Fresh from the Freezer

Fresh Cuban oregano is savory, but it also has sweet, floral notes that absolutely sing in dessert. It doesn’t taste like a novelty flavor at all. The best part about coming up with weird, never-been-done-before flavors is the welcomed surprise of inventing something both new and delightful. I think of oregano as “the pizza spice” (okay, I know it’s technically an herb) and used to use it exclusively in its dried form. Until someone in my family started growing Cuban oregano, that is. If you live in a tropical environment, this variety of oregano grows like a weed. I can’t use it quickly enough before it grows back even fuller than before. It is, admittedly, a good problem to have. Cuban oregano is savory, but it also has sweet, floral notes that absolutely sing in dessert. It doesn’t taste like a novelty flavor at all. Someone who tried this Cuban oregano gelato compared it to lavender ice cream, which makes a lot of sense considering I actually adapted this recipe from my laven...

I’m sure you’ll never guess the ingredient… Just kidding. Fresh pineapple makes the best sorbet ever. No cooking, no extra ingredients needed, just fresh pineapple all on its own. When you buy a Ninja Creami, it comes with a pamphlet full of recipe suggestions, and some of them are dubious. One of the suggestions is to pour canned, diced pineapple in syrup directly from the can into a Creami pint container, freeze it, and churn it. I decided to try it. Can you make sorbet with just canned pineapple? You can, but it can also be improved by a very simple ingredient change. Canned pineapple smells like if moldy cheese had a baby with a robot. Seriously, why does it smell like that? I had very little faith that this would taste anything like pineapple. Also, the amount the recipe called for was too much; I could not fit the entire can of pineapple into my pint. I ended up just pouring it in until the max fill line. Besides for canned pineapple’s revolting smell, I encountered...

  My conclusion is that caramelized onion ice cream is for freaks. If you’re a freak like I am, then please enjoy this recipe. I know I’ve already made roasted garlic ice cream , but I guess that wasn’t weird enough, because now I’ve made this. I thought this recipe would be liked by more people than the roasted garlic one, my thought process being that caramelized onions aren’t too far a stretch from caramel ice cream, but it was surprisingly divisive. I will use less fat next time, as this recipe has a whopping 17% butterfat! That is very high in fat, meaning that the flavor of caramelized onions lingers. To get the most flavor possible out of the caramelized onions, this recipe calls for not only steeping them in cream but also blending them in milk. This way, we let both water and fat molecules grab onto the flavor, making for a full-bodied, rich, and creamy dessert. This ice cream is not for everyone. For one thing, it isn’t for people who don’t like savory and sweet...