No Chunks

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I am having such an enjoyable time lately in my efforts to be more frugal during the GEC (yes, the 'Global Economic Crisis')... especially in the kitchen.  As some of you know, I am not buying non-essential food and am trying to use up all the ingredients in my kitchen... most importantly, those ingredients that have been there for a long time and are crying out to be transformed into something delicious.

Today I had a great time making a special treat for the kids for approximately $0.75 that will last them at least four days... and got rid of part of an ingredient that no one was eating.

I made homemade strawberry ice cream.  YUM!

One of my favorite appliances is my Kitchenaid Ice Cream Maker attachment for my mixer.  I made strawberry-mango sorbet the other day that is absolutely delightful.  Seeing the sorbet, Claire asked me to make her some ice cream, too... 'the white kind', she said.  Oh, that's right, the kind with milk and sugar... not mama's special low calorie version.  I told her I would make her some.

So, while getting the recipe from my "Mixer Bible" cookbook, I turned the page to the Strawberry Ice Cream recipe.  Not something I had the ingredients for, but it nonetheless gave me an inspiration.

Before leaving after this round of their 3-month stint, Tom and Barb left us with a variety of perishable groceries as they usually do.  I was unusually excited to get this practical gift this time because of the GEC and my aversion to buying food.  Among the items in their grocery offering was a jar of strawberry jam.  It was the kind with chunks of strawberries in it.  A jam I personally love, but would prefer not to eat because of the high calorie content.  No problem, I thought, I'll feed it to the kids.  Turns out, of course, that, although they like the jam, they don't like eating the chunks of strawberries.  I thought for sure I was destined to throw out the rest of the delicious spread and waste this precious gift.

Until today.

Thinking about the Strawberry Ice Cream recipe, I grabbed the jar of Strawberry Jam from the fridge and fished out all the largest chunks of strawberries.  I chopped them up into oblivion using my favorite Rachael Ray knife... and then put them in the ice cream I was making for Claire.  The ice cream I made was called "Philadelphia Ice Cream"... no clue why "Philadelphia", but it's the old fashioned hand crank kind that only calls for milk, vanilla extract and sugar (three ingredients I still have left in the house).  After putting the strawberry jam into the milk, I realized that I would not have to use sugar since the jam was already incredibly sweet.  

Fifteen minutes of churning later, VOILA!  Delicious and inexpensive Strawberry Ice Cream.  

I am delighted because I got to use some ostracized ingredients... Claire will be delighted because... well, it's ice cream!  And Clark will be delighted because the next time he has PB&J in his snack box, the "J" will not contain chunks.

It's a good, inexpensive, tasty, chunk-free day all around.

~lk

Comments

Shell in your Pocket said…
Hello there from Shell In your Pocket...how fun! I didn't know you were a blogger~
That's great!
Sandy Toes
7:40 PM
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