This was totally Martha Stewart's idea. And I stole it. She used peaches. She called it Sherbet. I used strawberries. We think it tastes more like ice cream than Sherbet. No matter what you call it, it's a fun quick, and easy frozen treat. We loved this for it's simplicity and ease. We loved it because you don't need a fancy ice cream maker. We liked it because it was relatively quick and well, we're an impatient lot. We like instant gratification. And come on, admit it, you do too!

Ingredients

4 cups strawberries, frozen, stems removed

1 can sweetened condensed milk

That's it. Crazy, right? We know!

Directions:

Freeze 4 cups of strawberries and place in a Ziplock bag in your freezer. Lay flat so they don't freeze together. Freeze for about 2 hours or overnight. We always have frozen strawberries on hand for smoothies, and baking.

In a blender pour in the condensed milk and then add the strawberries. Bend until smooth. When smooth pour mixture into a metal loaf pan. Place in freezer for about an hour.

After remove and serve!

Note, this is delicious but very sweet. You may want to cut down on the sweetness by adding a little bit of while milk to the mixture, say, about 1/3 of a cup. Test to taste. Kids might like it sweeter than the adults.

If you go strawberry (or any berry or fresh fruit) picking, this is a great way to use up a ton of berries. Fresh berries tend to go soft and start to turn fairly quickly. This is a great and fun summertime activity to do with kids of all ages.

In the blender, always add the liquid to the blender first!

Otherwise the frozen berries will merge and freeze together and blending will be tough!

Pretty in pink!

Ready to scoop...

Ready to eat!

For a perfectly red, white and blue treat add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and top with fresh blueberry!

Do you know how this feted day came to be? Read below to find out!

Meanwhile why don't you plan on taking the kids out to their favorite local ice cream store... or venture out a try a new one! I think we will be taking a stab at making our own ice cream today. Yesterday while I was weeding next to the house I found this massive raspberry bush right next to the garage! Most of the berries were intact as they had been covered up by the vines. As I did more weeding and pruning I discovered more raspberry bushes... Perhaps as many as a dozen in the woods next to my property. Raspberry bushes are very prickly things so I think later today we'll coat ourselves in bug spray, pull on some jeans, long sleeves and gardening gloves and go berry picking. Maybe we'll make raspberry ice cream... or maybe we'll just sprinkle some on top! How will you have your ice cream today?

If you want to try your hand at homemade ice cream David Leibowitz has a fabulous method that doesn't require and ice cream maker. We have one of those ice cream balls, and we adore it, but I think we are going to try David's method today!

If for some reason you can't have your ice cream today, fear not, it's ice cream month there's still a week left in July! (You may want to mark your calendars in advance for next year, so you don't miss out!)

Now read on and you will see how this day came to be!

It was after President Reagan's proclamation that the 3rd Sunday of every July became National Ice Cream Day... so raise a spoon, raise a cone and let's make a toast to National Ice Cream Day!

XOXO,

Jessica

In the Archives, 2