I know I told you the story about the ice cream maker I got for Paul one year but was too afraid to actually give it to him that year, for his birthday or even for Christmas, because I thought he'd put a pout on his face and say we didn't need it...yada-yada-yada. It's no fun giving a person you love a gift and having them turn their nose up at it, so I put it away in my closet where it sat for about a year.

Then, last Christmas, I didn't have too many things for Paul to give as gifts as we don't really "celebrate" it much here, so I decided to brave it, wrap up the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker and give it to him, and just take the consequences.


Click image above for more info on this little beauty

I wish I could say that the machine above was the exact one I have here, but it isn't. Mine is white. I love the aqua and have no idea why I didn't buy the aqua because that is one of Paul's favorite colors. So if you look at the one above, mine is just like that, only white. (Boring white)

When he opened up this gift, he rolled his eyes up, as predicted, and laughed. But it was a nice, loving laugh and not a deriding nasty laugh, so I felt safe.

I promised him I would take control of it and make him his ice cream and that he wouldn't have to learn how to do it himself. He's not good at gadgets, especially ones that are electrical.

But if he had wanted to learn how to use this little baby, it wouldn't have taken him long because it's just about the easiest thing on this planet to use, and to use successfully.

Since last Christmas I have made ice cream every week. Now I know ice cream is a delicacy, and I don't actually eat it myself most of the time. I only have a small scoop once per batch, just to see how it came out, and Paul eats the rest of it, a little each night with a homemade cookie, for his dessert. He works very hard at lobstering every day and burns off calories super fast. He has always loved ice cream, but never did he ever realize how yummy ice cream could be until I started making home made ice cream. Let's just say he approves...

The little booklet of recipes that comes with this machine has a recipe for vanilla ice cream that I have used every single time, even though I've made other kinds. I just add things to the vanilla recipe, that's all.

So far I've made fresh strawberry ice cream, oreo cookie ice cream (this is to DIE for if you like oreo cookies), coffee ice cream (this is Paul's all-time favorite and this from a guy who has never had a cup of coffee in his life), and I have made a fruity type ice cream with rum flavoring (kind of like "frozen pudding" ice cream) using those chopped up multicolored fruits that go in a fruitcake.

Paul doesn't really like "things" in his ice cream, so I've never made that fruity one again. I have learned to whizz up the strawberries into really tiny pieces, too, because if you leave the pieces too big, they get frozen and are hard to bite into at first. So it's more of a fresh strawberry puree I add to the strawberry ice cream.

Today I just whipped up a new batch that I guess I'll call vanilla-rum ice cream. I was making the usual vanilla flavor and for a change, instead of the regular milk, I used Almond Milk, so I was looking for some almond extract to add just for the fun of it and didn't find any, but I found the rum and so added that, along with the vanilla.

When it was spinning around in the tub, I stuck a spoon in and tasted a tiny bit, and Oh. My. Gawd. Yes! Vanilla-Rum it is. Very very good.

Paul will be happy tonight. This will go well with my last batch of molasses spice cookies he's been working on, too.

So that's it really.



There are more flavors I want to try, like peppermint stick using crushed up peppermint candies, and I want to find a way to make butter almond as that used to be his favorite flavor when he was buying it at the store (Breyer's would come out with a butter almond flavor usually once or twice during a summer). I can't believe you actually use "butter" in the ice cream, so I'm off now to look that one up.

Cheers for keeping the big guy happy,



Bex-the-bringer-of-jollity

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