Pumpkin Pie and Honey Nut Ice Cream

I persist in my quest for pie crust perfection, although I've chosen not to bore you regularly with said quest. However, I have found the tool which satisfies the engineer, or maybe perfectionist (or perhaps the touch of OCD) in me. I can roll my pie crust out to the proper size. Jeff Bezos had my answer.

It's a silicone mat. It has concentric circles with the sizes labeled. See? Just rolling, and without any picking, cutting or excessive fussing, I got my pie crust to 11" diameter. I have determined that's the size I need for my beautiful, huge, deep pie plates.

And with this lovely silicone mat, I can pick it up, flip the pie plate over my hand containing said mat and pie crust, and, voila! Crust is in pan! Just look at the first pumpkin pie of the season; isn't it lovely?

Of course, you can't have pumpkin pie without either whipped cream or ice cream; my dudes, naturally, want ice cream. The little ad line at the top of my gmail one day was advertising somebody's Honeybee ice cream to save the bees. Now, I don't know how eating ice cream will do anything other than enrich and enlarge my rump, but honey sweetened ice cream seemed like a good idea. And nuts go with honey, right? So here's my contribution to the use of honey and appreciation of honeybees.

HONEY NUT ICE CREAM

2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a bowl, combine 1 cup milk, sugar and honey; microwave until warm, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the egg yolks and cook another 3 to 5 minutes, until the mixture simmers, whisking every 15 to 30 seconds. Cook 1 more minute, stirring every 15 seconds. Stir in the balance of the milk and cream, and chill. When the mixture's cold, stir in the vanilla and pour into your ice cream maker; process according to manufacturer's directions. In the last 2 minutes of processing, add the nuts. This ice cream doesn't get nearly as hard as some other varieties, although, truthfully, the Pampered Chef ice cream scoop is the most wonderful one I've ever used. (I can put you in touch with our friendly blog-neighborhood Pampered Chef lady if you really want one!)

Ice cream and pie: what could be better?