My 26 year old ice cream machine

My parents save everything.  I have dressed my daughter in my party dresses and pushed my son in my old pram (thanks, Mom!).  This week, while staying at my parents' house while my husband was away for work,  recording, I played game after game on my old CollecoVision console from the early 1980s (thanks, Dad!).

One great kitchen discovery from the treasure trove in the basement was the Donvier Ice Cream Maker.   Bought on sale in probably 1984 (for $19.99 down from $29.99!), and perfectly preserved in the box with the instructions printed on it, this ice cream maker holds many memories for me.  And now my kids get to use it.

I put the metal insert in the freezer one night, and the next afternoon, I told the kids we were Making Ice Cream!!  Are you kidding?  This was gonna be awesome.  Now, to make it awesome for ME, we made Chef Rick Bayless's Avocado Ice Cream from EatingWell's April issue.

I love Rick Bayless.  I loved watching him win on Top Chef Masters, and I will be forever jealous of our friend who got to hang out with him and eat his food at a small gathering.  I love avocados.  I have been known to enjoy tequila on occasion (though mostly 10 - 15 years ago).  You already know how I feel about zest. 

The kids loved doing this.  They turned and turned and turned and TOOK TURNS turning and turning!  What a great experience for them to be able to see their progress and make something together.  I sat them at the dining room table and they did it all.  Fantastic.

I was so excited to taste this ice cream, and really liked the avocado flavor I got from it.  I think the zest garnish really helped (I tried it the second time without, and found it really does make a difference).  I also found it a little sweet for my taste.  I think I'd use 1 cup instead of 1 1/3 cup next time.  My husband was wishing for more of a gelato experience, and I wonder what would happen if you made this with milk instead of water.  Chances are I'll try it and find out.  The kids each ate about a spoonful and then requested Girl Scout Cookies.  They're two and four, do you blame them?  It's the first year we've gotten GSCs and, boy are they going fast!  I'm so proud of them for trying the green ice cream, though.

I brought some over to my parents' house this week, too, and both my mom (dessert, and particularly ice cream lover) and my dad (typically a dessert passer) LOVED it.  I also heard from a friend before I made this about her story of her family who loved it too.  Her two year old ate it up, her husband tasted the lime most prominently and she, the tequila.

I'm so happy to have a treasure trove of riches four miles away (in someone else's basement), and really look forward to the next time I get to make ice cream with the kids.  This thing is great, if you want to try to find one on E-Bay or something.  I also discovered you don't have to put it in the ice cream machine.  My machine only fit half of this recipe.  I put the other half in a glass pie plate and stuck it in the freezer. It came out exactly the same as the other, it just took a little longer.

But how can you deny the awesomeness of this:

No Electricity! No Ice! No Salt Needed!  

Also,  apparently "Anyone! Can! Do It!"

To answer your question: Yes, I served ice cream made with tequila to my family.  I knew they weren't going to eat very much, if any, and I wanted to keep the integrity of the recipe - at least the first time around.  This was really about the experience of making ice cream with them.  Next time we're doing vanilla made with some of the Life-Time Supply of Mexican vanilla my parents brought back from Cancun for me last week.  Maybe malteds will be in our future, too!