I Scream, You Scream...

...we all scream for ice cream! My absolute, all-time, most favoritest ice cream is pistachio and, let me tell you, it's pretty hard to find. Somewhere deep down, I realize this is probably a very good thing because if I could get my hands on it more frequently, well my waist to hip ratio would be off the charts.

I was recently talking to one of my dearest friends (who, by the way, is probably the best cook/baker I have ever known and I credit her with getting me started in baking) and mentioned something about wanting to make pistachio ice cream but hadn't found a good recipe (I should clarify, I have found them but they called for pistachio paste which is impossible to get at your local grocery store and pretty expensive to buy online). She pipes up and says "Oh, I have one" - <smacking my forehead with palm>I should have known she'd have a recipe and asked her a recipe couple of years ago when I got my ice cream maker! Anyway, she emailed it to me the other day and of course, I had to make it immediately.

The good news - it's easy. The bad news - she also included the nutritional info...UGH. For a 1/2 cup serving (who only eats a 1/2 cup of homemade ice cream at a time - maybe Paris Hilton, but no real people I know) it's 289 calories and 21 grams of fat, 10 of which are saturated. sigh.

I don't care I am making it anyway!!! But I did lighten it up a bit - my substitutions are in pink.

Pistachio Ice Cream (makes 12 minuscule 1/2 cup servings, about 8 real people servings, or 1 single-serve I'm PMS'ing serving)

2 cups heavy cream (or 2 cups 1/2 and 1/2)

1 cup whole milk (or 1 cup fat-free 1/2 and 1/2)

1 cup pistachio nuts (I used unsalted)

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp.vanilla

1/4 tsp almond (optional - not to me, but that's what the recipe said)

1 drop green food coloring (optional)

Place all ingredients in blender. Blend until nuts are chopped to the size you want them. Pour into freezer bowl, mix until thickened 20-25 minutes. Transfer to freezer safe container and freeze until firm (about 2 hours).

Thanks to my two sous chefs, the work of opening the pistachios went really fast.

I can hardly wait!

No, it's not super smooth and creamy, but ohmygoodness is it good! I actually like my ice cream a little crystallized but I'm in the minority, I know. The really good news - my version has 188 calories, 9.7 grams of fat, 3.6 grams saturated. So, roughly half of the original - I'll take it!

This one's mine ;-)

Thank you, Beth :-)