Ah! The Desserts of Youth!

With my financial restrictions, and for health reasons, I've been trying to make our own desserts at home recently. We've made a variety of muffins during the past couple of years, but JD seems to be getting a little tired of them.

"Have you ever tried tapioca?" I asked recently.

"What's that?" he replied.

"It's also called sago. 'Frog's eyes' was what my dad used to call them."

"Why's that? Are they made out of frogs?"

"No," I laughed, "It's just because the tapioca turns out like little soft, transluscent, little round beady things that look like frogs eyes."

"Yuck!"

"I haven't had tapioca in years, but I remember it always tasted good when I was a kid," I said.

"If I don't like it I won't eat it."

"I'm sure you'll like it," I said. "Have you ever had junket?"

"Is that made from some animal's tongue?" JD asked with a smile.

"Urk, no," I replied.

"Does it look like anything?"

"Well, it's kind of... Do you know I can't really remember what junket tasted like, or even looked like for that matter," I said. "I think it was a little bit watery, but that's all I can remember."

"Ok," he said with a resigned sigh, "If I have to, I'll try it."

"I wonder if the supermarket even sells it anymore," I thought out loud. "Well, next time we go I'll look."

*********

So that's how we ended up with a packet of tapioca seeds, junket and custard powder (for good measure) in our pantry.

So far the tapioca has been acceptable (according to JD) but he thinks it would be better with ice-cream.

"The whole point was to make our own desserts," I said.

"Well, why don't we make our own ice-cream?" he asked.

"Mmmm, I remember Mum telling me about making ice-cream out of carnation milk. I'll have to ask her again how to make it."

*********

Next, will be the junket experiment. I have a sneaking suspicion that JD will turn his nose up at that.