I got an ice cream maker and it came today, so the first thing I did was to wash the bowl and freeze it. Definitely not long enough. Like, you’re supposed to do 16-24 hours, and I only froze it for 5 hours, but I really wanted to try it out. And right now the bowl is back in the freezer, so tomorrow I’m going to make another batch and it will probably come out better.

Because even at 5 hours freezing, the ice cream came out like a soft serve. And I used the vanilla ice cream recipe from my previous post, and OMG. It’s very tasty!

It tastes like vanilla ice cream. Not too sweet, nice texture. It was very easy to mix up. And the way the machine works, you just pour the ice cream base into the turning bowl, and the turning basically moves the ice cream against the paddle that doesn’t itself move.

I churned the ice cream for 25 minutes, added a handful of mini-semisweet chocolate chips, then churned it for another 5 minutes. Then I froze the ice cream in a container in the freezer. And voila. Ice cream has been achieved.

I’m very pleased right now.

My brother has been buying A LOT of ice cream lately. Carton after carton of ice cream that costs $6-7 a pop. And the ice cream maker was $50, which means I could make ice cream 10 times, and the machine will have paid for itself.

I bought 2 cartons of heavy cream ($5.67 each), a bottle of 100% pure vanilla extract ($5.72), and a 1/2 gallon of whole milk ($1.88), and BOOM! For less than $20 I can make 8 quarts of ice cream (and some alfredo and whatever else I want to use the cream or vanilla for). And there will be enough vanilla leftover so that next time I just need to buy cream and milk.

It’s going to be plum season soon(ish)–like, I can already see little tiny green plums forming on the trees–so I’m excited to make some plum ice cream. And the strawberries are just getting their blossoms now, but during the summertime there will be strawberry ice cream. And we have a blueberry bush that has a ton of blossoms on it, so there will be blueberries later and hopefully there will be enough to make some blueberry syrup.

I’m very much looking forward to never having to buy ice cream again. Plus I’ve seen recipes for sorbet, sherbet, and the way the machine works, I’m pretty sure I can use it to make my own slushies. I like the red flavor or the Coke flavor. Plus there’s strawberry daiquiri recipes and pina colada recipes that I would like to try, and I think I can do them in the ice cream maker.

It’s basically a frozen bowl that spins the contents around until they freeze. A very simple design.

I know it seems expensive, but it is on sale right now (it’s usually like $80), so it seems more cost-effective than buying one of the smaller cup mixer ice cream makers for $30, or a slushie cup for $20. The machine I got can make 1.5 quarts at a time.

But you don’t need an ice cream maker to make ice cream. It’s a little more work, but you can throw the ingredients into a mason jar, shake it up, freeze it, then shake it up again every 30 minutes for 2 hours, and bam. A personal serving of ice cream.

It’s just that our refrigerator is dying. It makes a lot of noise. It’s been very unequal in its cooling. So I would rather open the freezer the least amount as possible. Take frozen bowl out, make ice cream, put cleaned freezer bowl and ice cream back in, close the freezer and don’t touch it. That’s my life plan at the moment.

Like, new refrigerators cost from $1500. I’m saving up to buy a chest freezer ($220) so I don’t have to worry about self-defrosting and refrosting meat. And then I can use that for my ice cream.

I don’t know. Life is hard.

~Harper Kingsley

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My unbirthday

My unbirthday is coming up, May 12th.

This year, I’ll make myself some cake and some ice cream. I’ll try to post pictures, but don’t expect anything too spectacular. I’ve never made ice cream before.

I’m very excited to try.

A lot of ice cream recipes feature using egg yolks, and I’m not even going to mess with that. Professional factories have the facilities to pasteurize their eggs and to ensure that they are for sure able to heat their ice cream base to the temperature that’s safest.

This is not the time to be risking health and safety for some ice cream. I’m just not going to go there.

So I looked around for no-cooking, egg-free ice cream recipes:

VANILLA ICE CREAM

• 1 C whole milk
• 1/3 C granulated sugar
• 1 C heavy cream
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Whisk together milk and sugar until sugar dissolves. Then gently stir in the heavy cream and vanilla extract. And boom.

Cool the base for a couple hours, then run it through your ice cream machine.

CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

• 1-1/2 C whole milk
• 1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 C granulated sugar
• 2 C heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk together the milk, cocoa powder, and sugar. Whisk until the sugar and cocoa are dissolved.

In a large bowl, beat the heavy cream until it forms stiff peaks. Then stir the vanilla into the cocoa mixture and fold the whipped cream into the cocoa mixture.

Refrigerate your base at least 30 minutes, then run it through an ice cream machine.

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

• 3 C (16 oz) strawberries (no stems, sliced or diced)
• 4 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1-1/2 C granulated sugar, divided (1/2 cup + 1 cup)
• 1-1/2 C whole milk
• 2-3/4 C heavy cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, combine the strawberries, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup of sugar. Gently stir together. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours to let the strawberries release their juices. Then strain the berries, retaining the juice.

Divide the berries in half, and put one half covered in the fridge. Mash and puree the other half. Set aside the bowl.

In a medium sized bowl, stir the 1 cup of sugar into the milk until the sugar dissolves. Then stir in the heavy cream, the reserved strawberry juice, the mashed strawberries, and the vanilla extract. (You can add a few drops of red food coloring at this point, if you want a redder ice cream.) Refrigerate your base for at least 30 minutes.

Churn the ice cream in the ice cream maker. And add the reserved strawberries 5 minutes before the ice cream is done churning. Then freeze the ice cream for at least 2 hours so it’s firm for scooping.

You can make it with fresh strawberries, or with frozen strawberries that have been thawed.

---

For all three recipes, you don’t have to use whole milk, but it won’t be as fluffy an ice cream.

If you had to, you could use half-and-half for the vanilla and strawberry ice cream.

I know that some people buy heavy cream and half-and-half and like cream cheese and butter, and they freeze them to use for baking and other recipes. So they might have those and not milk.

Anyways, I’ve got three ice cream recipes to try and I’ll let you know if any of them are terrible. Otherwise, as far as I know these are good recipes.

And I just got 3 quart-sized reusable ice cream tubs, so I have enough storage for all three flavors.

I also got some mini-semisweet chocolate chips. I’ve got some recipes for chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, raspberry sauce, blueberry sauce, and maple glaze, which I think might be delicious on ice cream.

I’m actually really excited to make some ice cream.

~Harper Kingsley

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I realize that people of late are scared for the future. Not in the "They’re going to kill us all!"-way that the aholes mock–and it’s like, "What the fuck are you mocking, dude? They’ve LITERALLY SAID that they want to kill you and your family. They don’t believe that anyone outside of their bubbles are real people. It’s scary shit."–but more in the "Groceries are going to be very expensive. And some things are going to be hard to get."-way.

As such, there are some "splurgy" purchases that I’m seriously looking at.

My current obsession is an ice cream maker.

If I had the money, I would get one that has a compressor so I could just add ingredients and have ice cream. The nostalgia old-timey type seem cute, but I don’t want to deal with a bunch of salt water afterward. So I’m currently looking at the kind that have the bowl you freeze, and the ice cream maker itself is basically just an automatic churning machine.

Can you use an ice cream maker to make butter? 🤔

And I know. You’re like "If you’re so poor, why are you willing to buy an ice cream maker???"

Because ice cream is delicious and everyone deserves a bit of joy in their life.

Because the cheap ice cream costs over $6 for 1.5 quarts when it’s not on sale. And there’s a good chance the price is only going to go up.

Because dairy and soy and nut milks are good for the body and I really should be ingesting more of it versus sugary drinks. And on that note, if I’m making my own ice cream, or frozen yogurt, or gelato (I guess gelato churns at a slower rate, so your ice cream machine might not do a good job making it), or sherbet, or sorbet, I am in control of what ingredients go into the machine and I can be assured of the quality of product that comes out.

Because if shit happens and the global economy goes straight into the toilet… I could be making and selling ice cream. Could you imagine being in the movie world of "The Book of Eli" and you’re the only one that can walk around with a cart of ice cream to sell?

"But if it was the end of the world, where would you get the ingredients for ice cream? How would you get electricity? How would you chill the bowl?"–Dude, you sure have a lot of questions. Good thing I have the answers: I would make Kool-Aid sorbet (Kool-Aid, sugar, water, gelatin). I would get solar panels or a generator or I’d make a windmill or I’d repurpose an old bicycle, there’s many ways to make electricity. And to freeze the bowl, I would have to look around and figure out how to get/make saltpeter (potassium nitrate) or I’d figure out a yakchal or something. And if I were a smarter person, I’d probably be able to come up with a hundred other ways to run my ice cream maker at the end of the world.

And probably in that situation, my ice cream maker would be repurposed for parts or would be used to do some other non-ice cream related task.

But for the now…

I have my mini-donut maker, and that has seen some use. I’ve put cornbread mix in it, I’ve done muffin mix, I’ve made cake mix. And while it is an easy way for a few people to eat an entire box cake worth of mini-donuts in one sitting, there are many other things I can cook in it, and they will cook fast. (Beaten eggs with tiny bits of cooked ham, bell pepper, mushroom, a dash of milk. Crab cakes or tuna cakes. Polenta?) And there’s just something about little mini-donut shaped foods that make people want to pick them up and eat them. You could probably even make biscuit chewing rings for babies or happy pets. There are many available options. The machine is worth the money.

The egg maker I bought hasn’t seen as much use as intended, mostly because eggs are so expensive. But when I tried it out, the hardboiled eggs it made were perfect, and remarkably easy to peel. It was great. I had a bit of a problem making omelets, with the first one coming out perfectly but the ones afterward giving me difficulties, but everything made was edible. No food wasted. Plus I chose the big egg maker because it can also steam other food, and I have plans for the next time I make dumplings.

I’ve got my electric composting machine that turns kitchen waste into dry granules. I mostly run it every other day, and while it does use electricity, it doesn’t use that much. And it honestly makes me compost rather than just throwing everything in the trash can because I don’t want to run outside when it’s raining. Even if I threw the compost granules into the trash can, that would still be less garbage going to the landfill than if it wasn’t run through the machine.

And I know, it’s not real compost. It’s the first step of compost. You run your household scraps through the machine, then you throw the resultant granules into your compost pile, and then you let nature do it’s own thing. But because it’s all chopped up small and mixed together, it composts faster and you can use it sooner in your garden or to build up your soil and raise the quality of your property. You don’t have to throw away all that "trash." You can bury it in a hole.

So for me, the electric composter machine was a good purchase (on the part of my dad who bought it for my birthday), and I don’t regret having it. I use it ALL THE TIME.

There are some "splurges" that actually raise the quality of your life to the point that they aren’t splurges. They are useful gadgets that it is good to have in your house. So if you see one being sold used for $10 and it still looks brand new (the owners got something newer and need to get rid of the old) it might be worth your time to buy it and try it. And if you don’t like it, you sell it to someone else for $10.

Though I’m a hoarder, so if I buy an ice cream machine and it doesn’t break, it will be following me for the rest of my life. The repository of all the fruits I gather from my yard and the grocery store (strawberry ice cream, blueberry ice cream, plum ice cream, blackberry ice cream, cherry ice cream, pear ice cream, green tea ice cream, chocolate ice cream). And that doesn’t seem so bad.

In a world that has become so full of bitterness… I just want to eat a little bit of ice cream. Not too sweet. Not too tart. Mellow and creamy, and maybe secretly spiked with fiber powder or carrot juice or beet powder. The options are endless.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

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https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
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I’ve been having Jetpack issues, and I think I’ve fixed the problem!

There are several posts that I previously tried to send by email that never went through. So… sad for those missing and presumed dead posts.

But, moving on…

Have you seen the movie "Companion"? It’s really good.

If you haven’t seen any trailers for it or read any reviews: DON’T.

Just go on MAX or wherever you can watch movies and put on "Companion" starring Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid. It’s a good sci-fi movie.

And whoever made the trailers should be shot because they included spoilers when they didn’t have to. At all.

Even if you’ve been spoiled, it’s still an enjoyable watch. It’s a good little movie.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

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https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.