We have a hand-crank Donvier we got when we were married in 1995 that is almost constantly in use from about the 4th of July to mid-September. (The brand-name one is overpriced. Get a clone, which can be had for under $20 on sale.) DH wants an electric and I may get him one for his birthday (which is 2 days after Christmas LOL) if end-of-summer sales yield any REALLY good prices on reliable machines. Here's the base recipe we use, from the Ben & Jerry's book... I don't think you could GET any simpler, and it's surprisingly good. We pretty much never use a custard base because our kitchen is not air conditioned, and diddling around making custard in a 90-odd degree kitchen is officially Not Worth It in our book. For a 1 quart ice cream maker, combine 1 can sweetened, condensed milk (many of us remember it as "Eagle milk") with 2 cups light cream, a splash of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. Do NOT leave out the salt! Stir well, chill at least 2 hours before putting in the ice cream maker. You can substitute full-fat ("cream top") vanilla yogurt for half the cream but it doesn't really save you much calorically, just does interesting things to the flavor and can make you feel a little virtuous LOL! Lower-fat yogurts give a strange chalky texture and unsweetened yogurt makes for very sour product. (Found from unpleasant experience that just chucking a quart of yogurt straight from the container into the ice cream maker, no matter how yummy it is normally, does not make nice frozen yogurt, oh no not at all!) There's a simple plain base, now start playing... A super easy way to get a delicious fruity flavor ice cream is to substitute 1 cup of a good strong jam for 1 cup of the cream. (I don't recommend doing both jam and yogurt and eliminating all the cream. The result came out... the only word I can find for it is "stretchy".) The jam concentrates the fruit's flavor; warm "seedy" jams like raspberry or blackberry until they're liquidy and push them through a strainer if you don't want to be picking seeds out of your teeth for days. If you want fruit pieces, line a cookie sheet with the nonstick foil or baking parchment (or a Silpat if you're blessed with one), spread out a layer of finely chopped fruit with the pieces not touching, or minimally touching, and freeze rock solid. Add the fruit pieces at the very end of churning. Toast any nuts you wish to add for a stronger, "nuttier" flavor; and grating frozen chocolate bars on the largest holes of a grater (use an oven mitt to hold the chocolate so your body heat doesn't melt it) gives a better result IMO than using chocolate chips, even the mini kind. If you want to use something like butterscotch chips, freeze them and break them up in small batches in a food processor on "pulse". Good use for one of those mini-chopper types. Remember that your liquid ice cream/sorbet/yogurt mixture has to be almost sickeningly-sweet in its unfrozen state to taste "normal" as a finished product - the cold numbs your taste buds so all the flavors have to be STRONG. Oh, and filling the churning chamber more than about 2/3 full, 3/4 at the most, can be a recipe for a Big Sticky Mess. So don't do it. Honey-sweetened ice cream does not store well more than 24 hours - it gets crumbly and weird-textured, so if you want to do something with honey, have enough people around to scarf it down within hours of curing. Alcohol will interfere in the solidifying process so if you really load it up even with an overnight cure you may not get more than a "soft serve" texture. We bought a whole slew of nice little (not quite 1/2 cup) lidded plastic containers into which we portion the ice cream while it's still in the "soft serve" state. Pop them in the freezer and in 4 hours it's solidified enough to have the proper ice cream "mouthfeel", although I like 8 hours' curing time. If we don't pre-portion it DH will go WAY overboard! Oh, and the famous Mark Bittman/New York Times "eggless ice cream" was IMNSHO utterly REVOLTING.

Here is a recipe I have had since the 70's and it is very good. 1 large 36oz can unsweetened pineapple juice 1 12 oz can frozen orange juice concentrate 1 12 oz can frozen lemonade concentrate 1/2 cup sugar 6 cups water 2 quarts ginger ale or one bottle of champagne dissolve 1/2 cup sugar in 6 cups of water. Add orange juice and lemonade concentrate and amount of water called for on each can. usually 3 cans each add pineapple juice. Pour into containers and freeze. I use old 1/2 gallon milk cartons. This makes 1 and 1/2 gallons mix. When ready to serve, thaw until slushy add the ginger ale or champagne. This can be done in a punch bowl or in a pitcher. I usually use half mixture and half ginger ale when serving if making in a pitcher. Sometimes I make it up and just let it completely thaw in fridge and mix it half and half with ginger ale in a glass for one serving at a time. I have mixed it up and just used it, didn't freeze. Pretty versatile stuff.

Here's a recipe which I have worked up for my dehydrator; it makes terrific jerky. Please note that it is used to dry and flavor the beef, and it is NOT cured; that is, I don't know if it will be safe to store this stuff at room temperature or not. I keep the product in the freezer anyway. I've never used an oven to dry the stuff, although I suppose you could if it came down to a low temp. At any rate, this recipe is a good starting point: Guinness Beef Jerky Marinade (This amount of marinade is sufficient for about 5 to 6 pounds of beef, which I find fill my eight dehydrator trays fairly full.) 6 lbs lean beef, sliced thinly--see Note 1 2 bottles (12-14 oz each) Guinness Stout 2 tablespoons kosher salt 2 tablespoons garlic powder 2-4 tablespoons hot stuff (see Notes 2 and 3) optional: liquid smoke, 1 to 2 tbsp In a large bowl pour stout and add salt, whisking to dissolve salt and decarbonate the stout. Add the garlic powder and hot stuff and mix well. Put the beef strips in the marinade by handfuls, swirling around to make sure all surfaces have come in contact with the marinade. Place the beef in a nonreactive container (a stainless stockpot works fine, pour the remaining marinade over the beef and refrigerate for at least an hour (more is better, mixing the beef strips every so often in the pot) Place the strips flat on the trays and dry until done. Note 1: I like to use round roast because it's very lean; eye of round is very easy to slice across the grain, and that yields a less stringy product. Don't use a fatty cut because it won't dry as thoroughly and won't have the storage properties of a leaner cut. Note 2: I have used chipotle powder with good results; 4 tablespoons in this recipe makes a quite hot product, and 2 tbsp makes a pleasantly zingy one. If you want something quite mild, use sweet paprika which would make a product not at all hot but with pleasant flavor. Note 3: The last batch I made, I used a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce instead of the tablespoons of hot stuff, blended in the blender until smooth, then I added the other ingredients and blended until mixed. Worked great, although next time I will cut back a little on the salt. I prefer to dry it fairly dry and store it in several small (1 qt) ziploc bags in the freezer, transferring one bag at a time to the fridge from which I take a piece or two at a time to snack on. None of it has ever gone bad storing it that way.

This hasn't got cornstarch in it but has always worked for me: 1/2 cup less two tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons cocoa powder 1/2 tsp baking powder 3 eggs 1/2 cup caster sugar 1 tablespoon hot water Sift together the first three ingredients. Grease and line your Swiss roll pan with greased parchment paper. Set oven to 400F. Lay a tea towel on the kitchen counter and generously sprinkle with more caster sugar. Beat eggs with sugar with an electric whisk until very pale and creamy and thick. The colour should be very pale yellow. Sift the flour mixture over the egg mixture and fold in gently with a metal spoon. Stir in the hot water. Pour into the prepared pan and level. Bake about 12 minutes until cake springs back when gently pressed with your finger. Immediately turn the cake out onto the prepared tea towel. Trim the crisp edges off then roll up and allow to cool.