Easy Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

One of the things that I love most about summer is homemade ice cream.  For years growing up we had a hand cranked ice cream maker that we each had to take turns helping with.  Either you cranked or you sat on the ice cream maker when it got tough to crank sometime during the process.  If you didn't help you didn't eat.  I have fond memories of those times.  Sometimes I wish we had a hand crank ice cream maker.  But for now I'll just stick with our electric one.  It works lovely.

This is a long time family recipe that we got from our mom's friend years ago when we lived in Overland Park, KS.  It is super easy and super yummy!

Mimi's Vanilla Ice Cream
2 quarts of Half & Half
1 cup whipping cream (I usually add another 1/4 c. to 1/2 c.)
2 cups sugar
4-6 Tbs. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix all in a large bowl (or directly into your ice cream container) until sugar is dissolved.
Put in electric ice cream maker and make according to manufacturers directions.

If you can, once it is finished processing I pull it out and put it into an ice cream bucket and then put it into the freezer for at least an hour or so so it can harden some.

One of the beauties of this recipe is that you can easily adjust the flavor if you like.  Add mashed or chunked fruit to make peach, strawberry or raspberry ice cream.  We've added mint extract and mini chocolate chips to make mint chip.

But to be quite honest our favorite is really just straight up vanilla.