Ice Cream!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM!!.

While there are tons of “better” things in this world than ice cream (newborn baby, free shiny car, hot date, etc); it’s just one of those wonderful simple pleasures we all share. 

Think of this, it’s universal--  You can travel to different cultures and be faced with really random and sometimes scary cuisine, but give a child (old or young) a dish or cone of ice cream and the cultural differences fade away-  There is just something about it that makes you smile!  Have you ever seen anyone angrily eating ice cream?  I think not--

In my quest to conquer all things domestic, I have embarked upon mastering the art of ice cream.  I have two ice cream makers now.  I have a little 1.5 quart unit that has to sit in the freezer for 24 hours (it has that gel inside the freezer bowls) and the big 6 quart machine that sadly looks like a demented ice cream cone, complete with plastic cone shaped ice bucket.  So I am prepared to feed the masses!

The freezer maker is actually quite easy to use (make sure you actually assemble it correctly though, it can be a huge mess)-  it’s drawback is the 24 hour notice you’ll need, hard to accommodate spur of the moment ice cream making unless you allow it to constantly hog precious freezer space.  The bigger unit is cool, it can be used pretty much whenever… but it is a HUGE mess.  HUGE…  Funny, when I was making ice cream all of those years back at Camp Wapanacki using their old crank machine (and even funnier how the counselors were the ones actually stuck turning the dang crank for hours), I never noticed the mess, but then again we were out in the woods and not in my kitchen..  I’ve noticed that they now sell cool units that are both motorized and crank, I might have to invest in machine #3 someday.   Then I can gather a bunch of people and make THEM crank that thing for hours while I run around and play.. That sounds fun..

Now, as usual, I am great at planning-  I am just a little weak in execution.  I always have the best intentions, but then the couch beckons and Cold Case reruns take over and another night passes.  Then the next morning I am sad and make the plan all over again to get on track-  Famous last words, but this week I had a time frame to get it done before my ingredients were wasted on me (fresh strawberries do have a time limit)-

I’ve been planning to make strawberry ice cream since we went picking on Sunday.  I love picking fruit in the sun.  Give me a basket and I’m good to go. I think I might have been a migrant worker or gypsy in a former life as I just feel the need to gather large quantities of grown items no matter the season.  I’m passing this onto my children as well, so when my great great great great grandchildren sit around on their hovercrafts picking fruit from the floating strawberry bushes, they’ll understand where this came from.

So, last night I got my butt in gear and figured I’d get the ice cream started and then give Ellie a bath and get her bed. I figure I’ll try the newer machine as I didn’t have the foresight to freeze the smaller unit beforehand.  How hard could it be?  I’ve got this, Ellie will be in her bath and bed while it’s still running, easy right?  Ha ha ha.. good plan.  The mondo ice cream maker needs constant monitoring.  It jams, a lot.  So, while I am standing there stabbing at it with the back end of a long wooden spoon and transferring the ice and rock salt back and forth between the bucket and a bowl in order to keep it from jamming further,  I notice that Ellie is being very very quiet.  That is when I noticed that she had proceeded to unravel not one, not two, but three spools of ribbon all over the living room floor.  Added to that is the cardboard paper that surrounded the spools of ribbon, ripped up and scattered everywhere, and the package of childproof drawer stoppers that I never got around to installing.  So, at this point it is about 8pm, the living room is a mess, the kitchen is covered with ice, rock salt, and a salty briny mess that combines the two.  Just when I am about to scrap the whole project and put this thing up for sale on Ebay, the unit blessedly stops turning as it is finally frozen to the point of ice cream.

Yay!  Done!  Except now Ellie has realized that I am making “honey” (don’t ask me why she calls it this. I actually kind of like the name and it’s sort of stuck so if you hear anyone in my family saying they want honey, it’s not actually the sticky amber colored stuff out of the teddy bear container), and she has attached herself to my leg chanting honey, me honey, want honey.  So, now I have ice, rock salt, briny mess, ribbons, cardboard, drawer stopper things,  and soft serve “honey” all over the kitchen--  My first thought was to scoop her up, wailing, and pop her into the tub, but the kid in me took over.  Needless to say I said screw it and we enjoyed eating our ice cream off the spatula and wooden spoon as I cleaned out the barrel--  And it tasted GREAT!

 

After getting Ellie in her bath and bed (she was asleep in about 2.5 minutes), tackling the kitchen mess and making my dinner, it was time to relax.  I can happily say that I still got some couch time, some Cold Case time and while I sat there eating homemade strawberry ice cream, I can honestly say that it was all worth it.  So, maybe I won’t put it up on Ebay just yet---

And yah, I’ll do it again and again and again.. Although next time I might opt for the little freezer unit!