A Memorial Day Ice Cream Social

Strawberry frozen yogurt atop a meringue, topped with chocolate sauce
Originally uploaded by jessicafm.

Okay, so it was billed as a barbecue, and we did, indeed, have great barbecue food. But honestly, this was simply a way for me to get away with making several recipes from The Perfect Scoop.

So yes, we had barbecued pork loin, beef tri-tip and prawns, green salad, two kinds of potato salad, couscous salad, incredible flatbreads and cheeses from Josh and Carol (aka Rustic Bakery), watermelon and some delicious chocolate and toffee dessert made by Amy Schuster. But then we had the ice cream and accoutrements:

First, the containers:
Meringue shells, profiteroles or store-bought sugar cones (or simply a bowl if that's what you wanted).
The the toppers:
Caramel sauce (made deliciously, from memory, by Polly)
Lean, orange scented chocolate sauce (not so lean, really)
Sour cherries in syrup
And last, but not least in any way:
Caramelized pear ice cream
Fresh mint with cocoa nibs
Orange popsicle ice cream
Orange popsicles (same as above, but in popsicle form)
Strawberry frozen yogurt

While everything was really tasty, the orange popsicles were a bit too grown up for most of the kids (on account of the orange zest, I suspect), and everyone seemed to like all the rest of the ice creams. My favorite was probably the caramelized pear. However, Dad and Steve Schuster were over the moon about the strawberry frozen yogurt.

It was hard to choose.

And there are so many more recipes I want to make from that book...