"Pumpkin Pie" ice cream (without the pumpkin)

This was my favorite holiday treat this year.  The two things I miss most from the SAD world are pumpkin pie and peanut butter cups.  But I think I have a good substitute for both (the latter is still in my mind).  I made a half-recipe of StraightUPFood's Pumpkin Pie and made it into muffins with the crust at the bottom.  It was good, and next time I'd make a quarter recipe since I'm the only one to eat it.  Hmm, I wonder if it would be better with the butternut squash too.  Pumpkin is not very tasty on its own.

I like this ice cream even better than the pumpkin pie and it's less calorie-rich.  It was inspired by Carol on the Fuhrman forums.

Ingredients
4 oz frozen cooked butternut squash (I baked mine)
1 frozen banana
1 medjool date
1/2 oz walnuts
1/2 cup soy milk
1 tsp vanilla or scrape in some vanilla bean
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (it was actually good without)

Put it all into a high-powered blender.   Let it sit for about 10 minutes so the frozen stuff isn't super hard.  Then blend up.  you might have to walk away again for a few minutes and let it sit (blender off) and thaw some more.  Blend it up nice and smooth.  It tastes like the decadent pumpkin pie frozen custard that I used to get.

Note:  If you don't have a high-powered blender, you could try making it in a food processor.  Or in a low-powered blender add more soy milk and another date and a little more pumpkin pie spice and call it a milkshake.

Here are the ingredients in the blender:

I used vanilla bean which you can see as the black specks.

Here's 1 yummy serving (makes 2 and I eat them both for a meal).

Berry banana yogurt chia pudding

A friend visiting me today mentioned that she would like to give up dairy and sugar someday, and I said I know how hard that is, but I'm making this great fruit mix that tastes like dessert to me, and I gave her some and she agreed.  It reminds me of this dessert we used to have when we were kids with vanilla wafers and pudding and bananas and whipped cream, remember that?   Right now, the berries from California are good, and when the bananas are good too (ripe), I mix together sliced bananas, berries, 1-2 tsp chia seeds (depending on the amount of fruit), and 1 serving of soy yogurt.  I do that in the morning, and then by lunch and dinner, the chia seeds have expanded and gelled with the bananas and that's why it reminds me of pudding.  So that's my dessert for lunch and dinner.   It's also good without the bananas but not as sweet.

And since people also often ask me about how to make soy yogurt, here's a reminder of that.  I use this yogurt maker and this yogurt starter, and a quart of unsweetened soy milk.  I open the soy milk container (keep it at room temperature), pour in a bowl, add 1/8 tsp of the yogurt starter, and stir with a whisker.  Then add the milk to each of the jars, put them in the yogurt maker without their lids, turn on the machine, wait 12 hours, and then it's done. 

Put the lids on and refrigerate.  This is the best non-dairy yogurt I have ever eaten.  It's a good sour cream substitute so good with veggies, in mushroom stroganoff, on tacos and other Mexican-style foods.  It's probably good in potato salad.  And of course it's great with fruit. 

Dessert

So what does a girl who doesn't eat wheat or processed sweeteners, and is lazy, do for dessert?   This is a good one:

That's frozen fruit and soy yogurt.  The fruit is what I use for housemate's smoothie.  So it's in the freezer, ready to go.  It's a mixture of berries and some sweeter fruit like bananas and pineapple.

yummy dessert

More fun with the homemade soy yogurt:

This is one slice of manna bread, some fresh blueberries, 1/2 sliced banana, frozen sweet cherries, and a serving of homemade soy yogurt (about 5 oz).  I love this--my version of a banana split.  If you are looking for a traditional sweet dessert, this isn't it, but it is very yummy.  It could be breakfast too.

mango-cherry ice cream

Today I was messing around with desserts.  I confirmed once again that I am the worst baker in the world!  I was trying out a "chickpea blondie" recipe that someone posted on the Fuhrman forums.  It was okay but, well, I didn't follow the instructions exactly (this is why I'm the worst baker in the world), and it was dry and just not my favorite treat.  Then I tried my own variation which was 10 times worse.  This had cherries and pinto beans and walnuts and dates.  It was a purple gooey glob of so-so.   so a few hours later I saw those dates lying around and I can't resist a good date (which is why I don't buy them very often!).  So I thought, oh, why not some old fashioned ice cream.  Now this turned out good!  I didn't measure anything so I'm just guessing below:

Ingredients:
juice of one orange
1 medjool date
1 cup frozen sweet cherries
1 cup frozen mango (vary ratio of mangos and cherries to your preferences)
a few walnut pieces (1/2 oz at most)

blend the date and walnuts and orange juice in a high-speed blender.  Add the cherries and mangos; blend until smooth, or not if you want it chunky.     Serves 2.

Quick Banana Bread

A while ago I posted a recipe for Instant Banana Bread.  Here's a slightly more complicated version.  It's verging on too complicated for me but I have a really low tolerance for complicated recipes.  This still qualifies as simple and in the "lazy chef" category.  You can make as little or much as you want, which is what I like about it because I would be too tempted by a full loaf of banana bread.

Ingredients:
some manna bread, multigrain is good.
some sliced ripe banana
some dates pitted
shot of vanilla (1/4-1/2 tsp depending on taste and how much bread you are making)
sprinkle of cinnamon (1/8-1/4 tsp)

Here's everything in a bowl:

Grind it up in a food processor.  Smash into a pan.  I didn't make much so my bread is going to be sideways--it's only about 1/3" thick in this pan:

Bake in the oven.  Here's where I wasn't sure what to do.  I did about 300 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.  I wasn't trying to cook it, just heat it and dry it out a bit so it would be more bread like.  I cut this into 3 pieces that looked like slices of banana bread!  It was pretty good.  Let me know if you try this and like it or have suggestions for improving it.

Super Easy Date Nut Balls

I posted a while back a recipe for Date Nut Balls.  But these are a little too complicated for me and dirty too many dishes.  I've become the "Lazy Chef."  I find that easy recipes can taste as good as complicated ones.   I came up with a real easy way to make these.  It requires coconut date rolls, which are smashed dates rolled in coconut shavings.  The key is, someone has already smashed up the dates for you.

Ingredients:
some nuts and/or seeds (I used raw cashews)
coconut date rolls
optional:  a little vanilla and/or some cocoa powder

Grind up the nuts in a blender or coffee grinder--can be as fine or chunky as you want.  mash into the coconut date rolls and roll into balls.  It only takes a few minutes and it's easy to clean the blender/grinder.  How easy is that?!   It's super good.  You can make as little or much as you want.  Here a photo I snapped after eating too many of them:

Instant banana bread

I didn't snap a picture.  This was just fun to do and tasted good.

Ingredients:

1 piece of manna bread

a few slices of a ripe banana

That's the minimum amount of ingredients.  If you want it more rich-tasting, you can add one or all of these things:

small amount of chopped date or date syrup

small amount of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans, or some other nut/seed

Mash everything together.  Reshape into a piece of bread.  Enjoy.  You might have to eat it with a spoon.  I just thought of something--you could toast it in the oven for a few minutes.  It tastes like banana bread to me!  

pineapple sorbet on manna bread

This was good!   The ingredients were

about 1 cups fresh pineapple

1 small banana

2 pieces of dried sliced mango

2 medjool dates

a piece of manna bread

I think that was all.  Afterwards I wondered if dried coconut shavings would have been a good addition. Here's what I did:  Peeled the banana, broke into pieces, put in freezer.  throw the pineapple in the freezer.  soak the dates and mango.  Go mountain biking for a few hours (what else?!).   Throw everything but the manna bread in the blender and blend until smooth.  place over a piece of manna bread (optional).  The manna bread tastes like cake to me.

banana bread

Not my recipe, another one from Virtually Vegan Mama. I'd like someone to make this and give me a piece. :) It looks good.

more desserts

ooh, just came across these too:

Banana-Sweetened Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies from Carrie On Vegan.

and Grab-n-Go Chocolate-Banana Oat Bars from the same. This looks even easier, more my style and she says she likes it better. I would just grind up some hemp seed to substitute for the hemp protein powder.

Quinoa, Apricot and Oat Muffin Clusters

Just saw this posted on virtually vegan mama's blog. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks good to me. hmm, I'm having a potluck next week. Maybe I'll try it out there.

date pecan butter

Today I decided to see if I could make a sweet nut butter. The answer is yes, but watch out--it tastes great and is really rich. It is not so easy to make though. I made it in a blender and you need to add a lot of nuts to make it work in the blender, 2 cups works.

Ingredients:

2 cups nuts. I used raw pecans, which were really good!

dates to taste---maybe 2-4 medjool dates (remove pits)

soy milk or nut milk or water--maybe 1/2 cup? depends on the consistency you want.

1/2-1 tsp vanilla (optional).

Blend in a high-powered blender. Blend, mash (with plunger or spoon), blend, mash, blend, add more liquid if you need it. It takes a while to get it blended up. Here's what it looks like:

Housemate had it on bread, I had it with strawberries. It was very yummy. It is very rich and hard not to eat too much. Then housemate ran out of bread and I needed to make her smoothies, so I turned this into cream by adding more soymilk, water, and a few more dates. I had some on top of blackberries and used the rest in the smoothies.

Corn, walnuts, and coconut

This is a nice little dessert for me. It might sound odd, but it's good. The trick is to get high quality sweet corn; otherwise, it's not dessert.

Ingredients:

High quality sweet corn, fresh or frozen

chopped walnuts

spoonful of unsweetened coconut shavings

Combine in a bowl, heat in the microwave until warm. This follows a similar theme as my sweet pea snack and berry dessert.

mmm, cashew pistachio date cream

I got some cashews, pistachios and dates for housemate's smoothies, and I decided to mix them up ahead of time and enjoy some of the results myself, over berries, which was yummy.

Ingredients:

cashews, pistachios, dates and water.

You are probably wondering, how much? well, it depends on what you are using it for. The smoothies don't need much extra water so I used less, making it very rich and creamy. I got the dates and pistachios already packed in small bags at the store, so it was about 1 cup pistachios, 1 cup cashews, and 10 medium medjool dates. I added about 2 cups of water, so it was very creamy. If you want more of a milk, use fewer nuts and dates, and more water. You can weigh amounts to make sure you are getting reasonable daily portions of the nuts and dates.

Next, blend it all up in a high-speed blender.

Here it is before blending:

And after:

It has a green tint to it from the pistachios. Does it ever taste good! Here was my cut of the profits, poured over fresh blueberries and blackberries.

Yum! The rest I poured into cups for making housemate's smoothies (4 batches totaling 8 servings).

Hemp milk

Ingredients:

1/8 - 1/4 cup hemp seeds

1 cup water

1-2 dates and/or other dried fruit (optional)

1/4 tsp vanilla (optional)

Blend in a blender until smooth. The amount of hemp seeds determines if you want more of a milk or cream. I used the full 1/4 cup, and it was very creamy. I tested it out on top of a few blackberries:

It was yummy! I used some more in ice cream.

I stored it in a couple of small mason jars.

Easiest and best banana walnut ice cream

This is my all-time favorite ice cream.

Ingredients:

frozen banana pieces (to freeze, peel ripe bananas, break into small pieces, seal in a plastic bag in freezer).

handful of walnuts

Blend in a high-powered blender. Now, with no liquid, it's hard to blend at first. Sometimes it catches and makes a real creamy thick ice cream, like here:

Other times, especially if you make a small portion, it doesn't blend so well and then it's chunky, which is good too! I like it both ways, creamy and chunky. I've tried many ice cream recipes with added nut milks, sweeteners (e.g., dates) and berries, and this is my favorite. But of course, for variety, I like the others too.

apricot oat balls

Dr. Fuhrman is running this "Holiday Challenge" and he sends us a recipe a day. I decided to try Friday's recipe, the "No-cook Apricot Oat Bars." Well, I'm not a good baker (even when it's "no-cook"!) because I don't follow directions like I should, so this turned into something else quite different. And since it did, I figure I can post it as a new recipe.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup old fashioned oats

1 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup raw almonds

2 Tbsp raw sunflower seeds

1 tsp flax seed

2 cups dates, pitted

1/2 cup dried apricot, unsulfured, chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Blend the oats to a coarse flour in a blender (my first mistake, I was suppose to process until coarse in a food processor!). Blend 1/2 cup cashews until fine. Add the cashews to the food processor with some water and dates, and process until it smooth. Blend the other nuts and seeds until coarse or fine, in the blender. Add these and everything else to the food processor and process until it stops doing anything useful--a big ball rolling around. Roll into a bunch of little balls.

This is super sweet! I wouldn't call this "healthy". And it's quite high-calorie. You could probably half the amount of dates. However, this is great to take to a party. I ate several and then decided I'd had more than enough, so I saved the rest for a party. Just to make sure I didn't eat any more and to make sure the SAD eaters would like it (SAD = Standard American Diet), I combined cocoa powder and powdered sugar in a bowl (hot cocoa mix works too!), and doused all the nut balls in this mixture. They became chocolate covered nut balls. People loved them and they disappeared quickly! Sorry I forgot to snap a picture. They were cute little balls.

"cake", berries, & "cream"

Ingredients for 2 servings:

2 essene buds or 2 slices of manna bread (optional)

1/2 cup cashews

1 ripe banana or 2-4 dates

1/4 cup soy, almond or hemp milk

1/4 cup water

2 cups berries or cherries (can be fresh or frozen)

Blend the cashews, milk, and banana/dates to make the cream--add the water as needed, it varies depending on whether you used bananas and/or dates. My bananas weren't fully ripe so I used dates instead. It was too sweet for me (obviously I used too many!). I will try bananas next time. Place the essene buds or bread on 2 plates, heat up in the microwave, top with the cream and berries. The blackberries were fresh and yummy. I enjoyed this a lot. This was inspired by Essie's Christmas dessert, from the Fuhrman forums. She didn't include the "cake" part, I was just in the mood for it. I'll try it next time without

My favorite ice cream

Wow, I loved this. It's not super sweet. I'm realizing I don't like the really sweet stuff. But it's easy to sweeten to taste with your favorite sweetener (e.g., dates, date syrup, maple syrup, etc.). I'm also realizing I like the taste of soy milk. If you don't, use hemp or almond milk instead. Oh, I should give credit to the inspiration for this. It is a modification of "Healthy Elijah's Chunky Blueberry Walnut Sorbet". His recipe calls for 2 cups of walnuts which is about 1.75 too many for me!

Ingredients for 2 servings:

2 bowls in the freezer

1 banana, frozen

1/3 cup unsweetened soy, almond, or hemp milk

1/2 oz walnuts (about 8 halves)

2 cups frozen berries or other fruit

1/8 tsp vanilla (optional; I usually do without)

sweetener to taste if you prefer (dates, syrup etc). (optional; I prefer without but guests might prefer with)

Blend the banana & soy milk (and optional sweetener and vanilla) until smooth. Then add half the berries and blend some more, then add the rest and blend until chunky. It will get very thick and that's good.

I made this today with strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. I love the chunkiness!

(I updated this after making it the second time).

Total calories: 376. protein 10 g (10%), fat 13g (31%), carbs 62g (59%).