Strawberry-Soda Ice Cream

More strawberries?  Yeah.  Any minute now I'm going to have to change the name of this blog from 4 Pears to 4,000 Strawberries.  Sorry about that but I am having a really hard time staying away from all those strawberry sales at the market.  And apparently my Mom is too because when we got home from vacation there were some in the refrigerator that I knew I needed to do something with soon.

Luckily this month's Food Network Magazine provided me with the perfect new strawberry recipe which just so happened to coincide with my other obsession right now: homemade ice cream.

Up until now I've only made custard based ice creams (you know, the kind with eggs that has to be cooked on the stove and takes a couple of days to completely finish).  Custard-based ice creams really are the richest and creamiest ice creams out there but they take more time and effort than I had after a delayed flight home from Maui, complete with an overnight stay in LA and 4 hours of sleep.

This recipe can be made in the afternoon and will be ready to enjoy by evening, or even eaten right away if you don't mind soft-serve....how can anyone mind soft-serve?  In that case this is a pretty great 30 minute ice cream with a wonderful crisp strawberry flavor and a pretty pink color.  The recipe calls for red cream soda such as "Big Red", but I've never heard of that so I have no idea what that tastes like on its own.  Mr Pears went to the store to grab the soda (you can use regular cream soda too) and came home with strawberry soda instead and it was delicious.

Another wonderful strawberry treat to try this summer, I hope you love it!

PS.  The above photo is from Food Network, I tried to photograph my ice cream but I just couldn't get a good shot of it in my bowl and while I was pondering other ways to photograph it I just started eating it.  I apologize but it was starting to melt and I just couldn't let that happen. ;)

Strawberry-Soda Ice Cream, slightly adapted from Food Network Magazine July/August 2012 (or here)
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups half and half
3/4 cup red cream soda, regular cream soda, or strawberry soda
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 cup strawberries, mashed (you can you frozen too, just thaw first then mash)

Whisk together all of the ingredients in a medium-sized bowl.  Pour this into your ice cream machine and follow your machine's basic churning instructions.  It should take between 10 and 20 minutes depending on the machine to produce a "soft-serve" consistency.  Once it does, pour the ice cream into a freezer container and freeze until firm.  Or eat it soft...yum.