We thought it would be fun to try a new drink each week. Ice cream is a favorite treat, so naturally the first drink we wanted to try was a Vanilla Milkshake by Paula Deen.  All my Little Chefs were excited and knew we had the ingredients to make it. Little Chef D has a hard time eating her meals most of the time. Sometime the gentle coaxing works, sometimes it doesn’t. I finally said we are making the Vanilla Milkshake after dinner. You need to finish your meal before you can help. Five minutes later everyone was done and the table was cleared!
  Compared to the previous recipes this was the easiest to date. Of course, throwing everything into a blender and pushing start and stop seems to be cheating after all they have made. No cutting, very little measuring and few dishes to clean. The ingredients are pretty simple, ice cream, vanilla extract, sugar, and milk. I chose a more expensive ice cream as the recipe suggested, and opted for French Vanilla.

   The recipe calls for 4 cups of ice cream. Since it was hard to scoop out and we didn’t want it to melt, I scooped it out. The vanilla was then poured in by Little Chef D. See our new cute little measuring glass! The girls were excited to use it for the first time!

   Next was the sugar. I was amazed at the amount of sugar! When I cook alone I measure and dump. To measure into a separate bowl and see the amounts of everything going into the recipes has been very enlightening to me.

   Little Chef C added the milk. I explained we don’t want to pour all the milk in at once because the recipe says if you want a thicker shake don’t put in all the milk.

   Finally, we watched it all blend together.  Who was going to be the first one to try it? Usually the one who made it tries it first, but this time was a group effort.  The easiest way to solve that problem was to pour all the cups and then let everyone taste it at the same time. They all finished their first cup quickly and wanted more! Our method is to dish out what they need to eat then, if they want more they are welcome to that. We really try to limit the amount of waste left on a plate or in a cup. Little Chef A said it was “Delicious!” Little Chef D wanted to eat it with a spoon. For some reason she loves putting spoons in her drinks to scoop a little up and slurp it off her spoon. You can imagine how long it takes her to finish a drink!

  For my review this is a wonderful shake, even in the cold weather. The addition of vanilla is the key. I would have liked it a little thicker, Little Chef C ended up pouring in 1 3/4 cups of milk. It tastes like a restaurant shake. I bet my Little Chefs would love to try it with the addition of chocolate next time, or strawberries….oooh the possibilities!

Vanilla Milkshake

Paula Deen

Ingredients

• 4 cups quality vanilla ice cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 8 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups milk, less for thicker milkshakes

Directions