Ice Cream

Yeah, yeah - most people don't think much about ice cream in the winter.  Well you should - ice cream is always delicious and if you've never made your own, it's incredibly easy.  For this post I was totally planning to do vanilla vs. vanilla - a serious showdown.  Well I still had some Oreos left from that post, and I couldn't help myself - COOKIES AND CREAM!  I already have the upper hand on Breyers.

The store brand: Breyers Vanilla

My Recipe:
Ingredients
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla (if making plain vanilla, use a vanilla bean for flavor)
8 oreo cookies

Directions

Coarsely chop the Oreos.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir it up.  I added my Oreos now also (I wanted them to get soft), but they ended up almost emulifying in the ice cream maker - you can add them once the ice cream just starts to get hard to get larger chunks.  It still tastes like cookies n' cream either way!

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker according to unit's instructions (mine is dump in, turn on and let it go for 30 mins). The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. Once it has reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer at least 1 hour before serving.

Okay, it looks like chocolate, but it tastes like cookies n' cream!  Promise.

Now scoop out all this leftover ice cream and eat the crap out of it:

Taste-wise this ice cream was fan-freaking-tastic.  Really great ice cream.  Breyers makes a decent ice cream as well, but mine was so creamy and flavorful, I couldn't get enough.  At this point it would probably come down to cost.

I was very surprised by the cost. You can actually save money making your own ice cream.  Even with my $1 worth of Oreos, it's less to make your own ice cream (if you own a maker)!  Honestly, I almost never buy ice cream if it's not at least buy one get one free, but hey, still less than full price.

	Size	Cost	Cost/oz
Breyers Ice Cream - All Natural Vanilla	48 oz	$ 6.99	$ 0.15
Homemade	32 oz	$ 3.94	$ 0.12

Bake or Buy?  BAKE!

I'd honestly have to say, I think it's worth while to invest in an ice cream maker.  And keep an eye out for some posts coming up on what to do with that leftover whipping cream!