The Geeky Kids Cool Off
As promised, the first in the short summer series of fun activities to do with your geeky kids. Unfortunately, because of the heat, we haven't been doing much, really, except that there has been a lot of reading. And we've been making ice cream.
The Little Man started the first recipe, by wanting me to buy him a mint plant at the store. I should backtrack a little and say that all three of them now have pets. The Otaku Princess named hers Samantha, Little Man named his Nephrite, and the Jr. Mad Scientist, after much giggling, has Steve. It started in the produce section when they discovered the live herbs in pots, and the Little Man really really wanted the mint plant. I pointed out that we have mint in the garden, but he was welcome to select the rosemary if he really wanted an herb plant. This, as it turned out, wasn't his speed. But the OP, having learned I was open to the idea of plants, wanted to proceed at all speed to the garden department. We came home with a bromeliad (OP), a jade plant (LM) and an epiphyte in a pocket hanger (JMS).
Mint flowers!
I thought he'd forgotten about the mint until the next day, when I invited him to go bug hunting with me. For me, this involves sitting next to the big plant of oregano and letting the insect activity over those flowers bring my photography subjects to me. Little Man was interested in the bugs, but not the sitting still part. He buzzed around the garden bed, asking which plant was the mint. I pointed it out to him, including the pretty lavender flowers where it is coming into bloom. He happily started to gather a handful of leaves, and informed me that he wanted to make Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. We have chocolate chips, right? We did.
As with any recipe, the first thing you will want to do is restrain the geeky kid from rushing into it and dumping ingredients in willy-nilly. I made him gather everything together on the table before we started to measure and mix. He looked up a recipe on his tablet, so I can't link to it, but we altered it a lot, anyway, so this is generic ice cream machine recipe customized to us.
1 1/2 c milk (we had no cream on hand. But you could use 1 c cream and 1/2 c milk for a richer end product. The kids didn't seem to mind)
7 oz (1/2 can) Sweetened Condensed Milk (don't worry about the other half a can, you'll use it quickly in another batch of ice cream).
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp mint leaves pureed in water. This should be 1 tsp mint extract, but he wanted to use fresh leaves. If you want to make your own extract, it takes a while.
about 6 oz chocolate chips. If you can plan ahead, buy the mini chips, the regular ones were a little big in the ice cream.
Adding chocolate chips near the end.
This recipe was perfect for the uber-impatient Little Man. Since I keep the ice cream machine liner in the freezer at all times ready to go, there's no other cooking and you can start this in minutes. First, you mix together the milks and extracts, then you pour that into the ice cream maker once you turn it on. While it is churning you can clean up the mess you made.
Of course he got to lick the dasher!
Once this starts to set up into something approaching soft serve (we have since learned that by turning our small freezer to coldest, you get a more frozen result) add the chocolate chips. If you put them in earlier the ice cream maker will pitch a fit. And then you can either eat it on the spot, or do as we did and put it in the freezer for a few hours until after dinner.
Chocolate syrup seemed a natural addition to the Mint choc. Chip Ice Cream.
Strawberries, on the other hand?
The next super cold summer treat we made was Watermelon Lime Sorbet, which was even easier. We did this the day after, once the machine liner had been refrozen overnight.
About 3 cups of watermelon cut into chunks and seeded
1/3 c Simple Syrup (recipe at bottom of post)
1/4 c lime juice (lemon works too)
Put the ingredients in the blender and liquify, then pour into the ice cream maker and turn it on. With it having been set to 'coldest' this got a lot more solid! It was fantastic, a little sweet but not too much, since the sugar balanced with the lime. I couldn't taste test the ice cream, but I enjoyed a bowl of this with the geeky kids and we will be doing this one again. It made four servings. In theory you could make this one in just the blender by freezing the watermelon cubes and then blending them slowly.
We already have plans for more! The machine makes about 6 cups at a time when fully loaded, but we've only been making about a quart. Just about right for an after-dinner treat.
Too good to wait on. The Jr. Mad Scientist has Mint Choc Chip here, with syrup and sprinkles and I don't know what all!
Simple Syrup
1 1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cup sugar
Place in a saucepan and heat over medium high, keeping an eye on it and stirring occasionally, until all the sugar melts and it reaches a near boil. Allow to cool, put in a bottle (mason jar, on of the fun french-style lemonade bottles, or what have you) and refrigerate. It will keep for weeks in there, and it's great for making fast fruit sorbets, beverages, and whatever needs sweetening.
Here's why you don't put sprinkles in while the ice cream is churning...