The Dinner Files

Will you read more about blueberries? What if I promise not to talk about deer? How about if I just remind you how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker? This blueberry ice cream is as easy as the old-fashioned just-cream-and-sugar-and-fruit types of ice cream but with the rich mouth-feel of fancier cooked custard ice creams. How is that possible? I’ll tell you: sweetened evaporated milk.

Not only does this canned wonder make iced Vietnamese coffee all that it can be, but it also sweetens and gives body to this super easy fruit ice cream. I used blueberries for this batch, but it works with all berries as well as peeled and chopped ultra-ripe peaches. Go forth! Freeze!

Blueberry ice cream

Use any fruit you like here – or add chocolate chips or crushed cookies or just leave it vanilla – just give it a try, with or without an ice cream maker. The best results I’ve had were with the dairy listed below. Feel free to try some other combination (2 cups cream and 1 cup milk, for example) that equals 3 cups of liquid dairy. Be warned: if you choose to make it without any cream the texture will necessarily be more icy than creamy.

2 cups half-and-half

1 can (14-ounce) sweetened condensed or evaporated milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 – 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (less vanilla will make it more singularly blueberry flavored, more adds more complex flavor to the final ice cream)

2 cups picked over perfectly ripe and lovely blueberries

In a large bowl combine the half-and-half, condensed milk, cream, and vanilla. Freeze in an ice cream maker or use the no ice cream maker method.

Meanwhile, rinse the blueberries. Mash them with a fork or whirl in a blender or food processor.  I like to leave the berries just a bit chunky so there are bits of fruit in the ice cream, but you can puree them as much as you like.

When ice cream mixture is at that lovely soft-serve texture, add the mashed or pureed blueberries. This will un-freeze the mixture slightly, so you’ll need to continue whatever freezing method you’re using. Why add the blueberries towards the end? It keeps any bits and chunks of fruit from just floating to and staying on the bottom.

When the mixture is re-frozen to soft-serve texture or firmer, transfer to a container you can keep in the freezer, cover or seal, and freeze until firm.

I owe many thanks to a good friend. She visited Ernest and me in northern Minnesota this past weekend and gave us two incredible gifts.

First, in response to me saying that it was too bad we didn’t have an ice cream maker or I would make her some of the awesome buttermilk ice cream I’ve been obsessed with, she told me she makes ice cream all the time with a bowl and a whisk (and a freezer, of course). So I gave it a try. OMG. Why do I own an ice cream maker? Why do I make space for it in my limited storage space? It worked great – just pour the cooled mixture into a large metal bowl, cover it, and whisk it up every 20 minutes or so until it’s ice cream. Side-by-side I’m sure ice cream maker-ice cream would be smoother, but without direct comparison, an ice cream-lover would find nothing lacking in the results of this low-tech method (which I wrote up step-by-step at Local Foods).

Second, she got Ernest into the idea of building a fort in the woods. Yesterday afternoon I went to the site with Ernest and something small, blue, and low to the ground caught my eye. There weren’t many of them, but they were delicious.

“Mama,” Ernest said as he crammed his tiny haul into his mouth, “the blueberries from the store are bigger, but these taste better.”

True that.

Oh. My. I love this stuff. I made it last weekend and have now perfected it. I wanted a really buttermilk-y one. Tangy, almost lemony. And a bit light on the texture front – creamy but not super-rich. And this was it. It almost tasted like cheesecake, in a good way. It’s perfect with berries – particularly blackberries. I posted the recipe for Buttermilk Ice Cream at Local Foods, but it’s pretty straight-forward: bring a cup of cream to a boil, whisk together 6 egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl, drizzle hot cream in while whisking, return to pot and cook (stirring) over medium-low heat until it thickens, take off heat, stir in 2 cups buttermilk, let cool, freeze in an ice cream maker.

Let summer begin!

We just ate Vietnamese take-out last night, so I thought I’d tell you about this little interaction Ernie and I had one morning when I was driving him to “kids camp” in Minnesota:

Ernie: [long soliloquy on the many wondrous features of cotton candy ice cream in a transparent attempt to get a cone at the end of the day]

Me: uh-huh

Ernie: Mama, do you love cotton candy ice cream?

Me: Sweetie, not really. It’s just too sweet for me.

Ernie: No, Mama. I know you don’t like how it tastes. But do you like how beautiful it is?

Remember when blue and pink swirled cotton candy flavored ice cream would have sounded awesome? Yeah, me too.

I went for a classic chocolate chip cone instead. Ernie insisted I try his because, and I quote: “Mama, it is so delicious.” I couldn’t even fake it. I had to tell him it just wasn’t for me but I was happy he liked his ice cream choice so very much.

Later on, for actual dinner, we had an even simpler version of the zucchini-tofu stir-fry he flipped for last week (or whenever that was). No fermented black beans, no rice vinegar, not even any soy sauce. It was amazingly good, if I do say so myself. Just garlic, ginger, green onions, and a few red pepper flakes sautéed, add zucchini and a bit of broth and cook until the zucchini is the way you like it, add silken tofu and more broth and cook until hot. Scoop onto rice. If I’d had some I would have sprinkled it with soy sauce when I served it.

The best part? We ate dinner still wearing our swimsuits. That? That’s summer.