I'd like to give you some resounding and moving words on the inexplicable blessings of freedom on this special day for our nation. I would like to tell you how truly grateful I am, to all who have gone before me, for the ways big and small that they have assured that freedom for me. But, somehow, it feels like the right time to just be still, be grateful for our independence, while acknowleding our ultimate interdependence with each other, and with our earth.
To that end, I give you ice cream. (profound, just like I said, right?) Pure, clean, sweet, simple, all natural ice cream on a summer day. Make some, and celebrate sweet freedom.
First, take a bunch of mint leaves, I don't know, half a cup or so, and put them in a bowl with a cup of sugar.
Use the back of a spoon to grind them up into the sugar.
Pour in two cups of heavy cream and a cup of whole milk, and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Let that sit in the fridge for a couple of hours (or overnight if you like it really minty).
Strain the leaves out of the mixture, and then pour it in 13X 9 (ish) pan (glass or ceramic is best - anything that will give it enough room to spread out) and cover with plastic wrap. Put it in the freezer. Every hour or so, take it out and scrape/mix it with a fork. This will keep it from becoming one solid mass. This freezing part should take 3-4 hours. Voila, ice cream!
My boys like to add in chocolate chips. I think it's best just like it is.
The milk, in case you wondered, is quasi-local... comes from Organic Valley's "Texas Pastures" label. I like to think that the few extra cents we're paying per gallon is going to this farmer who has an amazingly cool story. Somehow, it feels right, and even patriotic, to buy milk from him, make ice cream for my 4th of July celebration, and in so doing maybe help a little to keep a farmer and his family on the land that his grandfather used to further America's cause during World War II. It's my little way of saying to him, across the miles, "this land is YOUR land. This land is my land."
Oh, and today's color is yellow.
