Basic Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

To one lovely couple who today celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary... Dad & Mother, this is for you. Happy Anniversary!

For a treat for your honey on that special day...

Basic Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

1/2 c. honey
4 c. milk/cream mixture*
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, dissolve honey in 1/2 cup milk/cream over very low heat, stirring until well blended. Pour this and remaining ingredients into the canister of an ice cream maker. Stir well together. Process until mixture thickens and freezes. Serve immediately as soft serve. Or take out of ice cream maker canister and put into an airtight container, putting it into the freezer to harden.

*You can use soy milk/soy cream mix for this (Silk brand sells a soy creamer). The more milk you use, the more it will be like "ice milk." The more cream, the more like "ice cream" it will be.

Vitamix: Freeze part or all of the milk/cream into ice cubes adding honey & vanilla when processing in Vitamix, skipping the stove top and the ice cream maker steps. Proceed as directed to harden in freezer.


Flavor ideas:

mint: use mint extract to sub for the vanilla (same for other extract flavors)
carob/chocolate: add in carob or cocoa powder
strawberry: use some strawberry jam to replace some of the honey

Stir-in ideas (to be mixed in when putting into ice cream maker or into freezer after blending in Vitamix :

carob/chocolate chips
fruit or berries (ie: strawberries, peaches, pineapple, raisins, banana, etc.)
nuts: any ones you like, chopped (ie: pecans, walnuts, peanuts, macadamia, cashew, etc.)
coconut

Have a great vegan cookie dough you like? Mix up a small batch of cookie dough as usual and put onto a pan thin (flatten to about 1/4") like a bar cookie, but don't bake. Then score into very small squares. Now freeze it, still in the pan. When frozen, break up into small squares. Add as a mix-in to the recipe above.

Ok, now I'll have to start posting some cookie recipes! I must be craving something sweet! =)

This would work well with baked oatmeal or carob cake too!