Peach ice cream

We had a bit of an Indian summer over the last couple of weeks, with temps well into the 80s (that has since stopped and we're cooling down). Despite my aversion to heat, I haven't minded this last gasp of warmth since we're still hoping all the green tomatoes in the garden will have time to ripen.

The weather gave me an excuse to try something I've wanted to try for some time: making peach ice cream.

While I've often made what I call Utterly Artificial Ice Cream (no real ingredients!), I haven't been overly impressed with the custard ice cream recipes out there because they taste far too egg-y.

But a neighbor brought a creamy treat of peach ice cream to our neighborhood potluck over the summer, and it was to-die-for delicious. Peaches are my favorite fruit anyway, so I'm always in the market for peach anything. Our neighbor kindly provided me with the recipe.

The ingredients are simple: milk, sugar, half-and-half, cream, a touch of vanilla and salt, and a puréed fruit (strawberries would also be excellent).

Here I'm scalding the milk.

While the milk was heating, I soaked peach purée in hot water to defrost.

Once the milk is scalded, I removed it from the heat and stirred in the sugar to let it dissolve. Then I stirred in the cream and half-and-half.

Once all the ingredients are added together (including the purée), it needs to be chilled in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Into the ice cream canister it goes.

Next up, rock salt and crushed ice.

We bought this ancient ice cream machine for $5 at a thrift store years ago. It has its quirks, but it's been an amazing little workhorse.

The result:

This stuff is phenomenally delicious. What a pity I didn't have this recipe during the height of our summer heat!

Utterly artificial ice cream

We've had a frantically busy week here in the Lewis household. We're regularly putting in 14 hour days. We're working on a massive production run of our tankards, the garden takes over two hours of watering a day, I have a number of articles due, and we've had endless other commitments on our time which is making us dizzy with work.

In other words, it's time for some ice cream.

But not good healthy natural ice cream. NoooOOOOoooo. It's time for Utterly Artificial Ice Cream.

A neighbor showed us this recipe a couple years ago, and it embarrasses me to admit how delicious it is, even though the ingredients are (cough) laughably fake.

Here's all it consists of: orange soda, sweetened condensed milk, and fake whipped topping junk. You can add these to the ice cream machine in any order you wish.

(You can see the tools of our trade in the background of the above photo: glue bottles, newspapers, rubber bands, glued-up tankards, etc.)

Into the ice cream maker, I dumped the tub of fake whipped topping junk...

...sweetened condensed milk...

...and ONE liter of soda (in other words, half of a two-liter bottle).

Looks nasty, doesn't it?

Then I smashed some ice...

...and packed the ice cream maker with layers of ice cubes and rock salt.

We got this old ice cream machine at a thrift store for $5 many years ago. It has served up endless buckets of cold treats.

Voilà. Utterly Artificial Ice Cream. It tastes exactly like orange creamsicles (remember those?).

A much-needed treat during some looooong hard days of work.

Heat wave

It's hot. Whimper. I don't like heat.

As you doubtless know, much of the western U.S. is experiencing a heat wave. There are hideous reports of 120+F temps all over the southwest.

In anticipation of this heat, on Saturday morning we decided to move the cattle to the wooded side of the property, where there is more shade.

Saturday dawned with a mighty thunderhead in the west.

Doppler radar showed some incoming storm cells.

As dawn broke, the western sky displayed all sorts of bizarre cloud formations as thunderstorms dodged around us.

Sadly the storms mostly skirted us by, and we received just a sprinkling of rain before the clouds moved on and the heat moved in.

As you can see, not much shade for the critters in the pasture. Time to move the herd. Animals don't need to suffer through heat, not if we have alternatives.

So we opened the gates to the woods and sent out our universal cattle call: "Bossy bossy bossy bossy BOSSY!!" (In case you're wondering, Bossy was the first cow we ever owned.)

In no time, everybody was moseying into the woods. The calves had never seen this side of the property.

We kept the water tank in the driveway, though, so we could keep an eye on it and make sure it was always full. This is Raven and Chester.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the girls left for a week-long church community service camp. I hope they don't work the kids too hard in the heat.

Late Sunday evening, with the sun down, the calves got frisky.

Today, Monday, is the worst heat day. I watered the garden early -- it takes 2.5 hours to water -- and I noticed a neighbor working in her garden as well.

The heat is making the new strawberry plants explode in size. A few even had some almost-ripe berries.

This afternoon the temperature climbed to a gasping humid 94F. I realizing this is laughably cool by, say, Phoenix standards, but (whimper) we're not used to this in north Idaho. We don't have air conditioning. Could have been worse, though. They were predicting 102F.

The chickens stood around in the shade with beaks open and wings up.

A good day for homemade ice cream. We got cream, we got milk, we got eggs.

We got ice cream.

What's the temperature in your neck of the woods?

Stay cool, everyone!

Treat for a hot spring day -- orange ice cream

It suddenly got hot here in northern Idaho. And I mean hot. Today it got up to 80F which, if you're not used to it, is roasting. That's why I like Idaho, you see -- where 80F is roasting. (Where we used to live, 115F was roasting. Literally.)

So it was the perfect day to make ice cream. A neighbor gave us this "cheating" recipe ("cheating" because it's made with all store-bought ingredients instead of fresh eggs, fresh cream, etc.). Despite the fake ingredients, it has turned into one of our favorites treats. It tastes exactly like orange creamsicles.

Start with a can of sweetened condensed milk and a tub of fake whipped cream (Cool Whip or its equivalent).

To this add a liter of orange soda pop. (That's one liter, not the whole two-liter bottle).

I use about half a bag of ice. I have to smash it up a bit or else the canister won't turn in our older ice-cream maker.

Snug the canister into the tub. We got this old ice-cream maker for $5 at a thrift store years ago, and it works like a charm. (Powered by electricity, BTW.)

Half the crushed ice, packed around the canister.

Adding rock salt...

The rest of the ice, some more salt, and it's ready to go.

Fitting the motor on top.

I let it churn for half an hour.

Right now it's very very soft...

...but that doesn't keep the kids from digging right in!

I made two batches and put them in the big freezer to harden. If this weather keeps up, I might be making more very soon!

Oops, never mind. The weather is supposed to turn cooler and rainy... more like a typical April in these parts.