Vanilla Ice Cream

My husband has been craving home-made ice cream all summer. When I heard that our good friends we've known since college were planning to stop in on their way to AZ, I thought it was the perfect occasion to break out the ice cream maker & enjoy a lil' homemade goodness.

Just before our wedding, we found our ice cream maker @ a garage sale, and paid the grand sum of $1.00 for an old-fashioned hand-cranck one. No puny, wimpy people around here! If we're gonna enjoy the calories, we might as well burn a few in the process. I've tried several different recipes since then, but this one is my favorite. The leftovers usually turn rock-hard in the freezer & you're left scraping frozen milk instead of creamy ice cream. But I was pleased to see this was just as delicious & creamy the day after.

Vanilla Ice Cream (Lisa Miller)

4 eggs, beaten

3 c. sugar

1 Tbsp. vanilla

1 box instant vanilla pudding

1/2 tsp. salt

3 c. heavy whipping cream

6 c. milk

Beat all ingredients together & pour into a 6-quart ice cream freezer. Fill with milk until freezer can is 2/3 full. Freeze.

Easy Chocolate Sauce

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 bag milk chocolate chips

Pour sweetened condensed milk & about 1/2 the bag of chocolate chips (or more) into a glass bowl & heat in the microwave for a minute at a time until chips are melted & it is easy to stir. Do not over heat. The more chips you add, the stiffer the sauce. It will firm up (kind of like hard-shell) when you pour it over the ice cream.