Ice cream!

Darlene bought me an ice cream maker for Christmas a couple of years ago and it somehow found its way into a hidden corner for a couple of years. Then she remembered that we had it and brought it into the light so we could finally plan our first batch of homemade ice cream.

Darlene really wanted strawberry, so strawberry it is. The ice cream base is very simple to make, the issue we found was what kind of cream to use. Depending on what store you go to results in what kind of cream you'll find. My first batch ended up using part half and half and part 33% whipping cream.

I decided to add more cream than the recipe called for once I got the mixture into the frozen bowl. That was a mistake, because as the ice cream mixture cools and churns, it expands. Lesson learned. On the upside, I had more than a pint in the end.

Attempt number one taste rating: 9 out of 10.

Next recipe: Butter pecan. Mistake number one. Toasting the pecans at too high a skillet temperature. Medium heat for 8 minutes my ass! More like low heat for 6 minutes. So the pecans partially burned. My bad.

Once the ice cream was made, we tried it out. It was definitely missing something. It just tasted like vanilla ice cream with pecans thrown in. Darlene thinks it needs a butter rum ribbon. I concur. Next time.