HOMEMADE ICE CREAM

"If I had my life to live over I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans." Nadine Stair

Chris and I got an ice cream maker as a wedding present. For a little over a year now it sat in its box on the top shelf of our closet. To be completely honest, I forgot about it for the most part. Then when we were watching "It's Complicated" with Steve Martin and Meryl Streep this past weekend, I was inspired to make Lavender Ice Cream like the main character in the movie-- silly, I know :) Anyway, talk of making ice cream led to Chris's idea of recreating the Olive Oil Ice Cream he had at a restaurant in San Francisco. Sure enough, we made both.

Making ice cream for the first time sounds easier than it proved to be. You have to make a custard, which is a little tricky. It took two tries to make both recipes (that's two tries each).

Things we learned:
- If you heat the custard mixture too much, too fast you get a gross surprise that resembles scrambled eggs.
- A good way to know if your custard mixture is cooked enough/ready is when it covers a spoon so much so that you can draw a line down the back of the spoon and see a line. It works with a wooden spoon and a metal spoon. An easier way is to buy a candy thermometer-- what I will do next time:)
- If you don't chill the final mixture long enough, it won't freeze in the machine. Even though the honey lavender recipe didn't call for sticking it in the fridge, we found that we had to (the hard way).

I liked the Honey Lavender Ice Cream best, but the Olive Oil Ice Cream was definitely interesting and I'm glad to have tried it. If you haven't had Lavender Ice Cream, you MUST try it. It's surprisingly delicious!

Recipes:
Honey Lavender Ice Cream (by Martha Stewart)
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/honey-lavender-ice-cream
Olive Oil Ice Cream (SeriousEats.com)
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/06/cook-the-book-olive-oil-ice-cr.html