Spinach Ice Cream

It’s the day after St. Patrick’s Day and I’m still in a green mode.  Today I am making spinach ice cream, also known in this this house as mint chocolate ice cream that has spinach in it.  It sounds crazy but it’s delicious.  No one can taste the spinach and one feels a bit healthy eating spoonfuls of this.

1.5 cups of whipping cream

1.5 cups of half & half

1 cup of sugar

½ tea table salt

1 tea vanilla extract

1 tea mint extract

2 to 3 handfuls of fresh baby spinach

1 c of mini chocolate chips

I blend the spinach with some half & half and then I added the sugar.  Today I mistakenly added the extracts to the mixture.  I should have waited until the mixture was churning in the ice cream maker.  The alcohol and salt lowered the freezing temperature and my mixture won’t freeze.  I’m also wondering if the ice cream bowl wasn’t frozen enough.   It was left in the freezer out in the garage (we have two refrigerators) and in cold winter months, the freezer doesn’t get cold enough.

So I had to move the “bowl” in the house refrigerator and moved all the would-be-ice cream mixture into a container and placed in the refrigerator.

After blending the spinach with some half & half and sugar, turn the ice cream maker on and pour the mixture into ice cream bowl.  I like to turn the machine on before dumping the mixture in.  Some people say it matters and other say it doesn’t.  I don’t believe it matters but I still do.

Add the whipping cream into the ice cream maker so it mixes up with the spinach-sugar-half&half mixture.    After it churns awhile and gets a good consistency—15-minutes, add the flavorings.   After it’s a done—add the chocolate chip and churn for a couple of minutes.  It doesn’t take much time to incorporate the chips.

Scoop into a shallow covered bowl and set in the freeze.  

I do tell people what’s in it.  I don’t like to be sneaky with my cooking.  Well, I am sneaky, but I’m about disclosing what I’m trying to sneak in for healthier product.