My recent experience with ice cream is interesting to me not so much from a local foods perspective, although local foods were involved, but because of the creative challenge of cooking with what’s on hand. The other day some dear friends came for lunch and brought along the makings for strawberry shortcake. When they went home, they kindly left behind the leftover strawberries and cream.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. So when life gives you strawberries and cream, you make strawberry ice cream, right? Except that I prefer vanilla. So we enjoyed the strawberries with our morning oatmeal, and the cream went into a vanilla ice cream-making experiment.

I found a basic vanilla ice cream recipe that called for 3/4 cup cream. I had just 1/2 cup on hand, but in reality the volume was less than that because it had been whipped. I decided to put the volume issue aside and used 1/4 cup plain yogurt to make up for the missing cream. All things considered, I think the final product came out pretty good. I ended up with a bit less than a pint of delicious, vanilla-y ice cream. It could’ve been creamier, perhaps, but it was still quite tasty.

Here’s the recipe:

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c sugar

3/4 c milk

1/2 c whipped cream (whip it yourself; don’t use the stuff from a can)

1/4 c yogurt

1 t vanilla an ice cream freezer

Combine egg, sugar, and milk in a saucepan over low heat or a double boiler. Cook slowly, stirring constantly, until it begins to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in cream, yogurt, and vanilla. Let chill in the fridge for several hours before freezing in your ice cream freezer. (Follow manufacturer’s directions for that, of course.)

Local analysis Local: milk, yogurt (homemade from local milk), egg

Non local: cream, sugar, vanilla