I Scream for Ice Cream (Banana Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Soft Serve)

Really, if that's what it takes to get ice cream, I will scream.

Today, around 11 am Josh looked at me and said "Ice cream today?" I casually said "Sounds good." Oh yeah I am that cool. I'm all like yeah, what 'evs. But inside I was very much ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM! I immediately started thinking about what flavors I wanted. Mentally I very well may have planned my day around ice cream.

So we hung out till the middle of the afternoon. I silently dealt with the internal war of deciding if I can ask if we are heading out for ice cream or if that will make me seem to desperate. I chose to say nothing and just save my excitement for that first bite I would be having (at some point today). Then we went out to run some errands. Everywhere we went I made mental notes of all the possible ice cream places near us and listed them in my mind in order of preference. Still I kept all this quiet.

We finished our errands and headed home. We ate dinner then Josh and Little Bit turned on a video game to play together. That's when I broke my silence. "Ice cream?" You know, just throwing it out there, letting him know I have not forgotten. He smiled at me, but that smile made it obvious he didn't really want it anymore. So I tried again, "I'll go pick it up, you two can stay here and play games, just tell me what you want." That same smile. Darn! And he said he didn't want any anymore. Shoot.

I didn't give up there, though. "Are you sure?" I asked about 10 minutes later. And, "Really, really sure?" another 10 minutes after that. Yeah, he was sure. Did I give up yet? No, not really. I went paced the living room for a minute and contemplated just going, then I realized the roads are not really good right now and that it may be unwise. I mean I would really kick myself if I wrecked or got stuck all in the name of dessert. And, a little more to the point, I really didn't need to cheat anymore. Part of Josh's smile said to me, "I know you're cheating again." I have been horrible about cheating on my Paleo diet lately and I know and he knows, I want to do it right again. So I decided not to leave.

I almost gave up at that point. Well kind of. I started thinking how I really don't want to break out my ice cream maker, and that takes too much time anyways.  Then I remembered banana ice creams. I had never made one before, but this was as quick and as close to the real stuff as I could possibly get tonight. So I did.. It's not bad. Not exactly what I was itching for but it scratched the itch anyways. And I didn't cheat when I really wanted to! (Finally.)

For this recipe you will need a powerful blender or food processor.

Banana Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Soft Serve
(Boy that's a mouthful of a name isn't it?!)
Serves 3 (or 2 if you want a lot, or 1 if you're really pigging out.)

3 frozen very ripe bananas
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 TBS almond butter
Paleo Chocolate Syrup (recipe follows)
 1-2 TBS chocolate chips (I suggest Enjoy Life brand

1. Slice frozen bananas and place them in blender.
2. Add vanilla, and almond butter. Blend until smooth.
3. Pour a layer of chocolate syrup on top, pulse to mix.
4. Add the chocolate chips and pulse a few time to break them up.
5. Top with chocolate syrup and enjoy!

This should be sweet enough as is because of the ripe bananas. If you prefer it sweeter, taste it before you add any chocolate and you can add some honey or agave syrup to taste. The syrup hardens when its cold, like a chocolate shell so it will not remain syrupy when you put it on top. When I made this, I added too much syrup for my taste and ended up with a stronger chocolate flavor than I intended. This ended up working for my benefit though, as I was tasting all that chocolate I realized it could taste kind of like the Blizzard I wanted if I added Heath pieces. The results were yummy. (See I still cheated a little.)

Paleo Chocolate Syrup (Chocolate Shell)


1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons maple syrup
! teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients well. I store in a squeeze bottle in the fridge. This will harden when it's cold so you must warm it up before using.

Tweet

Blackberry Swirl Cheesecake

When I think of the Superbowl I think of good friends and good food. Who really cares about the game anyways? (Ok, I know people do, because I hear them screaming in the background while I am chatting it up with the other people who really don’t care about the game.) This year we are having tacos at the party we are going to.  So, what do I want to bring to go with tacos? Cheesecake! Really it doesn’t matter what else you are eating, can you ever go wrong with cheesecake? No, no you cannot.

I’ve actually been itching to have a reason to make another Paleo cheesecake.  I hate how making one desert makes me want to make another. Now that I made this Blackberry Swirl Cheesecake, I started coming up with great ideas for other flavors. So, I will itch again to find a reason to make another cheesecake.

Blackberry Swirl Cheesecake

Crust

2 cups raw pecans
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup pure maple syrup, grade B
1/8 teaspoon salt

Cheese cake

2 cups cashews soaked over night

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup pure maple syrup, grade B
4 tablespoons coconut water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup zucchini (peeled & diced)
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar (If you don’t have coconut palm sugar just use another 1/4 cup of maple syrup for a total of 1/2 cup)
1/4 teaspoon salt
The juice of one medium lemon

 Blackberry sauce

1 package frozen blackberries (about 2.5 cups)

1 TBS arrowroot powder + 2 TBS water

1.       Make blackberry sauce. Thaw berries then heat over medium heat berries and their juices in a small sauce pan. Stir frequently. Allow berries to come to a boil. Mix arrowroot powder and water in a cup. Turn heat to medium low then slowly pour arrowroot water into the berries, and cook until thickened, about 5-10 minutes. Strain sauce in a fine mesh sieve to remove all the seeds, gently press it to get all the sauce. Put sauce in a baggie and store in the fridge.

2.       Make crust. Place the pecans in a food processor, mix until pecans are a fine meal. Add the salt, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Mix until well blended, it will form a ball. Wrap a spring form pan in saran wrap. Press the crust mixture into the bottom of the lined pan. Freeze crust while you work on the rest.

3.       Drain and rinse cashews. Mix cashews in a blender or food processor until they are very broken down. Pour in the coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and coconut water. Blend until smooth. Blend in zucchini, coconut sugar, salt and lemon. Results should be completely smooth.

4.       Pour half of the cheesecake mixture in a bowl and set aside.  Pour half of the blackberry sauce in the remaining cheesecake mix (snip the end of the baggie for easy pouring).  Blend until mixed. 

5.       Pour half of each of the regular and berry cheese cake mix over the crust, kind of blob them in piles so the colors are separate. Use a skewer to mix the colors.

6.       For the second layer pour in the cheesecake mix, placing the purple on top of where white was and white on top of where purple was. Mix this with the skewer.

Yeah...opps, I had more purple than I did white.

7.       Put the rest of the blackberry sauce on top and mix in. Freeze for at least 4 hours. Allow to thaw for about an hour before serving. Cut with a hot knife. Store the leftovers in freezer. 

Thanks to McCartney Cabinets I had a beautiful kitchen for this slice photo! This was a beautiful black and white kitchen with a farmhouse sink that I was gaga over.

Tweet