Screaming for Ice Cream

Father’s Day, you know it is Father’s Day this weekend, right?  Mothers get a lot of attention on Mothers Day. Dinner out, flowers, chocolate. But fathers? Not so much. I asked my sister the other day what we did for Daddy when we were growing up.  It was a tradition to take our mom to a really special plant nursery and get her every flowering plant she desired. But Daddy?  We couldn’t remember. We both felt awful because what we remembered was Dad grilling FOR US on Father’s Day. 

Well, this weekend Man O is grilling!  It was enough to make me scream.  I feel so guilty. What could I do to make his Father’s Day dinner special? After much pondering and head banging against the wall - oh, that was when I came to bed late and Man O had the lights off, I narrowed in on what my guy loves. Ice cream tops the list.

Let me be more specific. Man O loves Goodberry’s Frozen Custard. It is thick and creamy with a texture hard to beat. But he will eat anything frozen made of milk and cream. My dad turns his nose up at cheap ice creams with a lot of gums and other ingredients. I must have gotten ice cream snobbery from him. Even so called "healthy" non-dairy substitutes are full of guar and xanthan gum. YUCK. No way am I eating that stuff in a carton or making recipes with extra ingredients to make it "taste" like ice cream.  It's better to just have a smaller serving of the real thing. Daddy and Man O both like a smooth texture and mouth coating appeal. The richer the ice cream the better. And wouldn’t you know it, that works for me. So what could I do?

My favorite website for anything gluten free is Gluten Free on a Shoestring.com. Recently, they shared an ice cream recipe I couldn’t believe. Only three ingredient. No need for an ice cream maker. Bonus? I could make it and eat it (in limited quantities) because, tah dah, Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed milk doesn’t have corn sugars in it!!!!  Again, IT DOESN'T USE AN ICE CREAM MAKER. Could you hear me yelling for joy? How great is that? But would it taste as well as it looks? I had to do a test run on Gluten Free On A Shoestring's Amazingly Simple Vanilla Ice Cream  

Random Factoid: Did you know a man named Gail Borden invented sweetened condensed milk in the 1850s after he saw infants starving on a boat trip when the cows on board stopped producing milk? Stop focusing on the cows on ships and think about the miracle of the product!  He made a fortune during the Civil War when he supplied the Union troops with the canned milk beverage and cooking ingredient that wouldn't spoil and sicken the soldiers. Soon, Eagle Brand was credited with reducing infant mortality, making the life of a harried cook simpler, and being the go-to ingredient for everything from fudge to key lime pie.

Hmmm, back to my dry run for Sunday. So I got out my THREE ingredients: Sweetened condensed milk, one carton whipping cream and vanilla.

Yep, that's it. Three ingredients.

I put the condensed milk and one tablespoon of vanilla in a freezer safe bowl that also has a matching lid. You could use plastic wrap and aluminum foil if you don't have a lid. I mixed the ingredients until blended and stuck it in the refrigerator.

Condensed milk with a splash of vanilla makes a great Rorschach test, you know the one where you look at an ink blot and say what you see? I am trying to decide if  I see a puppy or a flower.

I whipped the whipping cream on medium high until I had “semi stiff” peaks.  It looks pink only because I was wearing a red tank top that is reflecting on that white cream. Food stylist, I'm not.

I folded the whipped cream into the milk and vanilla until blended but not over blended, smoothed the top and put on the lid. Then I stuck it in the freezer. Once again, remember you don't need an ice cream maker!

Then the hard part.  I had to wait for at least four hours to see how it turned out! Um, I couldn't quite wait that long.

If you have the patience to wait longer, it will be a bit more solid. I couldn't!

Oh, so creamy. The mouth feel. The richness. Sigh. I probably should have added more vanilla. But I will be making my infamous chocolate sauce to make it special Chocolate sauce recipe here. and voila! Because the only thing my guy likes better than ice cream is chocolate on his ice cream AND his kids.

PS. I ended up serving Man O this ice cream and chocolate sauce when the crazy storms of the week passed through and I, ahem, couldn't cook dinner. He was thrilled. So there you go, Man O approved.