Raider of the Lost Appliances

I believe I have mentioned in previous posts that my husband and I will shortly be moving house. We’re not exactly sure when this event will occur, but we know it will most likely be this summer. (We are building a new house, and who knows when it will be finished. But, they just put in the toilets, so that must mean completion is fairly near).

So, just to be on the safe side we have been slowly but surely packing here and there. Most of my books have been packed up, the two guest bedrooms are broken down, and now we’ve been looking at the kitchen to see what we can do without in the short term. This has been an interesting exercise, as it has brought to light some “lost” treasures. I unearthed one of these just yesterday - a brand new Cuisanart ice cream maker still in its box.

I know that I have owned this appliance for years, but the timing to use it never seemed quite right. I remember that my husband bought it for me one year for a birthday, but that birthday just happened to coincide with a serious dieting program - sorry, no ice cream!

It followed us around on a couple of moves, but somehow I never got around to using it, even when I was no longer serious about dieting. Also, I had the impression that ice cream was very difficult to make and required strange ingredients like rock salt. Now that I think about it, though, that probably applies to 19th century ice-cream making, not the modern process.

Yesterday seemed like a good day to give it a try, especially with my husband’s birthday this week. We thought we’d celebrate this weekend because he has a very busy workweek ahead. Also, he prefers ice cream to cake. So I read all the instructions - and guess what - no rock salt required! It does take a little prior planning, though, at least with my particular machine. I needed to freeze the mixing bowl overnight, and plan ahead a little to soak the strawberries (for fresh strawberry ice cream) in lemon juice and sugar for two hours.

I made the ice cream today and we had it for a birthday dessert after our spectacular birthday BBQ dinner. It was delicious. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to “store bought” again. It was really very easy, too. The machine did all the work in thirty minutes, followed by an optional 2 hour chilling period. We ended up with about a 1 1/2 quarts of fresh, “all-natural” strawberry ice cream. This will last my husband and I a good long time.

But what about cost? Since it was for a special occasion (hubby’s birthday), I didn’t mind splurging a bit. The strawberries were $2.50/lb, heavy whipping cream was $4.78 for 1 quart, whole milk was $2.56 for 1/2 gallon. To make 1 1/2 quarts of strawberry ice cream I used all the strawberries, 2 cups of the whipping cream, 1 cup whole milk, and 1 cup sugar. That is $2.50 (1 lb strawberries) + $2.39 (2 cups whipping cream) + .32 (1 cup whole milk) + $?.?? for Sugar (because I bought it a long time ago in bulk) = $5.21(cheaper than a store bought birthday cake).

This is not impressively inexpensive, but it’s still pretty reasonable for a “premium” ice cream. I see in my most recent Tom Thumb Grocery store flyer that their Safeway Select Ice Cream (1.75 qt) is $5.99. Kroger has an even better deal - a 56 oz container (a little less than 4 quarts) of their store-brand ice cream for $2.00. So, my homemade ice cream falls somewhere in between these two sale deals, though it is on the high side.

However, if I omit expensive ingredients like strawberries, and find better deals on whole milk and heavy whipping cream, I can cut the cost of my homemade ice cream considerably. The instructions for my ice cream maker also say that I can use lower-fat options, like half-and-half and low fat milk, which are less expensive alternatives to whole milk and heavy whipping cream. So, though it might be hard to beat a sale deal like Kroger’s, I think I can come pretty close; plus homemade just tastes better.

You never know what you may unearth in your kitchen cupboards. Take a little peek, you just may excavate a lost “treasure” that would love to see the light of day. I’m glad I finally gave my ice cream maker a chance. It was so easy to use and the ice cream was truly delicious. Now that I used it once and figured it out, I can’t wait to try some tigthwad mojo on it. I’ll let you know how it goes.