Chomp!

By Leesa Benggio
February 22, 2014

Snow Ice Cream and the Mommy Wars

As a full-time working mom of three, I always want more time with my children. Hot baths are timed to last no longer than the attention span of an 8 year old or the hunger pangs of two teenage boys. If I could buy more time, I would have it on bank draft from my paycheck.

So, three snow days in a row sounded like Heaven to me, a time to catch up together, prove that I can do it (whatever it is) just as well as a stay at home mom! That is until all the games have been played, the snow is too cold, and I literally had made a genie costume for my sweet baby girl from scratch, which actually held together – thank you 7th grade Home Ec. Class. And then ….the I’m bored! She’s looking at me – make her stop! We don’t have anything to eat started. So, I did what any reasonable, minimally intelligent woman would do – I surfed the internet for possible ideas for snow days. I was not frantic, regardless of what you may hear. They are children – they lie – don’t listen to them!

As a society, and more importantly to me and my feminist brain, I like to think that we have grown, we are past all of the mommy wars (how ridiculous! Who even thought of that term? We are sisters, raising our sweet, precious babies to be productive members of society). We understand that women with children work HARD, both inside and outside of the home……. As previously stated, I work outside of the home so, I can personally vouch that the working mom guilt is alive and well. Faced with three snow days, we are going to make the most of it, and make up for the time that we believe we miss, even though we are literally available every single, remotely possible moment of the day, to our children. With that, I bring you Chocolate Snow Ice Cream; honestly, I was interested the moment I read chocolate.

What you will need to prove that working moms are just as nurturing and loving as their ridiculously crafty, prepared like a Girl Scout, always cooking a well-balanced (is that free-range chicken?) stay-at-home counterparts:

• A gallon of clean snow – use your best guess – don’t try to be perfect, just get the cold stuff inside before it melts and everyone loses interest. I sent sweet baby girl out to get it with strict instructions CLEAN snow! – make sure that it is CLEAN – we are going to be eating this stuff.

 

Sweet baby girl and clean snow. Can you see the excitement?!

•  Some vanilla – go for a spoonful – whatever spoon you have that is still clean after three days in the house together – it’s vanilla no-one will die if there is a little too much.
• Sweetened Condensed milk – about a cup
•  Unsweetened coco – about a cup
• Milk – 2 cups – whatever you have will work: Whole, 2%, Skim, Soy, whatever your family drinks.
• Powdered sugar – again about a cup – I had a ½ cup in the bag that I had to retrieve from deep in the pantry, and it worked just fine.
•  A dash of cinnamon – because I add it to everything. Use your judgment on this. I’m a throw caution to the wind kind of cook. Which mostly means, I’m not great. Paprika in waffles? YES!
• A dash of nutmeg – see cinnamon reference, and because I LOVE its nutty flavor.

 

Here’s a pic of the basic ingredients.

• Mix everything EXCEPT the snow together in a bowl. This takes longer than you might expect. I had to resort to finding a whisk in my overly packed kitchen drawers. It took a good six minutes to get the air bubbles out of the coco and have a relatively smooth, well mixed, nectar of the Gods. I did the whisking initially, and then my children took turns doing it.

 

Here’s what it looks like all mixed together just waiting to add the snow…

Next, pour the God nectar over the snow and use a spoon to mix thoroughly; even one of the teenage boys got involved with the mixing.

 

And here’s what it looks like after mixing it and serving in a bowl!

Voila’! Perfecto! Amazing! Ok….that may be a stretch, but it was edible and a fun way to spend time together, make a treat, and enjoy a unique experience with my children. I will be honest with you here and say, I had brief moments of panic, racing thoughts, and heart palpitations, that this activity of mine which was literally the thing I devised to save us all from going stir crazy – I don’t even know what that is, yet I am scared to death of it, may just not work.

The chocolate snow ice cream was good, not good like quit your day job and open an ice cream shop, but good. The quality time was even better and somehow injected enough fun and calm back in to the environment, that we were able to carry on with the rest of our day and avoid the perils of anyone going stir crazy.

Be flexible and gentle with yourself and the chocolate snow ice cream. I remembered that I had a sealed bowl with sweetened condensed milk in the back of my refrigerator, which I had used in my attempt to make homemade caramel with sea salt. Don’t ask. I don’t even remember what month I attempted to make this, but I remembered the sweetened condensed milk and not wanting to waste it, yet having no idea what in the world I was going to use it for, as I packaged it and put it in my refrigerator. If you don’t have all of the ingredients above – improvise.

If you don’t have enough of something – again, improvise, be flexible. And….taste it as you go, better yet, let your sweet babies taste it. We both know they will be honest, unless they are talking about your level of franticness and then, well, they just lie. Might I also suggest that if the consistency isn’t quite right, just turn it into milkshakes, by pouring it into a glass instead of a bowl.

You, darling, are a genius and are most certainly a candidate for mom of the year. Mommy guilt? What guilt? Your stay-at-home sisters are watching you proudly. They of course, have six different flavors of snow ice cream in perfectly matching bowls, and know exactly when their sweetened condensed milk was purchased.

Leesa Benggio is the Deputy Director of the South Carolina State Library, an avid Chomp! reader and devoted mother to her three children, Jacob, Levi and Kailee.