Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

Preserve that perfect strawberry taste, even with imperfect strawberries, with this ice cream. It tastes so fresh, I can hardly stand it. If it only it were as healthy for you as fresh strawberries! But hey, it's loaded with a full pound of strawberries, so it can't be all that bad for you, can it?

This recipe is perfect when strawberries go on sale for a dollar a pound. You can buy a lot, and freeze this ice cream. Then you don't have worry about the berries spoiling, plus, even if the berries aren't perfectly sweet when you buy them, you'll never be able to tell because this ice cream makes them taste amazing. Not kidding.

Chocolate-Cinnamon Ice Cream

A couple weeks ago, whipping cream was on sale. When it's on sale, I can't help but pick up a couple; if I don't make ice cream with it, I could make alfredo. If I don't make alfredo, I could make any number of other things, or just whip it up and eat it over a nice, chocolatey brownie. I'm a fan of cream. Even though it's horribly awful for your health...

Then, I forgot about that cream I bought. For about a week and a half. Oops! The use by date was only a day away, and I needed to use the cream. I fretted for a little while, trying to figure out what to make with it, and determined the only thing that made sense was ice cream. But what flavor? I flipped through my copy of Perfect Scoop feverishly, looking for just the right recipe, that, oh yeah, I had all the ingredients for. There were not that many recipes, that's for sure...but, I decided it was between chocolate (always a phenomenal stand-by) and cinnamon (a yummy flavor you can't buy at the store). I asked Jeff and his vote was for cinnamon, and then it hit me. Why not make a combination? Why decide at all? I looked over the recipes and figured out what I would do, and promptly called my neighbor to see if she had any extra semi-sweet baking chocolate because I only had 3 ounces and needed 5. I promised homemade ice cream in exchange for it, and she was naturally happy to oblige.

And then I set forth to make chocolate-cinnamon ice cream.

Samoa Ice Cream

Shortly after I started this blog, I had a dream. A glorious dream. Okay, it wasn't really a dream, I was definitely awake. But this dream kept me lying awake in bed, when I should have been sleeping. I could not get it out of my head.

The idea was Samoa ice cream. Girl Scout Cookies had just been delivered. And naturally, like many of you I'm sure, my passion for Girl Scout Cookies had just been remembered.

Samoas, in my opinion, are the best (and naturally one of the most-loved) of the Girl Scout Cookies. Thin Mints are nice, and certainly deserve their place in cookie fame, but Samoas. Mmm. Little can beat a Samoa, in my opinion.

Now, Trusty Dishwasher Jeff does not agree. When he tried a Samoa, he said, "well, they're good," and lost himself the privilege of eating any more. If you only think they're good, that's not good enough. At 50 cents a cookie and available for only about a month every year, you better love them.

However, the problem remained. How to capture the essence of Samoas in an ice cream. Coconut ice cream with fudge and caramel ripples? Too busy. Chocolate ice cream with caramel ripple and sprinkled with coconut? Meh. And what to do with the cookie. Obviously, it was a shortbread, but it wasn't overly buttery. Mix it in? Jeff prefers his ice cream exceptionally smooth, so that was out.

Blackberry Swirl Ice Cream

I had forgotten how truly amazing homemade ice cream is.

Last summer, I took a bit of a sabbatical from the kitchen...I was pregnant and exhausted. The last thing on my mind was making ice cream! Although, I probably would have loved eating it, I didn't need the extra weight.

But, I got a new ice cream maker for Christmas, and I have been itching to try it out. I finally had the energy, and it's been warm enough to justify it, and I didn't need any more justifications than that. I mean, it's ice cream, people!