Ash Wednesday

It's really hard to believe that the season of Lent is already here. Tonight our choir at church served a supper before the service, the first of several weeks to come. There was a nice crowd...maybe 160 ish, it's always so wonderful to have visitors and fill up the pews almost to the front! After all, at our church the back rows always fill up before the front (ha-ha).

I love getting home at the end of the day and kicking my feet up. This winter has been so cold that it's very easy to become an introvert - good thing I have my blog?!?

Today at school we made coffee can ice cream. We have been learning what effect salt has on ice, and so to demonstrate it in a fun way we made ice cream. The kids were very impressed! Here is the recipe I sent home with the little people.

COFFEE CAN ICE CREAM

You will neeed two clean coffee cans with lids, one of them the 13 oz size and the bigger one the 39 oz size. I'm pretty sure on those sizes, but if I'm off a bit, you get the idea.

In the smaller can pour in:
1 cup whole milk
1 cup half & half
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt
Put the lid on tightly, you may want to reinforce it with some heavy duty tape wrapped around a few times. Shake well to mix up the ingredients, and place it into the larger can and pour ice in pushing it down between the two cans almost to the top. Now add 1 cup of rock salt. Place the lid from the large can on snug as a bug and get ready to roll!

In my classroom we take turns, two kids at a time rolling the can back and forth for 2-3 minutes until you have rolled it for 20 minutes. When you take the small can out of the large can you are going to find ice cream just like Dairy Queen soft serve! It may still be a bit too soft, so just pop it in the freezer for about a half hour. It's great!

There are variables to this recipe. Some use heavy duty zipper bags and give individual ingredient amounts, some have you roll it back and forth with a blanket or large towel doing a teeter totter move, yada-yada. Just Google coffee can ice cream and you'll find more information than you ever wanted.

It's time for me to find a warm blanket and call it a day. As my friend Shannon would say, tatafornow!