Ice Cream Trifecta!

Mmmm, it was a good time in ice cream world around here over the weekend.  Oh, baby!  Vanilla, cinnamon and a wicked dark chocolate.  Pull up a chair.  Let me tell ya about them...

Wicked dark chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla

Vanilla Ice Cream

Vanilla ice cream was a tough one for me.  I tried a couple of recipes that weren't good.  I think part of it is that those of us who could eat ice cream at one point have a well ingrained memory of what vanilla ice cream should be.  Plus vanilla is a complex but delicate flavor.  Unlike chocolate, where the strong flavor of the chocolate can hide a multitude of "sins", vanilla can be easily overpowered.

I tried hemp milk for the first attempt.  It had a really bitter aftertaste.  Yick.  The second batch had sucanat in it.  Blech.  The taste of the sucunat overpowered the vanilla.  While we like sucunat in quinoa chocolate chip cookies and banana bread, it was too much for the vanilla. The third attempt was better but still had a strong taste from the demara sugar that my younger son didn't like.  (He poured chocolate sauce over the ice cream and ate it anyway.  It didn't slow him down too much.)   But, really, is a stand alone vanilla too much to ask?  

So fourth time's a charm...

Cinnamon Ice Cream

In starting down the road of vegan non-dairy frozen deserts (or "ice cream" for short around here), I asked my kids what type they wanted me to try to make.  Never shy, they hollered:  "Vanilla!", "Chocolate!", "Cinnamon Vanilla!"  Wait... What?  Cinnamon vanilla?  Where did that one come from?  (Hmmm...probably from the cinnamon rolls there were eating at the moment.)

So the second flavor of our trifecta is cinnamon vanilla

Cinnamon (and vanilla in the shadow)

Fantastic!

"Wicked Dark" Chocolate

I'm not a native New Englander.  But the New England use of the word "wicked" to mean "very" is one I'll have until I die probably.  It grew on me and stuck

.

Dark chocolate ice cream... with a sprig of mint.

The third of today's trifecta is a dark chocolate.  A wicked good dark chocolate.  This one almost didn't make it into the freezer.  I tasted the mix before freezing it to see if anything needed to be balanced.  It is like a liquid dark chocolate cake batter.

Banana Bread

We go through periods of intense banana consumption followed by a period of reduced banana consumption and then no banana consumption.  Sometimes there is no warning and all of a sudden I have bananas that are dark and not very appetizing looking.  What to do with the bananas that have ripened so far no one wants to eat them? 

Banana bread hot out of the oven!

Make banana bread! Yummy, yum, yum!

Champagne Mango Ice Cream

Did you know that there are over 50 varieties of mangoes?  And that mango is the most consumed fruit in the world?  (The last comes from Fruit Ninja's fruit facts... so take it with a grain of salt, or a slice of mango.)

Champagne mango ice cream.

Avocado Salad

Today I am feeling lazy.  I took the kids shopping last night after work and we went out to eat.  So today I am tired, run down, lazy if you will.  Wheat makes me sleepy.  I'm sensitive to gluten.  Not to the extent of the rest of my family... but a sandwich makes me, urm, relaxed (sluggish) and a big bowl of pasta puts me down for a nap.  And sometimes the next day I'm still lethargic.  Today is warm and muggy.  Not helping the lethargy...

Avocado salad

Fresh Mint Ice cream for the summertime!

I've been quiet... for almost 2 months.  Did you miss me?  We've been busy here.  Mark's job is taking us to Massachusetts.  Which means that we have to sell the house.  That means that we had to clean the house top to bottom and sort through... stuff.  Lots and lots of stuff.  We've only been here for 5 years.  How did we get so much stuff?

But now it is just wait and see... Who wants to buy a house?

Fresh Mint and Chocolate Chip ice cream

In the meantime I have a small problem.  One son who loves ice cream... and can't eat milk or eggs.  So we need vegan ice cream.  And he can't eat soy which is how most vegan ice cream is made.  (Technically it isn't ice cream unless it has cream in it.  But non-dairy frozen desert sounds rather unappetizing doesn't it?)  And it is summertime.  Summertime demands ice cream...