ice cream....

A few years ago I purchased an ice cream maker from the 70's at a garage sale. I think we have used it like 3 times prior. This summer my daughters and I have a list of 100 things we want to do, and on it was making ice cream.  So we created a recipe with what we had in the house and went about making this frozen treat.

Needless to say I did not have enough ice or even rock salt as per the original instructions to my ice cream maker.  I did however have a bunch of frozen ice pops. So we attempted to use them to make the ice cream maker work.  I has to say they got so cold, when placed in the contraption with some water, that they formed new ice! I was thinking it was going to work! Talk about Impromptu!

I was wrong. I do not think it was the lack of coldness, but the fact the internal scraper thingy of the ice cream machine was not moving, which caused the ice cream not to form.  So, after listening to the insane noise the ice cream maker made for over 3 hours, with no ice cream forming, we opted to go to plan B.

We placed the mixture in a large Tupperware container and put it in the deep freezer. We stirred it each 30 - 45 minutes and had an awesome breakfast of homemade ice cream this morning for breakfast!

Ice Cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
5 eggs
3 cups milk
1 TB vanilla

Whisk the 1st 4 ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook over medium low heat until thicken (about 10 min) stirring constantly.  Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the remaining ingredients. Once combined and cooled, add to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacuturers
instructions.  (Of course you can always do it the way we ended up doing it as well if needed.)

Next time I think we are going to try to create a Chocolate version or Strawberry with all the berry's we picked earlier this month.... so stay tuned!

Orzo Pasta Salad....

Summer is the time for impromptu gatherings and the need to quickly create a tasty dish to bring along. In searching my cupboard for just one of these occasions, I created the following dish. I did taste it when I made it and thought it was yummy, but due to some issues with my daughter, had to leave the gathering before I could fully enjoy the side dish. Needless to say, I was only returned an empty dish, since everyone else enjoyed it so much!


Orzo Pasta Salad
1 box orzo 
1 head broccoli cut into small pieces
2 cups chopped carrots
2 TBS minced fresh oregano
1 tsp chopped garlic
2 TBS mined fresh chives
3 TBS Olive oil
1/3 cup diced aged Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste.


Cook the orzo according to the package. Add the cut broccoli, carrots and oregano to the bottom of the pasta strainer and strain the cooked pasta directly over.  Cool the cobmination with running water and drain.
Mix the garlic, chives and olive oil. Toss with the pasta and the diced Parmesan cheese.
Serve.

My girlfriend attempted to recreate this recipe, and she opted to add in diced peppers and removed the oregano. It was delicious too.