My favorite food....

I don't think that I've mentioned it before, but for the record, ice cream is my favorite food. I 'll even go as far as to say that I believe one of the secrets to a happy life is to eat ice cream every day. You can substitute other frozen treats for the once-a-day thing, but whenever possible, go for the real stuff.

And I learned something very important tonight, from this blog, which is that the reason some ice-creams freeze rock-hard in your freezer and others do not, is that fats and sugar don't freeze. So the cinnamon ice-cream I made last night, which turned out to be incredibly scoopable, was because the recipe had an abundance of cream and sugar in it. Not to mention some eggs as well. The strawberry ice-cream I made last week, which was great while it was in the machine, is now un-scoopable because the fruit (high water content) freezes solid. The way to manage that (as the above blog points out) is to add some liquor to your ice-cream; not enough to affect the taste, but enough to keep it slightly softer. I'll try it next time I make a batch (no doubt this week).

I also made chocolate gelato using Scharffen Berger Cocoa Powder ($8.25 a can at Safeway) and it was outstanding. Like wow! It was still somewhat scoopable while frozen, but it didnt' last long; it was too good.

Simple Strawberry Ice Cream
4 cups hulled strawberries
1/2 C confectioners' sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 1/4 C whipping cream

Puree strawberries in a blender or food processor until smooth, then add sugar and lemon juice and process again. Press puree through a sieve into a bowl. Chill until very cold. Add to ice-cream maker and churn until think, then add the cream and churn until thick enough to scoop. Next time I would add some liquor at this point to make sure it doesn't freeze too hard (unless we're going to eat the whole thing at this point).


Banana Gelato (pareve, but check the soy milk).
1/2 C sugar
2/3 C water
1 lemon
3 ripe bananas
1 1/4 C vanilla-flavored soy milk

Put sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to a boil; stirring until sugar has dissolved. Set aside to cool. Put the bananas in a bowl and mash with a fork (next time I'll Vitamix it). Slowly add lemon juice (again, next time in the Vitamix). Stir the sugar syrup and banana mixture into ice-cream machine and start mixing with soy milk (next time I'll add it all into the Vitamix, along perhaps with a banana liquor because this recipe also froze like a rock). Also, you can use 1/2 lemon instead of a full one. If using unflavored soy milk, don't forget to add 1 t of vanilla extract.