mint chip ice cream

I've been doing this thing where I eat food when it's hot instead of taking pictures of it. It's incredible. But selfish. So I apologize that there aren't pictures of my first ever POT ROAST(!), nor the sandwiches we made with it, topped with just enough horseradish sauce to ignite a flash fire at the top of your sinus--spectacularly delicious. I'll post the recipe soon.

I do, however, have photos of this mint chip ice cream I made for our housewarming party last week, which is why it looks a bit icy. It's still super delicious though, and if you want to avoid that iciness you can add a couple egg yolks to the mix. Eggs add richness, but also egginess. And even though the Salmonella in uncooked eggs is relatively small, it's life-threatening to infants and pregos and I don't want that on my conscience. I generally try to go it without the eggs.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
a handful of fresh mint leaves
3/4 cups sugar
dash of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 oz dark chocolate bar

RECIPE:
Combine milk, cream and mint leaves in a heavy medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Heat until little bubbles form around the edges. DO NOT BOIL!

Remove from heat, cover and let steep for ten minutes.

Uncover and pour through a colander into a medium bowl to strain the mint leaves from the milk. Toss the leaves.

Combine sugar and salt in a new bowl. Whisk milk mixture into the sugar, just a bit at a time.

Pour back into the pan and cook over medium-low heat for two minutes, stirring constantly.

Pour mixture into a bowl. Stir in vanilla extract.

Transfer bowl into the refrigerator to allow mixture to cool completely.

While mixture is cooling, shave your chocolate with a vegetable peeler. It should give you pretty little chocolate ribbons. If your vegetable peeler sucks, as they so often do, just use a sharp knife to chop tiny uneven pieces. If the pieces are too large they'll feel like weird sharp plastic.  
Pour mixture into ice cream maker.

Stir chocolate shavings into ice cream before transferring into the freezer to firm.