ice cream

Earlier this year I won this baby on ebay!! Tonight we used it for the first time. I found a vanilla ice cream recipe, found rock salt (funny I don't remember it being partially purple/black), and tonight was the night we made ice cream. Years ago my parents had given us an electric ice cream maker but in one of our many moves it broke and we never got around to replacing it. Now, 10+ years later I guess we've decided that homemade ice cream is a worthwhile endeavor.

The kids enjoyed smashing the ice cubes more than churning the ice cream. Funny how that works, I seem to recall feeling the same when I was a kid. My mom used to make the best ice cream, peach, rum raisin, chocolate chip, mmmmmmmmm.

As I was churning and yelling for erm...requesting more ice, I was struck by the fact that one cannot knit and churn ice cream at the same time. This seems to be a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to get in a few rows. I'm thinking that if one could create a bicycle type setup to churn the ice cream it would be more useful. After all your leg muscles are typically stronger than your arm muscles. And this would leave your hands free to engage in a useful activity such as knitting a blanket on which one is woefully behind; but I digress.

After massive sacrifice of arm muscles dedicated effort the ice cream was done. It looked lovely!! Sorry folks, no picture. Everyone crowded around bowls eagerly at the ready. The verdict? It was good. Steve wanted to know why I didn't use the chocolate milk to make chocolate ice cream. V thought the vanilla ice cream tasted like coconut (?????). D thought it was good, she quietly and quickly slurped hers down without saying anything. Steve thought I should add cream since this was really ice milk. He's picky that way, it's a good thing I love him. Next time I will add some half and half or cream to see if it gives a creamier consistency but still for a first effort it was excellent.

The hardest part is going to be our poor ice maker having to keep up with the demand. Between all the ice we go through making iced tea and now the ice cream it's going to be tough. I may have to start storing the stuff in baggies in the freezer.