I is for ICE CREAM!

Tonight was a lovely evening at the Gray house. We ate dinner together...tacos...one of Ollie's absolute favorite meals. It's so cute how he gets excited over a little ground turkey, some beans, corn and red peppers wrapped in a tortilla. He always tries to hold it, but fails miserably. Poor guy.

After dinner, we took a walk. Tonight was cool and beautiful. Honeysuckle is all around and it was the perfect night to MAKE HOMEMADE ICE CREAM! After dragging Ollie inside and having him use the potty, we tried our hand at shaken homemade ice cream. Although you only have to shake the bag for 5 minutes, you have to shake the bag for 5 WHOLE MINUTES! That's a long time to shake a freezing cold bag of ice.

Let the snaking begin...

Here we are eagerly awaiting the ice cream...

Ollie digging in!

If you'd like to try this at home, here's the recipe (taken from kaboose.com):

What you'll need:

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup milk or half & half
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 tablespoons rock salt
• 1 pint-size plastic food storage bag (e.g., Ziploc)
• 1 gallon-size plastic food storage bag
• Ice cubes

How to make it:

1. Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.
2. Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.
3. Place the small bag inside the large one, and seal it again carefully.
4. Shake until the mixture is ice cream, which takes about 5 minutes.
5. Wipe off the top of the small bag, then open it carefully. Enjoy!

Tips:

A 1/2 cup milk will make about 1 scoop of ice cream, so double the recipe if you want more. But don't increase the proportions more that that -- a large amount might be too big for kids to pick-up because the ice itself is heavy.