Local Strawberries & Goat Milk Ice Cream

Over in Southeast Louisiana, in a town called Ponchatoula, they grow strawberries - wonderful strawberries.  Not as big as the California berries, but tasty and sweet and perfectly ripened.  The local 4-H club was selling flats of them and we purchased a flat.  They told us that they were picked the very morning we bought them.  Judging from the quality, this wasn't an exaggeration.  Check out these bad boys:


Fresh picked local strawberries!

Here's a scenic overlook:


Not a bad one in the bunch - perfection!

What will we do with all these strawberries?  Why, we'll eat them, of course!  We wash them, cut out the green leaves and stem and then lay them single-spaced on trays and freeze individually.  Then we'll bag them in gallon freezer bags, enabling you to reach in and grab as many as you'd like.  We'll make smoothies, strawberry milk, homemade strawberry pie, eat them plain...  Well, you get it, the possibilities are endless.  We have a few strawberry plants of our own and have eaten berries off of them this Spring.  However, we don't have enough of our own to satisfy us.

Here's what we did with them the first night.  Nellie, our Nubian milk goat, recently delivered little Annie, and is producing fresh milk.


Nellie and her little kid, Annie

Tricia has been milking Nellie and making Goat milk kefir and we've been drinking her milk, too.  It is a little different from cow's milk, but not a drastic difference.  Tonight Tricia decided to make some homemade goat milk ice cream.  I've never eaten goat milk ice cream. 

Milking Nellie

Here is a nice bowl of ice cream made from goat milk, topped with fresh chopped strawberries and garnished with a sprig of mint.  Looks great, huh?  It was absolutely delicious.  There's none left.
 

Bowl of homemade goat milk ice cream



I've got to admit that at first, I was a little leery about drinking goat milk.  I've tasted and enjoyed goat cheese, but never goat milk.  After drinking a strawberry-fig goat kefir smoothie this morning and then having a bowl of this delicious ice cream, I guess I'm sold on it now.


I scream, you scream, we all scream for goat ice cream