Ice

Ok. It's been forever since I've posted, and I'm sorry to leave my many followers with a gaping whole in your lives for so long. Never fear! I'm back from my sojourn in TX, and ready to share a little tip with you. Last weekend, we had a little party for my little one's 1st birthday. We wanted to make homemade ice cream (my hubby's specialty), and as you know, you need alot of ice to make homemade ice cream. Well, we decided that instead of buying a bag of ice at the last minute like we normally would, we would think ahead and put our freezer to work. We go through LOTS of milk here, (you could really use any plastic container you didn't want back) and so every time we finished off a gallon, we filled it up with water and stuck it down in the freezer. Now you don't want to fill it all the way to the top, or it will overflow (this happened on one of ours, but it just froze onto the outside. Not too messy). When you're ready to make your ice cream, you just drop the jugs on the ground a few times or whack it with a hammer or something. I think it took us about 2 "gallons" for each batch of ice cream. Plus, keeping your freezer full actually helps it run more efficiently. Many sources suggest filling empty corners of your freezer with jugs of water to help everything freeze better (and keep things colder longer in the event of a power outage. Plus we saved ourselves the hassle and money we would have spent buying a bag of ice for the ice cream. Who would have though? Ice in the freezer!