use it or lose it

Typically, when a couple gets married, they have a gift registry at a major department store, so that friends and relations can purchase something the couple needs/wants and avoid gift duplication. Steve and I have been married for almost 9 years. And up until recently, we owned items, received as wedding gifts, that we had rarely or never used. Not that these gifts were not appreciated. But there's some sort of bizarre social pressure to register for things that you have absolutely no use for. Kitchen appliances are the biggest culprit. And we have them all. Since I've been feeling the need to purge our house of unneeded stuff lately, I've been going at the kitchen, full force. I've filled a few boxes full of stuff that we don't use and/or won't miss. They will be donated to charity. In my cleaning frenzy, I was reminded that we actually owned a deep fryer. Seriously, who needs a deep fryer? My mother is now the proud owner of a used only once deep fryer. I don't imagine she will actually use it that much either but hey, it's not taking up space in my house anymore. Then I can across the ice cream maker. Hmm, what to do. I love ice cream and it is a semi-regular grocery purchase for us. Could I make better tasting, better for me ice cream at home? Or was it not worth the time or effort. Well...

I decided to start with a simple lime sorbet.


All you do is turn limes into lime juice and mix it with simple syrup, which is just equal parts sugar and water, boiled to melt the sugar.

Throw it in the ice cream maker...


...and watch the magic happen.


The whole process took about half an hour.


And the result...


...limey, tarty, frosty goodness.

We then made a lemon sorbet that was fantastic and a strawberry cantaloupe sorbet that worked out but didn't taste so great. Not to me anyway.

With a few simple sorbets under my belt, I moved on to ice cream.


The mint chocolate chip was a hit.



As was the strawberry.

The ice creams take a bit more work but is well worth the effort. It's nice to have ice cream in the freezer that is free of unpronounceable chemicals and preservatives and that tastes delicious. Of course, you can't keep it as long but since it's rare for a carton of ice cream to last more than a few days in our house, no big deal. With my love of ice cream, I can't believe that I actually waited this long to use the damn thing. So the ice cream maker is definitely a keeper.

This week is my dad's 70th birthday. Vanilla ice cream is his favourite. I'll let you know how it turns out.