Flakes, flurries, snow.

If you haven’t lived with snow the last few days, you certainly heard about it from your frostbitten friends.

It’s been a frigid few days with heaps of snow in the northeast. More than a foot of snow blanketed my town last week, which meant shoveling my driveway three times in less than a day. And let’s not even talk about how the temps dropped to single digits with wind chills around -15. (Word on the street is that it will be even COLDER today with FEET of snow to cover parts of western NY. I’m in denial. Join me there, please.)

In all, we got about 15-16 inches in my yard last week. And that meant lots of fresh snow to make a tasty snack…. Snow ice cream!

That’s right. It’s ice cream made of snow. SNOW!

The recipe was shared by a friend and former colleague Marketta, who writes a column for the Democrat and Chronicle and writes her own blog, Simply Faithful. Last year, during a big snowfall, she shared her family recipe for snow ice cream.

Snow ice cream?

I’d never heard of such a thing before. My boss assured me it was real Midwestern treat. He also relished stories about how he enjoyed homemade snow ice cream as a child.

I printed out Marketta’s recipe and waited for some snow.

Winter ended without another huge snowfall and I forgot all about it until last week. And let me tell you, snow ice cream completely lived up to the hype. Marketta generously encouraged me to share her family’s recipe.

Here’s a list of what you’ll need:

Marketta’s snow ice cream
– 1 gallon of fresh snow
– 1 cup sugar
– 1 can condensed milk
– 1 tsp. vanilla

I collected snow from my backyard, away from trees or other debris.

Using the same stock pot I’d taken into the snow, I combined all of the ingredients and stirred them together.

Keep stirring until mixture has consistency of ice cream. Add milk if it seems too dry.

I know this looks a bit like mashed potatoes, but trust me. It’s fantastic!

Eat as much as your can stand on the first go-round. I froze what was left with plans to eat the rest the next day and it became a big sweet block of ice. But not to worry, it was still edible. It just needed to thaw for about 15 minutes before I could serve it up.

Have your ever heard of snow ice cream? Have you tried it? Would you?