And the Winner Is

 Strawberry!  Remember last week's stuffed turkey dinner and I said I made four different ice creams?
Those were Buttered Pecan, Blueberry, Lemon and as a last thought, this strawberry. Oh, my. I mean really.  It's a good thing Lent hadn't started, I'd be on my knees all month for this one.

I'm a substitution cook.  Generally I follow a recipe as given the first time but not always. I like to think of recipes as "suggestions."  If you cook a lot and know flavors, you can generally read a recipe and taste it.  If I don't have a listed ingredient I will substitute something else.

     This is my go to recipe for ice cream.  I like it because it doesn't contain eggs so it's a lighter tasting ice cream (the one I use for lemon ice cream is a bit different but not much.)  You can see I've also made it with peaches, apple butter, and now the strawberry.  And my big substitution is for the half and half.  I don't go out and buy a container of something I can do myself.  Half and half is just half cream and half milk so for that part of the recipe I make my own. Even if that isn't what Half and half technically is (it is) I'd still do that substitution.  I mean, why not?  Who cares?  Who is the ice cream monitor???

     In strawberry season I like to make up a small container or two of sliced, sugared berries to put in the freezer for this time of year when I want a taste of summer and hanker for a strawberry sundae.  I don't make freezer jam (or cooked jam) because I don't eat it much and Friend Marge gives us a jar of black raspberry jam for Christmas and it lasts a whole year for me.  PH doesn't eat it and I have some only occasionally.
     Last summer I made a small batch of freezer strawberry jam.  I don't know why.  I think the freezer jams taste so much closer to the actual fruit I guess I was just thinking I'd be hungry for some come winter.
      Last week I had enough whipping cream to make one last batch for the friends dinner Friday night and I thought of the frozen ice cream strawberries I usually have.  I dug through the freezer and couldn't find any, but there was one lonely little cup of freezer jam.  I looked at it and thought, "hmmmmm...." I knew it would taste truly strawberry-y and it was already sugared so the sweetness factor would be jumped up.  It was runny, as freezer jams are.   Hmmm.....
      I put it on the counter to thaw and when I ran the cream mixture through the ice cream freezer I opened the strawberry jam and dumped it in.  I stuck a spoon down into the mixture to taste and knew I had a winner.
      Our daughter loves strawberry ice cream and when the family came to help eat the turkey leftovers on Sunday I pulled out our four flavors.  She thought this one was over the top.  She said,
"This is what I want for my birthday.  No cake.  Just this."
      Of all the ice creams I've made this one is the clear winner.