Let me be honest. I’m 29 weeks pregnant and my appetite has kicked in. Because I look for nutrient dense foods as my main source of nourishment, I need to get creative sometimes. Right now in my third trimester, healthy fats, protein and calcium are important.
I began thinking about the two summer months I will spend (very) pregnant, and how to keep cool with treats that are dairy free and will keep both my girls and this mama happy when these two utterly fantastic words popped into my end:
ICE CREAM (with several exclamation points behind it, for the sake of honesty).
We had a big and loud homemade ice cream maker I bought from someone on Craigslist for a few years, and while it was fun, I didn’t like that it took all day to make ice cream. I mean, come on, when it’s time for ice cream, it’s time for ice cream.
So a few weeks ago I donated it and bought a new smaller and quieter ice cream maker on Amazon that has made all my dairy-free ice cream dreams come true.
We have made strawberry, vanilla and a couple weeks ago when it first got warm, I created a dairy-free chunky monkey ice cream that reminds me of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey (or whatever it’s called — it’s been so long since I’ve consumed moo cow dairy ice cream that I can’t quite remember).
And I have to share it as it’s a dream come true.
And there’s not a bad thing in it, so naturally we’ve had it for breakfast a few times around here. I mean, really, what’s wrong with full fat coconut milk, raw honey, roasted almonds, frozen bananas and a smidgeon of Enjoy Life chocolate chips?
It is rich, though, so a little goes a long way.
Dairy Free Chunky Monkey Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 2 cans full fat coconut milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 cup raw honey
- 1/2 cup chopped roasted almonds
- 1/3 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips
- 2 cups chopped frozen bananas***
Instructions
- Empty all contents into your high powered blender and pulse until combined.
- Pour into ice cream maker, turn power on and in 20-25 minutes you’ve got a fantastic soft serve.
- To make it easier to scoop once frozen, I pour it from the ice cream maker frozen container into small round snap-lock glass containers and freeze. This does harden up, so you have to thaw it for about a half hour before eating (that is, if there’s anything left once you’ve got your soft serve).
- I have found setting it out and using an ice cream scoop dipped in warm water helps, and because it’s so rich, a little goes a long way to making the people under my roof mighty happy.
***Banana note: we use frozen bananas all the time, whether in smoothies or to make banana ice cream on its own with the blender, so here’s a great tip. When you purchase bananas, buy two bunches. Or when you have bananas that are super ripe this is a great use as well. Peel them and slice them into coins. You can either freeze them flat on parchment paper and once frozen, drop them into a Ziploc bag, OR, just place the coins directly into a zip loc bag, laying them flat and separating them. If you don’t do this, you’ll have whole bananas you can’t peel or half bananas that are peeled that won’t chop up in a blender because they are a virtual stalagmite. When you have a recipe that calls for frozen bananas, just break off a chunk of what you need and toss into the blender.
