Why do I waste my time with Kroger, bleh!

I've not been able to find any chicken at Kroger that's not injected with the, IMO, evil seaweed aka carrageenan!

Without looking up any studies, I can guess I'm in the minority about not tolerating carrageenan, otherwise it wouldn't be so rampant. But since carrageenan is used in medical studies to induce pain and inflammation of tissues, it stands to reason that if your intestinal lining isn't completely intact, then carrageenan just might somehow leak into the tissues of the intestines, causing pain and inflammation.

When I first figured out that carrageenan was causing my extremely painful gut episodes, with bad swelling, I found carrageenan in things with cream such as ice cream, yogurt, creamy salad dressings, and occasionally frozen dinners. A few months or so later, I noticed it was also injected into cheap Walmart chicken - I'm guessing it pumps up the chicken better than water. After that, I noticed carrageenan in deli chicken, turkey, and sometimes in deli ham.

About the last six months, I noticed Kroger's no-brand "house" chicken also has carrageenan, so it's not just cheap Walmart chicken anymore. HEB still had carrageenan-free chicken last time I shopped, but I have to read the labels carefully, since they do carry some chicken with carrageenan.

But since Kroger brand's brussel sprouts are so much sweeter and tender than name brand brussel sprouts, I had to go to Kroger, ugh! They didn't even have whole nutmeg! IMO, the only difference between Kroger and Walmart is that Kroger doesn't carry as many non-groceries.

First homemade ice cream: Hazelnut Chocolate Chip

Even though I received a Cuisinart ice cream maker for my birthday, I chose PLAY AND FREEZE™ ice cream recipes because there's no eggs or cooking of custard. And they use half and half, which thrills me because I recently discovered Oak Farms' Half & Half doesn't contain carrageenan, which causes me severe pain and inflammation of my lower intestine - that's why I asked for an ice cream maker, because it's near impossible to find ice cream without the dreaded seaweed (carrageenan).

I had the ingredients on hand to make the Hazelnut Chip ice cream; I put everything but the chips into a 2 quart measuring cup and whisked it, then poured it into my ice cream maker. After twenty minutes, I poured in the chocolate chips and ran it for five more minutes.

Hazelnut Chip
1 pint of Half & Half
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons of Hazelnut Syrup (used to flavor lattes) - I used Torani
2 tablespoons chocolate chips

Because it's been almost two years since I've enjoyed ice cream, we finished the entire batch in one sitting! I didn't freeze it afterwards - the ice cream was like soft serve. I'm thinking of adding a small package of chopped Ferrero Rocher candies to it, or making a Nutella sauce next time.

I'm very pleased neither of us missed the eggs, because I know I'd make less ice cream in the future if I always had to cook custard first.

Here's some flavors we're wanting to try next:

• Key Lime with broken Graham crackers (DH)
  
• Pumpkin with broken gingersnaps or candied pecans and maple sauce
  
• Ginger with chai-granola
• Maple Caramel Swirl with apple-raisin sauce and cinnamon croutons
• Carrot Cake Ice Cream
  
• Dark chocolate with bananas and strawberries
• Chocolate with Andes candies (DH)
  
• Not sure it'll work, but I'm going to try soaking a few Celestial Seasonings Bengal Tea bags in the Half and Half overnight, then swirl in marmalade and chopped orange candies in the last 5 minutes.

DH is shopping right now, so I texted him a list of ingredients to make some of the above flavors. OMG I forgot to add the Nutella, so I had to call him ROFL