*Comfort Food: I Bought An Ice Cream Machine!!!*
By: Garry
30 January 2024

Many years ago a huge windstorm hit the east coast - power was out, trees were down, and local society was in a shambles.

One of our members was involved, and Rubies girded up with chainsaws, coolers and 4 x 4's and headed out. iirc the Rubie wrote a great article on it, and one of the things he highlighted was the value of comfort food. After working long, hard hours we all need calories- and if those calories are tasty and "comforting" then all the better.

What is comfort food? Whatever you think it is. For me, coming home from a deployment it was beef stew. Many others go for mac and cheese. Whatever it is, if it fills your belly and makes you happy then it's comfort food.

Snacks and desserts are almost as important. They may not fuel you quite as well as mac and cheese, but they make a pretty darn bright spot in an otherwise dull day.

Ice cream has been our family treat since the kids were little - and that has extended to the Grand kids. Breakfast at Grampy's house always starts off with a bowl of ice cream. Yes, not the best - but in all honesty it's probably better than sugar coated frosty pops they sell as cereal these days, and the kids love it. (besides, they aren't here long enough to really hurt things anyways).

I got thinking about post fan life, and decided I needed ice cream available for our comfort food/snacks. I suspect we're always going to have milk (more cows in my county than people) and I expect my solar system to survive post fan, so a home ice cream machine made sense.

We bought this one for Christmas:

Image From Amazon
https://www.amazon.ca/KUMIO-Automatic-Compressor-Pre-freezing-Electric/dp/B0BF3R89JB/ref=sr_1_1_sspa

So far I'm VERY happy! We've made about a dozen batches of ice cream, and both kids and adults like the end product. Loads of recipes out there, and you can make it as healthy as you want. Takes an hour, and while the machine makes noise, the noise is less than the fan over the stove does.

The only real difference between home made and store bought is the consistency of the ice cream. Store bought has an additive that makes the product very creamy and solid. Home made is a little more granular once frozen.

If you eat it right out of the machine, that granularity doesn't exist. The firmness of the ice cream is mid way between soft serve and regular ice cream. Note that this machine has a compressor, so no need to freeze bowls 24 hours ahead of time, etc- just dump in the ingredients and turn it on.

My aim for life post fan is to have as close to a normal life post fan as we did pre fan, and I think having some "extra's" like ice cream will help that a lot.

Fresh frozen ice cream may make a heck of a barter item too!

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