This tastes like ice milk . . .

I don't pretend to be a gourmet chef. I don't even pretend to be a chef. But I do, on occasion, like to prepare an all out meal rather than heat up the contents of a box from the freezer. So we invited friends over and I decided to prepare a simple pork roast with funeral potatoes and broccoli. Nothing super special, so Dave thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make ice cream.

We used to make ice cream a lot. But we got out of the habit when we moved back to Arizona. It is one of those things that I sit back and let Dave do, not because it is difficult or easy, but because he gets really excited about it. Since living here he has been quite busy and hasn't made much ice cream.

So we go to the store and he looks up a recipe on his phone since we no longer have a recipe memorized. He buys the ingredients and chooses some berries. On the way home (10:30 pm or so) I remind him that we have to cook the mixture first (contains eggs) and then let it cool. Since it will be fast Sunday, he won't get home in time to do it so that responsibility will fall on my shoulders.

Well, I get home from church with most of the kids (only forgot Jeremy but it was okay since he had to collect fast offerings anyway) and plan out the order of operations in the kitchen. I turn the ice cream over to Elaine. Of course we can't figure out online which recipe we are using so Dave texts us the recipe. (Have you ever tried to follow a recipe broken up into several texts?) We think we are so smart by straining the egg and milk mixture before adding it to the sugar and flour in the pot.

Everything seems to be going well but I just can't tell when the mixture is coating the back of a spoon. I have seen this done before, even experienced it, but it isn't happening and the stuff is getting dangerously close to a boil. I glance away for a minute and hear Elaine say, "I think it is ready now". I look back and it is completely curdled. 6 eggs, 6 cups of milk, 2 cups sugar, 3 T flour (or something like that) and 45 minutes gone.

Luckily we had a bunch of leftover rice in the fridge so we now have about 10 cups of super sweet, grainy rice pudding.

I decide we have time to start over, so we do. This time I stir it CONSTANTLY for 30 minutes and decide that is enough. I pour it out into a shallow pan to cool in the fridge with plastic wrap on the top as per the instructions. Yayyy! We are so awesome!

The rest of the meal preparations go smoothly, Dave gets home, our friends arrive (bringing two pies and scotcheroos, by the way.) Dave puts the mixture (with added mashed berries and vanilla) in the ice cream freezer and it gets to work.  An hour later it isn't looking very stiff, but we need to get eating dessert before we have to leave to a fireside.

Everyone is super excited to be eating homemade ice cream at long last! I taste it and think, "this tastes like ice milk". The kids say, "it tastes salty." It dawns on me that the heated mixture didn't call for cream, yet we bought it. So I check the fridge, and there is the cream. I check the texted recipe and see that the cream was supposed to be mixed in after the mixture cooled, at the same time as the vanilla. Oops. Thanks goodness for pies and scotcheroos.

I abdicate all responsibility for ever making ice cream again.