Vanilla bean Ice Cream with Cinnamon/Sugar bowls

Well, I'm a little late-- Happy 2013. It was totally my intention to begin our blogging adventure at the start of the new year but here it is January 17 and I am just now posting my first entry. New years resolutions were never really my thing. There are so many recipes that I need to catch up on and I am going to try and do them in order so try and bear with me! One of my absolute favorite kitchen gadgets that we recently bought is our Ice Cream attachment for the Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  Naturally, I could not wait to try it out, and after sifting through recipes of literally every type of ice cream you could every imagine-- James suggested that we start slow and master a basic vanilla before we move on something more complex. He is always the voice of reason. And although I was a little bummed at first that I wouldn't be snacking on peanut butter banana or chocolate espresso, the vanilla bean was so creamy and delicious that it was difficult to stay bummed for long. And to top it all off it was super easy-- and I like easy. 

I think what I enjoyed most about making this, is that it was the start of a long weekend of cooking with James. We very ambitiously planned to use the meat grinder attachment to make sausage and meatballs for our new years eve dinner, ice cream plus sorbet for dessert, and I set out master my bread making skills by attempting my first  loaf of focaccia bread-- but that's a whole other story. Back to the ice cream-- I have to admit James did most of the work on this one, I just wandered around the kitchen drinking wine and micromanaging ( he loves when I do that). You basically are making a custard base which you then strain into heavy cream-- the result will be the creamy yummy goodness you see above. Then comes the hard part-- you wait until it is cold enough for the ice cream maker. 

Honestly--I did not expect for it to come out so great our first time around, but I am telling you it was creamy and smooth and totally rich.  And what's even more astonishing, is that after only 20 minutes in the ice cream maker it gets to be like the consistency of gelato.Yum! Who doesn't love gelato right? The recipe I used said to freeze it for at least two hours before eating, but come on really? Is that even possible? So we had some less than a hour later and it was great. After devouring a bowl-- we both decided that next time the only thing we would change would be to use half in half in place of some of the heavy cream. This would cut out some of the richness and be a little lighter (but not much). As if homemade ice cream was not enough, we just had to try out our new tortilla bowls to make a delicious cinnamon/sugar vessel to eat it with. All in all I think that it was a successful en devour and I really look forward to trying out some more complex flavors and recipes.
Vanilla Ice Cream

Makes about 1 quart

1 cup milk
a pinch of salt
¾ cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
5 egg yolks
2 cup heavy cream
a few drops of vanilla extract

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the milk with the tip of a paring knife. Add the bean pod to the milk.

2. Stir together the egg yolks in a bowl and gradually add some of the warmed milk, stirring constantly as you pour. Pour the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.

3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Rinse the vanilla bean and put it back into the custard and cream to continue steeping. Chill thoroughly, then remove the vanilla bean and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.