Snow Cream

My dear sweet brother had a rare long layover in DC (he's a pilot), so he came out to stay with us.  It snowed today, so I thought it would be fun to make snow cream.  Mom used to make it when we were kids, but honestly I can't remember what it tasted like then.  Here's a recipe I found today, which made 2 servings:

½ cup milk

¼ cup sugar

¼ tsp. vanilla

Mix these together in a small bowl until the sugar dissolves.  Meanwhile send someone outside with a bigger bowl and measuring cup to get 4 cups of fresh snow (neither yellow nor covered in ashes from a nearby wood stove).  I still remember Mom's huge plastic yellow bowl, so big that snow for snow cream is the only thing I remember it being used for. 

Add the milk mixture to the snow and mix until it's the consistency of soft ice cream.

After Tom and I snarfed this down it dawned on me that this would be a great way to recreate the coconut shaved ice stuff we'd had in Old San Juan.  When I say "shaved ice," it is for lack of a better term.  It wasn't as grainy as, say, a frozen margarita, so the snow gave it the perfect fine texture.  I just swapped out the vanilla for coconut extract.  I'm sure there's a way to do this with coconut milk, but that's for another time. 

Happy snow day!  Picture yourself somewhere warm.