Have you made your own ice cream yet this summer? Fall is starting to creep up on us — darker evenings, more back to school sales, fewer sweat-through-your-shirt days — but there’s still time!
We’ll embrace knitwear/closed-toe booties and hot coffee soon enough, but now’s the time to savor a few things (not necessarily in this order):
- Tomatoes with olive oil and crunchy salt
- Dresses and bare legs
- Screen doors
- Sprinklers/ankle-dips in the lake/wading pools
- Homemade mint chip ice cream
Let’s talk about number five.
My friend Sarah introduced me to this particular mint ice cream — I was visiting her newly built cabin up on Lopez Island, and I had just put Calder down to sleep. I sat on the couch and she handed me a bowl of homemade mint chip ice cream. It was cold and perfectly creamy, studded with chopped Andes mints (how underrated are Andes mints, btw?!), and between the new-cabin-wood-smell, the salty island air and the fact that my child was sleeping soundly a few rooms away, it was, quite possibly, one of my favorite ice cream experiences to date.
You can have it too! It turns out that this treat is on the simpler side to make. It uses mint extract instead of fresh mint leaves (I know, I was skeptical too), eggs, and healthy amounts of half-and-half and heavy cream (among other things – see below). It makes a lot of ice cream, and a bowl piled high with the cool and creamy, chocolate chunk-laden stuff is a true delight, even without the smell of fresh wood or ocean air (or the relief that comes with the knowledge that your kid is finally – finally! – asleep).
It’s still summer! More ice cream, please.
Creamy Mint Chip Ice Cream…