Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Delinquent blogger here back to update my blog - finally! After a hiatus to get married and go on my honeymoon to Greece I am back with a new post. As you may imagine, after two such events I am broke, which has actually had a positive effect on my kitchen! Since I am low on funds for going out to eat, I have put my creative energy to use for cooking and am happy to say that some of the recipes turned out so well that I am going to share them with you here.

The first is for homemade ice cream. Having received an ice cream maker off of my registry as a wedding gift (a Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream, and Sorbet Maker, to be exact), I was very excited to try it out. This model is one of the lower end ice cream maker models with a removable bowl that you freeze overnight in advance. I decided to give chocolate chip cookie ice cream a whirl as my first ice cream recipe attempt. The recipe is as follows:

8 oz. mascarpone cheese
1 cup full fat milk
1/2 cup light brown sugar
6 oz. crushed up chocolate chip cookies (I used bite sized chips-ahoy because I was too lazy to bake some from scratch)

Whisk the first three ingredients together until well blended. Immediately pour into chilled bowl of ice cream maker and press start on the machine. When ice cream is almost frozen (in my machine this took about 12 minutes), add cookie chunks and spin until ice cream has the desired consistency (this took about 3 more minutes in my machine).

The results - nothing short of amazing! The light brown sugar really gives the ice cream a toffee/caramel type of flavor. The ice cream was very rich, so I couldn't eat much, but what I did have was so satisfying! I am excited to try out some new recipes on there as well.

The next recipe I tried was baked salmon with a homemade teriyaki sauce. This is something I would normally just buy at the store but I found myself with salmon and no teriyaki sauce so I thought I'd give it a shot. Plus, I liked the idea of making it at home so that I could control the sodium content. I am so glad that I tried it. It was so simple and delicious. I don't think that I will ever buy store bought again! The recipe is as follows:

1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sherry
2 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar (can also substitute apple cider vinegar)
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tbsp ginger

Simmer ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and mixture has reduced to approx. 1/2 cup total volume. Pour into a small metal bowl and place metal bowl in large bowl of ice water. Coll to room temperature. Marinate salmon for 15 minutes, turning once to coat. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

I hope these recipes will inspire you to make these dishes at home - enjoy!