Homemade Ice Cream with no Cream !!!

A few weeks ago, I had been binging on sugar. Sugar in chocolate syrup, cake, mochas and chocolate !  I decided to put my sugar cravings at a stop by going on a sugar free diet from Monday - Friday, so apart from sugar in my coffee, I dont add any sugar any where else. Being so hard on oneself, you want to treat yourself to a sugar free dessert during the week. Here is my recipe of a homemade ice-cream made without any special equipment, dairy free, vegan and no added sugar.

Let's not waste anytime and get to the recipe, Frozen Banana & Cherry Ice Cream. I have adapted this recipe from The Simple Veganista blog. 

Ingredients:

*2  Bananas

*1 cup frozen cherries

*Chopped Chocolate

You will need to plan ahead of time to make this for dessert. If you have bananas that have browned lying on your kitchen counter, those are just perfect for this dessert. Peel the skins of, place them on a baking sheet and freeze them.

Cherry me red ;)

For frozen cherries, you can buy them frozen straight from the grocery store or freeze them by yourself. But if you will need to pit fresh cherries before freezing them.

Cherries !

Do not buy a special pitting machine for pitting just a few cherries as I think its just a waste of money. You can use a simple pastry tip or chop sticks to remove the pits. After you pit the cherries, freeze the cherries the same way as the bananas. 

The fruits need at least 3 - 4 hours to freeze.

Banans and Cherries ready to be frozen !

Once your fruits are frozen. Put them in a food processor or blender and blend, if its too hard to blend let it sit for 2-3 minutes and blend again.

Pitted cherries

The consistency should be thick and creamy just like a real ice-cream. Serve with chopped chocolate !!! You need to serve this immediately, as it is a soft serve ice-cream. And is an easy dessert to serve if you have guests.

I hope you do enjoy serving this homemade ice-cream with no cream.  

Soft serve frozen banana-cherry home made ice-cream with no cream ! 

My bowl of ice-cream

How to freeze Strawberries, handy Kitchen Tips !!!!

It is strawberry season finally, I have been waiting a whole year for it. Last year due to bad weather, the strawberry season was very short and I missed out on eating my favorite Hood Strawberries. Last week, I went berry picking with my friend and her cute 11 month old daughter . We had a great time, as we were the only 3 ppl on the strawberry field. I picked not much but about 5 lbs of strawberries. I should say I was very very thrilled. I came home not knowing what I am going to do with 5lbs of strawberries.

5lbs of Strawberries and fun :) 

Here's what I did to freeze almost half of my berries to eat later. I learnt these tips from my friend whose mother freezes them this way.

It must be common sense to many of you, but I never knew this until a few days ago and thought it would be nice to share this with all of you. Strawberries once picked can get mushy in 2 days, so you can do this either the same day or the next day after you pick them.

I picked every single one of these :) 

Step 1 : Put your strawberries in a colander and wash them thoroughly. Look for dirt marks on the strawberry and wash off completely.

I love taking macro shots of strawberries, I think they are beautiful

Step 2 : Place a kitchen towel or napkin and let your strawberries dry completely. Make sure there is not much water on the strawberries, and they are not wet. I did not remove the tops or chop them, as I wanted to keep them as is. You can take off their tops and slice them before you are ready to freeze.

Step 3: Use a cookie sheet with parchment paper on it, place strawberries individually on the sheet. They should not be sticking to each other. Freeze them for a couple of hours. This extra step will ensure you have individually frozen strawberries and not ones that are clumped and frozen to each other. It will also be easier to use them.

Step 4: Remove them from the freezer and put them in a ziplock bag and back in the freezer again.

Tada, its that easy. 

I hope you have fun strawberry picking with your family !!! :) 

My basket of happiness