November?!!!

It's November! When did that happen? Where did summer go? When did summer go? Probably while I was indulging in my newest obsession--HOMEMADE ICE CREAM!!!

Let me back up a bit. It's been a long time since I've been here. Saying the summer was not one of my favorites would be a major understatement. I will omit the gory details but suffice it to say the summer was so bad my knitting suffered. Now that is really B.A.D! My knitting obsession, Volt from The Fine Line, became a nemesis rather than a catharsis. I lost my finally finished vanilla, vanilla socks. And I refused to start anything else until Volt is finished, especially socks.

And then I found ice cream. It all came about because I decided to make my own gelato to appease myself when I couldn't go to Italy in September. I have an old ice cream maker, a Krups I was never very satisfied with, but for this (thanks to rave reviews from BFF Judith) I bought a new Cuisinart. I bought the gelato cookbook, Artisan Gelato and a bottle of Prosecco (it having nothing to do with the ice cream making). Then I went crazy buying all kinds of ice cream recipe books: Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book, The Perfect Scoop and The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.

I happened to have some very over-ripe bananas on hand and decided to try using my old Krups machine while I waited for my new machine to come. Free shipping sometimes takes forever! Those bananas turned into delicious ice cream. I was hooked! The recipe books (cookbooks) gave me much more insight into the making of ice cream than the little books that come with the machines. Had I bought books before ordering the new machine I might have been satisfied with the results from my old Krups. It does a decent job--now that I know that the ice cream should only be expected to freeze to "soft serve." For a firmer product it should be put in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes to reach the desired firmer consistency.

Krups and Prosecco

Oh, and what good is homemade ice cream without homemade cones? So I bought a cone maker as well. Here are my first cones cooling on the rack. Yeah, I had to have a cone rack too. Peeking from behind the cones is the new Cuisinart ice cream maker.


I put away the old Krups when the new Cuisinart arrived and proceeded to make the best ice cream I've ever eaten! Strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, peach, chocolate with almonds, butter pecan, lemon, corn (yes corn!), mango, pumpkin, tiramisu, cheesecake, honeydew sherbet, cantaloupe sherbet, and probably some others I've forgotten. Oh! I made bacon ice cream!!! Yes, and it was scrumptious!


Somewhere in the midst of it all I got a gelato maker, a self-refrigerating DeLonghi, but more about that another day. This is supposed to be a knitting blog. I'd better get knittin'!

Bona Fide Knitter