Monday Munchies - Citrus Ice Cream

As you may already know, July is National Ice Cream Month and yesterday was National Ice Cream Day (declared by Ronald Reagan, just one more reason to love the guy)!  I celebrated with a bowl of some homemade Apple Pie Ice Cream that I made on Saturday.  It has a french vanilla base with chunks of caramelized apples and bits of graham cracker, so good and actually tasted just like apple pie!

Although I loved the apple pie flavor, my absolute, hands down, favorite flavor of homemade ice cream is this citrus recipe.  Rich and creamy with banana, orange and lemon flavors, it is SO refreshing on a hot summer day!  Actually, it's good on winter days too.  I requested it for my birthday dessert (in February...unfortunately the idea got shot down). The 4th of July is usually the occasion this ice cream is most likely to show up for, but since I wasn't planning to be home for the 4th (turned out I was) and because I didn't get it for my birthday, my parents made some for me the week before I moved!

We actually have a really funny story about this ice cream too.  My mom always mixes up the base of the ice cream, and then it's my dad's job to churn it and add ice/salt as necessary.  One year the ladies had mixed up the base, and my dad and Steve Burton (the friends from Cali in this post) were churning away.  The ice cream maker is supposed to stop when the ice cream gets thick and properly frozen, but this time it just kept going and going and going, but never freezing.  Turns out (after a couple of hours haha), they forgot to put the paddle in the ice cream maker...oops!  So...if you make this ice cream, make sure your ice cream maker is properly assembled!

Citrus Ice Cream
(This yields about 4 quarts - cut in half if using a small ice cream freezer)
3 c. Milk
3 c. Whipping Cream
3 c. Sugar
3 medium bananas (mashed)
1 c. Freshly squeezed lemon juice (6 or 8 large - the amount of fruit it takes to make the juice varies a lot, these are just estimates, use more or less as needed)
1 c. Freshly squeezed orange juice (5 or 6 large)

Combine milk, cream and sugar in a large bowl and stir until sugar is dissolved. (It's best at this point to put it in the chilled can, and then let chill in the refrigerator until cool)  Transfer to ice cream maker and freeze partially. Blend in bananas and fruit juices and continue freezing until firm. And, my mom adds: "If it takes hours, you have probably forgotten the paddle! "