Week 33: Ice Cream Sprinkled with Forgiveness

Tragic world events that are heartbreaking, frightening and infuriating; difficult personal challenges; memories of childhood pain and loss; and 32 weeks of feeling connected to my mom whose birthday was this week, has left me feeling a bit more emotional than usual.
The morning of her birthday—Tuesday, August 15th—I decided to devote
 more time to my morning art (no, I’m not an artist), meditation (even though I suck at it), when this piece that I started six months ago fell out of a back page, as if my mom wanted me to complete it for her…or, maybe for me…or maybe for all of us that struggle with the concept of forgiveness.
When I left this particular piece six months ago, the words “you can’t go back” and
“forgiveness” were there, but I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t like the direction it was going. So, this week I added some of the paint, pen, and stitching work; however, the message, was left alone.

It seems like such a contradiction to be reliving my childhood through recipes and stories, while also living by the tenet that “you can’t go back”.

Let’s see if I can clarify…
Going back, in the sense of regret, is unhealthy and unproductive. We can’t redo, relive or re-love; but we can remember, acknowledge, honor, and forgive NOW…because NOW is all we have!

I can and I do forgive my mom for not providing the unconditional love, care, and support that her child required. I can and I do forgive myself for 
being selfish, and feeling both ashamed and compassion-less for her. Sure, I’ll stumble and make a mess of this forgiveness thing but aren’t we all just doing the best we can with what we have?

So right now, in this moment, I am choosing love and forgiveness, as I wish my mom a Happy Birthday!

Now for Ice Cream and Sprinkles!

A few years ago, when I began to eat clean food, and very little (if any)
added sugar, I experimented with making ice cream using coconut milk, almond milk, full-fat coconut milk etc. I sweetened the ice cream with honey, dates, maple anything, but never white sugar. No matter how hard I tried to satisfy my craving for ice cream, I found that I couldn’t achieve the right consistency. Luckily, I was friends with a chef who owned a natural frozen treat company and he told me that it was all about the sweetener. Whether you’re using fresh fruit concentrate, honey, maple, or agave, he said that the base sweetener had to be used in large quantities to avoid the formation of annoying ice crystals. Since then, I’ve also learned that I have to include a fat in the ice cream base or I simply won’t achieve that undeniable, creamy frozen confection that I (and perhaps you, also) desire.

I did some homework this week and was intrigued by the varying opinions on creating dairy ice cream alternatives. Some cooks swear by nut butter as the fat base, others coconut oil, a handful favor coconut milk, and I even saw a couple of recipes that listed olive oil as an ingredient.

Original Recipe

There was nothing about my mother’s original ice cream recipe that I wanted
 to keep, except the egg, cream, and vanilla (like any good Rhode lslander). My mom loved coffee ice cream, so that was a must to honor her birthday.
For this ice cream revamp, I combined the wisdom of a few websites and my own DIY knowledge by trying my hand at four unique ice cream bases. Three were dairy-free,
 one was sugar-free, and one was just normal, because, by the time I read all
 of the recipes and did my homework, I was really craving ice cream 😉
Two of the four are quite good, the one that used coconut oil for fat was just okay, and the one that I didn’t even bother wasting the electricity to use my ice
cream maker to freeze, which was made with monk fruit sweetener, coconut milk, and coffee, was disgusting!

As far as sprinkles are concerned, I went with the junky ones for the photos, but if you know of any all- natural sprinkle sources, please let me know. I love sprinkles, aka jimmies, on my ice cream but I don’t want the questionable ingredients.

Maple Vanilla Ice Cream

In my opinion, vanilla ice cream is the best, because you can add toppings like fruit, sauces, cake, candies, nuts or cookies—it’s the best when you crave variety like me! In the interest of time, I didn’t cook the ingredients long enough to make a custard. It didn’t seem to have a negative impact on the flavor or texture, but I really do love custard based ice cream. If you want to give it a try and compare for yourself, you can find the
 instructions online.

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
1 cup organic whole milk
1 cup organic half-and-half (or whipping cream, if you prefer your cream thick)
1 cup of maple syrup (the real stuff)
1 tablespoon vanilla (or even better, fresh seeds from vanilla bean)

Directions:
Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan, and whisk.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard sticks to a wooden spoon. Avoid overheating to prevent curdling.

Chill the custard mixture in the refrigerator.

Use your ice cream maker according to instructions (or you could always make it the good, old-fashioned way with rock salt and ice).
Store in a freezer safe, air-tight container.

 

Cashew Coffee Vegan Ice Cream

*Keep in mind this is a clean vegan recipe, but using cashews as a base
 for ice cream makes for a very high-calorie treat.

Ingredients:
1 cup of raw cashews or cashew pieces
2 cups of almond or coconut milk
1 cup of real maple syrup
3 tablespoons of Medaglia D’oro instant espresso



Directions:
Soak cashews in two cups of boiling water for a minimum of eight hours.

 Drain the nuts

. In a high-speed blender (if you have one), combine cashews and two cups
 of almond or coconut milk until very smooth. Note: I don’t have a high-speed blender, so I used a Magic Bullet to purée the cashews, and then I combined all of the ingredients in my regular blender, which worked just fine.
Add the remaining ingredients to the cashew mixture and blend thoroughly.

Immediately add the mix to your ice cream maker and freeze according
to the instructions.

 Place in an air-tight container and store in the freezer for a couple of hours, until it reaches the right consistency.

Saturday 33 Recipe Pick

(this may change)

I’m not exactly sure what my schedule is going to be because I want to visit the baby 🙂

See you next week!