Recipe: Vanilla Ice Cream

A wonderful treat for anytime of the year, is homemade ice cream.  We love the simplicity of this recipe, and the great flavor it has.
Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cup Half and Half
  
• 1 1/4 cup Whole Milk
  
• 1  1/4 cup sugar
  
• 2  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 3 tsp. powdered pectin (found in the food supplements aisle)

Instructions:
Follow the instructions according to your ice cream maker on how to set up.  In a medium bowl, mix all ingredients with a stick blender, or stand blender to make sure pectin incorporates.  Pour into ice cream maker and activate.  Wait about 20 minutes until mixed well and a soft ice cream has formed.  Remove immediately and store in a tightly sealed freezer safe container, and place in freezer for at least 2 hours to harden.
Tips:

1. The pectin might sound like a strange ingredient, and can be skipped, but it does improve the texture of the ice cream and help it to not crystalize.
   
2. After using our stick blender, we place ice cream mix into freezer  for about an hour, then blend again.  This pre cooling helps to make sure that when the ice cream maker is used, it will have a chance to set up correctly in the ice cream maker.  Otherwise you might not always get to the soft ice cream stage.
   
3. Mix this up: add different things while ice cream maker is on, crumbled cookies, candies, fruits, or sauces are great.
   
4. Endless Possibilities:  add other extracts or flavoring oils to it to make it any other flavor of ice cream.