Saturday morning, Dan, Holly and I went tag-saling. I LOVE tag sales. Our culture is so wasteful, it just sickens me what we throw out on a regular basis. Purchasing at tag sales is a great way to re-use items destined for the landfill if unsold, and it makes great economic sense, too. We find the most amazing items at tag sales, and Saturday was no exception.
I have been ogling the Cuisinart Ice Cream maker ever since I gave one to VISTA Carla as a wedding gift several years ago. Then Holly got one, also as a wedding gift, and has been talking about the fabulous frozen treats she makes regularly. My finger has been poised over the click button on Amazon for many months, but I hesitated.
We have an ice cream maker, and it works fine. It is even electric. BUT it uses rock salt, yuk. I love making ice cream, but the rock salt is a huge pain.
And then, Saturday morning, at a tag sale, I spied it, a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. I grabbed the box, and called Holly over and asked if it was missing any parts. She said no. Box firmly tucked under my arm, I asked the price. “Oh, $2,” the woman said. Dumbfounded, I handed over a couple of singles and headed for the car before someone noticed I was stealing.
The ice cream maker uses a liquid filled freezer bowl which is placed in the freezer until solidly frozen. The ice cream mixture is placed within and the bowl turns around a stationary paddle. Upon arriving home Saturday morning, I immediately washed the bowl and stuck it in the freezer, readying it it for ice cream making on Sunday.
It works great! We made two batches of ice cream, sweet cherry chocolate chip, and banana, using the recipes in Bruce Weinstein’s The Ultimate Ice Cream Book as a starting point. Both were good, but I did not care for the frozen chocolate chips, and really, the banana ice cream was so amazing it completely overshadowed the cherry. We invited our crowd of friends for sundaes and had a feast. I can see the ice cream maker is going to get a lot of use –strawberry season looms on the horizon.