Rock salt is much cheaper. It probably won't disintegrate as fast as table salt, and may keep things cold longer. I bought an old fashioned crank ice cream maker and it is the first thing the grand kids want to do when they come here. I was hoping to see some delish recipes in this thread. Maybe some will come! Suzi

I just make my regular vanilla icecream and add chopped and welld rained frozen peaches....I put about half of the peaches in the blender to make puree and chunk up the rest..... But unless you either add some extra heavy cream or booze, it will get icy. I make a custard with 4 eggs and 2 cups of milk....when it coats the back of a spoon remove from heat and add a cup of sugar and stir to dissolve, add 2 cups of heavy cream and 2 tsps vanilla.,...cool and freeze. For peach, puree a cup of peach slices and add to the icecream mix....add some chunks if you wish....and 2 Tablespoons of peach schnapps. The alcohol keeps it from freezing into a solid chunk. Linda C

Love2weed, how does your ice cream turn out - what is not ''creamy'' about it? Is it simply too hard - that probably just means you can stop churning a bit earlier and serve that much sooner. Am I misunderstanding what you are after? If you want ice cream that remains soft and creamy after sitting in the freezer for days, I don't know how that is done. I'll be very interested to find out. I make ice cream using a old ice cream maker that has a built-in refrigeration unit. Meaning, you don't need to plan ahead and put a bulky tub in the freezer overnight. You can be spontaneous about your ice cream, well, if you call an hour or more of preparation ''spontaneous''. [Delete tasteless Viagra joke here.] My machine is a SIMAC Il Gelataio 800 ''The Ice Cream Boy'' model, might be 20+ years old, they show up used for around $100, sometimes less. During the churning, the ice cream goes through a creamy, soft stage. If I stop there, I have creamy ice cream - it can be as soft as soft-serve ice cream frozen yogurt if I stop early enough. If I continue churning, the ice cream gets firmer, gelato-like consistency. Keep churning, and it gets harder yet. If I place the churned ice cream in the freezer for an hour, it is as hard as conventional store-bought ice cream - but I don't like such hard ice cream, actually. My process is very conventional. Click Ice Cream Boy's ''CHILL'' switch to ''on'', let him start chilling his tub. Make custard from 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup whole milk, 1 cup sugar, then 2 beaten egg yolks added a bit later. Using a double boiler, I cook this at about 160F until it seems thick enough, usually around 15 minutes. I've read recipes that call for a higher temperature, but I had some curdling problems if I went too much above 160F. Transfer to a steel bowl, place that in a larger bowl with ice and water, swirl around to cool the custard to 40-50F, the colder the better but it tries my patience. I add the flavor ingredient after transferring the custard to the steel bowl, either right away or after the custard has cooled some, depending on whether the stuff tolerates higher temperature. Then I pour the flavored custard into Ice Cream Boy and start him churning. Usually around 25-35 minutes for softer ice cream, 35-45 for harder. Starting with very cold custard shortens the churning considerably. Since Ice Cream Boy is actually Ice Cream Elderly Man in ''appliance years'', I try to not work him too hard.

David, yup, no raisins. Glad to know I'm not the only one to hate raisins. Thanks Sooz, this recipe is so easy I'll make it for Moe often. Tracy, you understand right. No ice cream maker necessary. Just a blender or food processor. I used the blender. The recipe doesn't call for stirring the mixture after it goes into the freezer, but I think it really helps set it up and keep it creamy. Jenn, the cookie time wasn't adjusted for the round cookies. But for the dough I baked in the small cookie sheet for the bars, I did have to add a couple of extra minutes. I cut the bars while the cookie was still slightly warm. FOAS, looks great. Moe would love both the strawberry and blueberry. I have some raspberries in the freezer that I'll use for the next batch. I might even add some chocolate to that batch. Ann