Here at Green Towers we are making preparation’s for our summer holiday, were not going anywhere but for a couple of weeks we put real work to one side and do something different.

We have our annual day trip to France to the hypermarkets of Calais to stock up with Brie cheese for the smoker, and tomatoes, for some reason the French supermarkets offer a breadth of choice in tomato varieties that our super markets and farm shops don’t get near, and it so happens I need a quantity of decent tasting tomatoes’  for a project, far in excess of the ones I am growing.  That’s my excuse for going to France, if we should happen to also buy a bottle of wine its a bonus.

Those of you who have seen my Old Blokes Kitchen Videos will know that I like to break food projects down into ingredients, and utensils, make as many of both that I can, and then end up with a far superior result. These projects invariably take some time to produce especially if it means I have to grow something first so there are always several projects bubbling away, in some cases literally. I do this partly because its fun and partly because a member of my family has food allergies and so unless we produce it ourselves we cant have it, and so for example whilst I can accept Peanut Butter being banned from the house, to deprive a man of ice cream is a step too far, which brings me to the subject of todays picture, fresh off the lathe today and ready for my holiday.

Our allergy sufferer cant consume the preservatives and other dodgy ingredients to be found in commercial ice cream, so we have for many years made our own using our domestic freezer, and as all things you make your self ,on a bad day you beat the commercial product. but on the days when the ingredients just work it becomes a sublime treat. There is a new Bicycled Powered Ice Cream Maker project currently being worked on ready for next summer but that’s a secret, However one ingredient through out has alluded us until now. The Ice Cream Cone.

My understanding is that commercial Ice Cream cones certainly in the UK are made from a by product of the nut processing industry. I cant guarantee that but with these kind of allergies you don’t muck about, so it means our poor sufferer for 20 years has had to make do with bowls of ice cream rather than a cone. If I am honest I have to say they don’t seem that bothered but that’s not the point of the story. I have found a way courtesy of You tube to make an ice cream cone, so whether they want it or not our poor beloved will get an Ice Cream in a cone at some point in the next two weeks.

The process is you heat up a hot plate, which then gives me an opportunity to have a fire in my new Garden Grill, and you make a thin pancake, when its cooked you wrap it around an ice cream cone shape, which I have just made,- now the picture makes sense its not an item of medieval torture, slide it off and leave it to cool. How difficult can it be, I just need to discover the secret recipe for the cone mixture, and suggestions gratefully received. As they say in all the best Radio Shows stay tuned to find out how we get on.