Ice cream

So here’s how I make ice cream.

• 2 parts cream
• 1 part whole milk

For every cup of milk:

• One vanilla bean
• A little less than 3/4 cup of sugar (like 3/5 cup)
• About half a teaspoon of salt

I don’t put eggs in it.  I know it can be great, but it is a pain in the balls to do.  Someday, I’m sure I’ll try it, but:

a)  I don’t have a fetish for creaminess,

b)  I actually like a slightly icy quality in homemade ice cream, which you get this way, and

c)  man I just want some ice cream and this is a no-fail thing I have.

I use turbinado sugar and/or brown sugar, depending on the flavor I want to get.  Very often a mix.  I never use plain white sugar.  It tastes too straight-up sweet, like cotton candy and I hate cotton candy.

Sea salt, always.  I use more salt than most people would put in their ice cream, and the ice cream takes longer to set up this way, but I like the taste.

Vanilla bean, I always put it in because it tastes good.  You can leave it out, and that will also taste good.  Ice cream is good stuff, man.

First thing, you put the milk and cream in a saucepan.

Second thing, split the vanilla bean(s).

For each bean:

• Cut off the very tip
• Squish the bean along the wide side
• Roll the bean in your fingers like it’s a funny cigarette.  Loosen it up a bit.
• Split it with a sharp knife

Put those split vanilla beans in there.

If you want to flavor the ice cream base with other stuff, as opposed to adding solids to it, add the stuff to flavor it now.  If you’re using herbs or spices, keep them whole and add them right to the milk and cream.  Add more of them than you think you’ll need if they are whole, and conversely be careful with ground equivalents.  Chocolate and caramel and soft stuff can added now and melted into the milk and cream in the next step, or you can ‘ribbon’ it in later.

Heat the milk, cream, and whatever else gradually.  The instant it starts to boil at all, turn it down and simmer it for five or ten minutes.  The longer the simmer, the thicker the mixture, the heavier the ice cream.  But don’t let it go too long.

You never want to get the milk and cream really boiling.  That’ll cook it, and…and you’ll still make ice cream, and it’ll be OK.  But it’s not optimal.  On the other hand, you can totally make ice cream without heating the milk and cream at all.  But you’ll taste the milk and cream as distinct things, and the cream will be a little filmy in there, and you’ll wish you’d married them together by scalding them.

Anyway, after simmering it for a while, take it off the heat.  Now, if you put a bunch of sweet junk there already, you might could use less sugar in the next step.  Just a suggestion.  Once you’ve figured that out, add the sugar and salt.  Stir very well.

Fish out the vanilla bean halves.  Scrape any remaining seeds from each half into the milk and cream, but don’t use the sharp edge of the knife.  Use the not-sharp other side of the blade.  The sharp edge will pull little bits of husk off the bean, which tastes like I don’t know what but yuck.

Stir well.  Let the stuff sit until it gets cool.  You’ll want it to sit a good long while if you’ve added whole herbs or spices.

Once the stuff is coolish, put it in the fridge to get it genuinely cool.  The colder you make it, the quicker and more evenly it will churn.  Again, you can make the ice cream when the mixture is still sorta warm, but it isn’t optimal.

Take the mixture out of the fridge.  Stir well.  Strain it if you added stuff when you had it on the stove.

Put the mixture in the ice cream maker.  Get it started.  Once it starts to thicken a bit, you want to add any solids (chocolate chips, peanuts, berries, etc.) or ‘ribbon’ stuff (sauces and syrups).  Make sure you don’t just dump them all in.  You want to do it gradually so they don’t clump together and maybe jam up the ice cream thing.

Now just follow the directions to make the stuff in whatever device you are using.

When it’s done, get it out of the maker’s bucket into a container quickly.  Knock the bottom of the container on the counter four or five times to settle the ice cream and get rid of air pockets.  Put the container in the freezer, and eat whatever is on the mixer blades and the inside of the bucket.

Home improvement #2

You’ll all be glad to know the sewer was fixed the next day. Sort of.

There was another break farther down the line. The plumber (Bill, of Bill’s Plumbing) heard water coming from the break…through seven feet of earth. I wouldn’t have believed it, but V was there when he said he heard it, and we had Lee (of Lee’s Sewer) come out and scope the drain with a camera. Lee provided us with a VHS copy of the journey, and sure enough there was the goddamn break in the drain.

Watching a videotape of a journey through your main drain is marvelous, in that the primary definition of “marvelous” is “causes great wonder; extraordinary.”

Anyway, Bill hired an old Irish guy to dig the necessary ditch.  He looked exactly like our babysitter Chuck. This guy is basically the Hank Aaron of ditchdiggers. He showed up every day, dug the ditch for eight hours, and left. Never blinked. He had to use a little tiny shovel because the ditch was no more than two feet wide and maybe six feet long.

He dug until the thing was about seven feet deep.  He filled an itty bitty bucket with little tiny shovelfuls of dirt, lifted it over the edge of the ditch, dumped it.  Repeat ad infinitum.  Bill showed him exactly where he’d find the break, he dug another four inches, and water seeped to the surface. He cleared out the trench around the break. He pulled himself up out of the ditch. He brushed off his khakis, corduroy jacket, and flat cap.  Then he walked off, and we never saw him again.

The rest of the room took a couple weeks.  It’s like nothing ever happened except it is much nicer.  I guess you can solve most of these problems if you throw enough money at them.