One reason I don’t do New Years resolutions is because I’m afraid to fail. I’m scared of all unknowns that may happen. I don’t like to fail. But I like beginnings, those times when you open a new notebook, move to a new apartment, start writing a new page. New beginnings and new projects are better than resolutions, they have bright future, they open new perspectives.

I was tempted to create popular serie of monthly favourite links, or likes, I love one done by Ania, it’s seasonal, personal and so smart, but it just didn’t feel right. After a long time of thinking I found an idea! You know, those ingredients that you buy for a certain recipe and then you don’t have a clue how to use the rest of it, or you have a clue, but just don’t want to? I have plenty situations like these.

So in this series I will try to present you (and myself) with ideas and recipes how to use those loose ends. When I talk about loose ends I usually mean ingredients that are new to me, or they are not just my everyday thing. Very often they appear in my fridge, because I was trying recipe and I needed a small amount of it, or I bought it because I had an idea for a dish then forgot either about idea or the ingredient. I usually go for recipes that let me use it all in one go, if possible I use for simple recipes, as it is just easier. So today we will talk about:

Mascarpone

Mascarpone is a lovely, creamy, Italian cheese. I bought it for some recipe, but I just needed two tablespoons. I thought I will use rest of it for a cake icing, but I didn’t make a cake.

Dessert recipes

• tiramisu, that first thing that comes to mind, I love it, it’s sweet, delicate, it reminds me about Italy and it’s not that complicated, if you only have the right biscuits. Here is a recipe with 597 good reviews, or David’s Lebovitz recipe and Nigella’s Baileys tiramisu recipe,
• cake icing,  if you whip some double cream, fold in mascarpone and icing sugar and voila, you have a perfect cake icing – I used it for my birthday cake, you can also use it as a base for simple dessert just add some fruits, crushed cookies and maybe grated chocolate and you have a delicious dessert,
• ice cream, like this chocolate espresso semifreddo or mascarpone & marmalade ice cream,
• truffles are great idea, you just need chocolate and some flavouring and done. Like those lemon*, or coffee*, or  coffee truffles.
• of course cheesecake is always an option, like no-bake orange cardamon or baked truffle one*

I could actually find million more recipe for sweet things, but it’s January, everybody is on a diet, and I’ve eaten cakes and cookies almost everyday in December, so I try to exclude sweet recipes from my mind, or at least menu.

Savoury recipes

Savoury ideas for tiramisu were so much trickier for me:

• I went for this spinach and mascarpone pasta, it’s simple and you can do it in minutes. I’ve added fried mushrooms to it. Next time I would add more lemon and probably mixed mascarpone with cream, as the sauce was just too thick to my tasting,
• his tomato and mascarpone pasta is another option,
• you can make a tart with gorgonzola, dried tomatoes and potatoes, I actually made one, even wrote about* on my old blog it and forgot about it
• if you only have a few spoons, you can use it instead of cream

I must say I could still use a few emergency savoury ideas. Do you have any favourite recipes using mascarpone? 

In worse case scenario I can always count on the cats that are always more than happy to help. *a recipe in Polish