Making Mr. McGee’s Ice Cream

I’ll warn you at the outset that some of these photos are a little dark. The remnants of hurricane Fay (mostly clouds unfortunately, no rain for my parched lawn) are still hanging over us. I waited all day yesterday to no avail, so today I decided to go for it. To hell with perfect light, this is ice cream we’re talking about! So then, for the chilling medium. Put your 3-4 pounds of ice in a large bowl.

Add your half cup of salt…

…and stir.

Next your ice cream mix. Combine your cup of cream, cup of milk, half cup of sugar and teaspoon of vanilla extract in bowl.

And stir vigorously until all the sugar is dissolved. It’ll take a minute or two.

Pour the mix into a gallon-sized plastic bag (and yes, this was very hard to do one-handed)…

…and gently press all the air bubbles out.

Now then, pour half your salt/ice mixture into another large bowl.

…put on your baggie of ice cream mix…

…then pour on the other half of the ice.

After 15 minutes you can see that the mix is starting to freeze rather well:

For the next step you want to knead it with a toweled hand to redistribute any unfrozen mix.

Then repeat the process…half the ice (and now water) first, then the bag of mix…

…and the rest to cover.

Another 15 minutes and your pint of ice cream is ready to scoop and eat. I have to say that for the amount of effort it’s pretty good stuff. However I live with an ice cream freak, who, when she’s not filling out lesson plans and grading papers, is pouring over ice cream books and plotting her next flavor. What would she say to this? I can hear it now: nice, but kind of icy.