, but no less delicious!

White Chocolate Ginger Ice Cream

About 1 quart

2-inch piece fresh ginger

½ cup sugar1 cup milk
1 t. vanilla extract

2 cups heavy cream - divided

4 ounces white chocolate, chopped

1. Slice the ginger into very thin rounds, cover it with 1 cup of the heavy cream in a medium saucepan, bring to a simmer, then turn the heat off. Add the sugar and stir to combine. Let steep for at least 30 minutes, preferably in the fridge to cool it off.
2. Put the chopped white chocolate in a large bowl. Warm up the other cup of heavy cream until very warm but do not simmer or boil. Pour over the chocolate and stir to melt the chocolate. Add the cup of milk to this mixture and then stir in the vanilla. Put this in the fridge too.
3. After the two mixtures have cooled, strain the ginger cream mixture through a sieve into the white chocolate cream. Discard the ginger. Put the combined mix into an ice cream maker and then freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.