It's almost summer and the ice-cream van has been trawling our neighbourhood with his evil little tinkling. It reminds me when I was a kid, and we'd run out with our money. I'd always get a soft cone with coloured sprinkles all over it!
If you have a sweet tooth, you'd be pleased to know that you can make some FABULOUS raw icecreams that are dairy free, as well as free from all the other crap (stabilisers, flavouring, emulsions, etc).
Here are two icecreams that are really easy. Mark and I make them all the time.
You don't need an icecream maker. You can make them in a high speed blender, like the Vitamix. Or you can use a hand-held wand type. We used one from Tesco that was £5. It burnt out after a year, but it was what we could afford at the time!
Chocolate Ice-creamServes 2
This is gorgeous!!!
Slice your bananas and freeze them for at least half a day. Just buy bananas in bulk so you always have some handy.
Chuck in two big handfuls of bananas, a tablespoon of cacao powder, a sprinkle of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla (bean or essence), little bit of argave or honey (although it's sweet enough), some coconut flakes or chips, some nuts (brazil, hazelnut or macadamia are nice)
Basically you can put in any of those ingredients in any quantity you want. Leave the bananas for about a minute or two to soften. Pour in a little bit of water or milk (nut milk, or if in a pinch rice, oat or soy milk). Just to cover the blades. Too much and you'll get a smoothie.
Blend it up. Will take a while because it's so hard. With the Vitamix, you have to keep using the wand to push the mixture down. With the hand-wand, keep pushing it around the mixture. Stop when you have a fairly smooth and consistent texture - don't overblend.
Put in a nice glass, and you can decorate it with nuts, cacao nibs, whatever. I usually never have the patience!
Blackberry Gelati
This follows the exact same process, except you use half frozen bananas, and half frozen blackberries. Mark also added one fresh banana to compensate for the berries melting very quickly and being basically water.
You could use blueberries, strawberries, anything really!
You could also make half the amount, and add in chopped fruit at the bottom and just drizzle the gelati around it so you have half smooth and half textured.
If you are in a hurry, you could always buy some raw icecream from Booja Booja. Most of the ingredients are raw. They are completely dairy free, and have flavours like: Vanilla, Chocolate, Coconut, Ginger and Maple Pecan. Whole Foods, and Fresh and Wild stock them.
Please send me your raw ice-cream recipes. I'm stuck in a rut because the chocolate one is soooo good!
By the way, if you haven't checked out the blog
Raw Model, you really should do so. Anthony is a great writer. He's a model living in New York, who is building his own sustainable "farm" in Minnesota.
He's been doing some great
posts lately about learning to relax about the Raw Vegan diet, and do what works for him, is intuitively healthy, and not being dogmatic. I love it. I'm starting to feel the same way. It's not just about the food. It's living accordingly to your values, and what makes you feel great.
