I Scream, You Scream

Last week I purchased the necessary ingredients for homemade ice cream. It is that time of year, after all, so I wanted to be all set when the mood struck. Father's Day seemed like the perfect evening. My sister, brother-in-law, and nieces were here. A little grilling, a little chilling with the First Scrumptious Batch of Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream of the season. Mmmm yummmy!!

Seeing how I am a veteran ice cream maker creator, I deftly whisked my ingredients together in my handy-dandy Pampered Chef 2-quart batter bowl. Then the wonderfully creamy mixture was poured into the can and I added the remaining milk. My sister and I chatted all the while I was preparing this tasty, fabulous concoction. Since it was the first batch of the year, I pulled out my trusty Most-Favorite, Most-Used, Best-Ever Recipes to be sure that I used accurate measurements. The remainder of the year, I'll just know it by heart. And no, I didn't take step-by-step pictures like dear, sweet Barb does. Maybe next time. Or not.

Sadly, my sister and her family had to get home as it was getting a little late, so they did not stay and participate in this monumental moment of 2007 ice cream history. I felt so bad for them, I really did. As kind of a consolation prize, she did pick up some STORE-BOUGHT ice cream to take home with them. Oh well, I suppose it would do until another time when we could start the process a little earlier.

Hubby got the ice cream maker running (it's a little slow getting started after nearly 20 years in service), and in no time we had 4 quarts of vanilla bliss. I promptly dished up bowls for the boys which they scurried inside to consume while watching "Curse of the Were Rabbit." Hubby headed in the house with his and I followed.

Naturally the boys had chocolated theirs up quite nicely. I asked how it was and they enthusiastically replied, "GREAT!" Hubby told me to "taste it." Not real sure why he would make such a request, but I happily complied.

You know, it's really an interesting fact of life. If you don't put ALL the ingredients into your recipe, your end result might not be what you anticipated. In fact, it might not be very sweet at all. Particularly if you leave out the sugar. I truly hadn't intended to make sugar-free ice cream. Not that it might not be such a bad idea with all the Tales From the Scales stuff. But that's beside the point. When I want homemade ice cream, I want the real deal. I have made some effort to decrease the fat and points, but leaving sugar out is most definitely NOT one of them.

So we all added some form of sugar (granules, Hershey's syrup, Nesquik, etc.) to render our ice cream acceptable. It wasn't too bad. But it sure wasn't the extraordinary, delectable indulgence I was expecting. Sigh.

I suppose you could insert a little Gumpism here - Life is like a bowl of ice cream, if you put in all the right ingredients, it's pretty darned good.