For a brief moment, I considered making my veganmofo theme a His Dark Materials one this year. But after several days of wracking my brain and only coming up with a few scattered foodstuffs – namely, marzipan, chocolatl, Tokay, tea crackers and vegan seal blubber (!) – I gave up on the idea, with not a small twinge of regret. But! We can still have marzipan and chocolate, can’t we? I don’t know about y’all, but I fancy some sweet almond paste today! Plus, I did promise you a marzipan recipe earlier this month, did I not?

Since marzipan ice cream is a more unusual flavor, I decided to try my hand at making my own concoction. Plan A was to use a standard vanilla ice cream recipe as a base, and then mix marzipan blended with (vegan) heavy cream (for a creamy effect) in with the ice cream after it was processed through an ice cream machine, à la this recipe for Marzipan Swirl Ice Cream (veganized, of course). For the marzipan, I used this recipe (also veganized!) for Almond Paste at food.com. Epic disaster!

I’m not sure what (if anything) I did wrong, but the end result was less like paste and more like soup. Even after I doubled the dry ingredients, the almond “paste” had at best the consistency of caramel sauce – not even close to paste-like. Just as I was on the brink of despair, it hit me: I was planning on liquefying the marzipan anyhow, so what’s the diff? If anything, this saved me the extra steps of making vegan heavy cream and then heating it with the marzipan to make the “cream” for the swirl. Score!

So here’s Plan B, the result of a happy accident which saved me at least a half hour of extra work and a quarter sink of dirty dishes. May this little taste of the sweet stuff bring you a fraction of the wisdom and fortune that it did to Mary Malone – and, by extension, Lyra, Will, and all the animals of all the worlds, human and non.

Go forth and play the serpent, my friends.

 

FIND THE GIRL AND THE BOY. WASTE NO MORE TIME.
But why?
YOU MUST PLAY THE SERPENT.

- Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials (The Subtle Knife)
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“Playing the Serpent” Marzipan Ice Cream

Ingredients

for the marzipan:

1 1/3 cups dried blanched almonds or almond meal
1 1/3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon almond extract
1/2 cup water

for the ice cream batter:

1 cup soy or almond milk, divided
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 cups soy creamer
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

(More below the fold…)

Peanut Butter & Jelly & Banana Ice Cream: like PB&J and ‘naner sandwiches, but frozen! This is a quick and simple dessert that’s relatively healthy, especially where ice cream is concerned. Best of all, because it uses frozen, over-ripe bananas as its base, you can make it with a food processor or blender – no expensive ice cream machine required! (Though I do love mine something awful. Don’t worry baby, I ain’t ever gonna quit you!)

Along with apples, bananas and frugal veganism, ice cream is one of my unofficial veganmofo themes this year. Keep your eyes peeled* for future recipes – and in the meantime, check out the ice cream tag for more!

* I’m so frugal, I even recycle jokes. Snap!

 
Peanut Butter & Jelly & Banana Ice Cream

(Makes slightly more than one quart of ice cream.)

Ingredients

4-5 over-ripe bananas, peeled, sliced and frozen
1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy or chunky
1/4 to 1/2 cup jam (I used grape at the husband’s request)
nuts to garnish (optional; I used a mix of peanuts and soy nuts in the picture above, but only because Shane finished off the peanuts without telling me and then left the empty container in the cabinet to boot. TWIST THE KNIFE WHY DON’T YOU?)

Directions

Combine the frozen bananas and peanut butter in a food processor and mix until smoothly blended. Try not to overprocess the batter, as this can result in soupy ice cream.

Transfer to an airtight container. Add the jam a spoonful at a time and mix either thoroughly or just enough to give it a “swirly” effect – it’s your call!

If the soft serve is too much on the soft side, store in the freezer for an hour or until it’s thickened up a bit.

Enjoy: immediately! often! for breakfast, lunch or dinner! with omnivores! for an audience! whenever you have “spoiled” bananas on hand! (frugal vegans don’t waste food, yo!)

Frugal vegans don’t waste food! Food waste on both the personal and institutional levels is a distressing problem: a 1995 estimate put our food waste at 27% of all edible food, while a more recent 2003 study found that the average American household throws out 14% of all food brought into the house. Among the many strategies I outlined for avoiding food waste during last year’s veganmofo – freezing extra baked goods, sharing with others and dumpster diving, to name a few – was freezing surplus or soon-to-spoil fruits and veggies. Banana ice cream – made from overly ripe, frozen bananas – is a delicious subset of this tip that deserves further exploration, especially given its popularity this year!

As fruit ripens, its sugar content changes; it becomes sweeter, softer, and less green:

The process of ripening is controlled by the plant hormone called ethylene, which is a gas created by plants from the amino acid called methionine. A plant hormone is a chemical that regulates growth and other processes. Storing fruit in a closed container keeps the ethylene from drifting away and can increase the rate at which the fruit ripens. Ethylene increases the intracellular levels of certain enzymes in fruit. Enzymes are proteins that make certain chemical reactions occur faster than they normally would. The key enzymes involved in fruit ripening are amylase and pectinase. Amylase breaks down starch to produce simple sugars, so is responsible for the increasing sweetness of a ripening fruit. Pectinase breaks down pectin, a substance that keeps fruit hard, so is responsible for the increasing softness of ripening fruit. Other enzymes cause the color of the fruit to change by breaking down chlorophyll (which is green) and replacing it with pigments that are yellow, red, or other colors.

This process is evident in bananas, which turn from bitter to sweet as their peels change in color from greenish-yellow to yellow, and then gradually develop brown spots. Wait too long to crack the peel, and you’ll be greeted with a mushy, sugary mess (and possibly a swarm of fruit flies, to boot!). While many a banana has been tossed due to over-ripeness, because of their sugar content – as well as the way in which freezing alters their texture – brown bananas make the perfect base for nondairy ice cream. Better yet, this frozen treat can be made in a blender or food processor, no ice cream machine required! (Though I do love my ice cream maker like a member of the family.)

Banana ice cream is a great way to use up “accidentally spoiled” bananas – but if you’re anything like me, you’ll soon find yourself buying yellow bananas and allowing them to turn brown, just so you can make another batch of banana ice cream! However you come across them, preparing your over-ripe bananas for ice cream is simple: simply peel and slice them, then transfer them to an airtight container and store in the freezer until ready for use. Next, you’ll need a recipe; here are a few of my favorites to get you started!

two-ingredient ice cream, strawberry pecan ice cream and breakfast banana ice cream – All from hipsterfood, who tipped me off to the latest craze in vegan desserts.

Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream Sandwiches – Creamed, frozen bananas sandwiched between two vegan peanut butter cookies? Sign me up!

Banana Bread Soft Serve Ice Cream – Like chocolate chip banana bread, but frozen! My most favorite of the bunch, hands down.

Chocolate Almond Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream – Inspired by these Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies from the PPK.

Blueberry Banana Ice Cream – Flavored with blueberry sauce, which was made using (wait for it!) soon-to-spoil blueberries!

Banana ice cream on fuck yeah vegan ice cream – A little self-promotion never hurt anyone, wink.

…and if all goes as planned, I should have at least two more banana ice cream recipes to share with y’all during veganmofo, so keep your eyes peeled. (Peeled! Get it?)

For more tips and tricks for using up brown bananas, check out The Magic of Frozen Bananas on Care2.

What’s your favorite way to rescue “spoiled” bananas from the compost pile?

…or Blueberry Banana Ice Cream, if you prefer!

This is another simple, no-ice cream machine-required kind of recipe, where frozen bananas serve as the base of the dish and blueberry sauce (made from on-the-verge fresh blueberries, natch!) provides the added flavoring. Theoretically this recipe is suitable for the dogs too, except that the blueberries are apt to stain their fur or – worse yet – your furniture. Spoil them at your own risk!

 
Banana Blueberry Ice Cream

Makes two to three generous servings!

Ingredients

5 ripe bananas (the browner the better!), sliced and frozen
2 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries
3/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of water
spices to taste, such as cinnamon or nutmeg; I used a dash of lemon peel, since I had some on hand

Directions

1. Peel and slice the bananas. Place in an airtight container and store in the freezer overnight.

2. In a small saucepan, combine the blueberries, sugar and water and cook on medium heat, stirring vigilantly, until the blueberries have burst and the sauce is thick and almost jam-like (about 15 minutes). Transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge overnight or until chilled.

3. In a food processor, combine the bananas and blueberry sauce (as well as any spices your taste buds may desire) and process until smooth. Be careful not to over-mix, lest the ice cream get too soupy. If necessary, transfer to an airtight container and chill in the freezer for an hour to firm up the ice cream.

4. Enjoy often. This dessert is good for you, yo!

Sure, so this morning’s thunderstorm brought water gushing (alright, leaking) into the bathroom! And maybe my kitchen appliances are all dying at the same time! And don’t even get me started on these dogs, who I love to death but nevertheless won’t stfu long enough for me to heart myself think! But that’s okay, cause I’ve got a freezer full of ice cream! (Incidentally, the freezer is one of our many ailing appliances, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.) And ice cream makes everything better!

… right?

Vanilla So Delicious & His Dark Materials

Reading the end of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and sobbing into a vat of vanilla So Delicious ice cream. DEAR DOG WILL THE TEARS EVER STOP?!?

No. They will never stop. Ever.

Blueberry Sauce & Vanilla Ice Cream Swirl

Vanilla So Delicious smothered in homemade blueberry sauce!

For the sauce, combine two cups of fresh or frozen blueberries, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring vigilantly, until the blueberries have burst and the sauce is think and almost jam-like (about 15 minutes). If you’re serving this over ice cream, chill in the freezer for +/- 30 minutes so that it doesn’t melt the ice cream on impact!

This is a great way to use up “borderline” fresh blueberries, fyi. (Frugal vegans don’t waste food!)

Lemonade Ice Cream

Like a party in your mouth! A SEX PARTY. Yeah, I said it.

(More below the fold…)

Vegan Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream, y’all! This dish is a mashup of the chocolate ice cream recipe found in Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop (with extra chocolaty goodness for the occasion!) and VegWeb’s vegan peanut butter cups, which I got hooked on over the holidays. Basically you just make a quart of chocolate ice cream – you can use the recipe below, or your own favorite version – and, when it’s (almost) done processing, mix in chunks of vegan chocolate and a batch of peanut butter cup filling and – voilà! – Vegan Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream!

Tastes every bit as decadent as it sounds, let me tell you. Seriously, three scoops and I was done for the day!

Vegan Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 cup soy milk, divided
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 cups soy creamer
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar

+/- 1/4 cup chocolate chips or chocolate bark

Directions

Make the chocolate ice cream batter!

1. In a small mug, whisk 1/4 of the soy milk with the arrowroot powder and set aside.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine the rest of the soy milk with the soy creamer, sugar and cocoa powder. Over medium heat, whisk until blended. Add the chocolate chips and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the chocolate chips are fully melted. Increase the heat and bring to a slow boil.

3. Once the batter has started to boil, remove from the stove immediately and mix in the arrowroot slurry. Add the vanilla extract, whisking well. Store covered in the fridge for at least four hours (or until chilled) before processing. (I prefer to chill it overnight, just to be safe.)

Make the peanut butter chunks!

4. In a microwave safe bowl, combine the peanut butter and powdered sugar. Heat on high for 30 seconds and then stir until fully blended, heating the peanut butter in additional 15-second increments as necessary. Add more or less sugar to taste. When done, transfer to a lidded container and store in the fridge for four hours or more. Keep stored in the fridge until ready for use.

Process the ice cream!

5. When you’re ready to make the ice cream, process the chocolate batter according to your ice cream machine’s directions. Toward the end of the cycle, drop in the peanut butter by the spoonful and add the chocolate bark, too. If you don’t have enough room – or would prefer to have more control over the size of the pb and chocolate bits – you can instead mix in the peanut butter and chocolate bark after the chocolate ice cream is done processing. (This is usually how I do it!)

6. Transfer to a lidded container and chill in the freezer for an hour or so before serving. Or enjoy immediately as soft serve. The point is, enjoy!

Suggested variations:

- Omit the peanut butter for a super-rich chocolate ice cream.

- Double the peanut butter for an extra-salty treat.

- Set a little extra peanut butter aside to make toppings for the ice cream; e.g., use little balls of rolled peanut butter goodness in place of maraschino cherries!

- Shaved chocolate or vegan chocolate sprinkles also make for delicious decorations!

 

Chocolate banana ice cream, no ice cream machine required! Like the banana bread soft serve I made on Ralphie’s adoption day, this version is based on another one of my favorite recipes: the Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies from the PPK. The optional almond extract, when paired with the decadent double chocolate, really makes these cookies shine. But not so much here; I wasn’t all that thrilled with the almond flavor next to the strong taste of bananas. To temper it I tossed in a little allspice – which is really starting to grow on me! – and it saved the day! Probably next time I’ll omit the almond extract altogether and just stick with allspice. Cinnamon, cardamon, cloves and ginger might all work well in this recipe, too!

Anyway, try it and be your own decider person!

 
Choco-Almond Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream

Inspired by hipsterfood’s two-ingredient ice cream.

Makes one large serving.

Ingredients

2 overripe bananas, sliced and frozen
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (2 teaspoons if omitting the almond extract)
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1/2 teaspoon allspice (optional)
a handful of chocolate chips (chocolate bark) and/or almonds (optional)

Directions

Combine the bananas, cocoa powder, vanilla, almond extract, chocolate bark and almonds in a food processor and mix until smoothly blended. Try not to overprocess the batter, as this can result in soupy ice cream. If the soft serve is too much on the soft side, transfer it to a covered container and store in the freezer for an hour or until it’s thickened up a bit.

Enjoy: immediately! often! for breakfast, lunch or dinner! with omnivores! for an audience! but not with dogs, cause chocolate isn’t kind to them, yo! (share this recipe with your canine friends instead!)

Today is Ralphie’s adoption day anniversary! (Ten years, bitches! TEN!) Okay not really, it was actually on Thursday, but I totally screwed the pooch and missed it. Though we did squeeze in a combination morning walk / digging session that day, so it’s all good. I didn’t forget his big day; rather, he’s so nice that we’re celebrating twice! Yeah, that’s it!

Anyway, I decided to make the dogs a batch of ice cream to compensate/celebrate. Also, ’cause it’s 95 degrees F with a heat index of 115 out there. BRUTAL!

I’d been storing some overripe bananas in the freezer in anticipation of turning this awesome banana bread recipe into a frozen dessert – and then I realized that the dish I had in mind would be suitable for the dogs, too. So we split a batch!

Of course, this meant that I couldn’t add any chocolate chips to the batter, but that’s okay; since I only got the 3/4 cup of leftovers, I topped my scoop with a whole damn candy bar. YUM.

And yes, this ice cream does taste a lot like the original banana bread. I bet it’d be even better with chunks of banana bread mixed in, but I’ll have to save that experiment for another day. I’m fresh out of bananas, yo!

Oh, and the best part about this recipe (aside from its healthfulness, that is) – no ice cream machine required!

Banana Bread Soft Serve

Makes two to three generous (human) servings, or about 20 large dog treats.

Inspired by Shane’s banana bread & hipsterfood’s two-ingredient ice cream.

Ingredients

5 bananas – the riper the better – frozen and slightly thawed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 cup carob chips (for dogs) or chocolate chips (for their people) – optional

Directions

Combine the bananas, cinnamon, vanilla, allspice and carob/chocolate chips in a food processor and mix until blended (but still a little chunky). Enjoy immediately or, if the ice cream’s on the runny side, chill in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes for a thicker dessert.

If you’re making this for your dog friends, remember to omit the chocolate chips (carob chips are a nice replacement!) as chocolate can be deadly to canines.

For a slightly less messy dog treat, you can: spoon the batter onto a tray lined with parchment paper; roll it into small, bite-sized balls; or put it in an ice cube tray and freeze before serving.

Bite-sized banana ice cream balls for the dogs.
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Peedee tries to sneak a treat!
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Ralphie, the man of the hour!
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Homemade pudding pops! They’re quick and easy to make, and way cheaper than the store-bought stuff. (Though Tofutti’s Fudge Pops are decadent, if memory serves.) Plus they’ve got tofu, so they’re totally healthy! Go on, have them for breakfast. TOFU!

Double Chocolate Pudding Pops

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) box of silken tofu
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup chocolate chips, melted

Directions

1. Blend the above in a food processor until smooth, adding more or less sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate chips to taste.

2. When done, spoon the batter into six popsicle molds, small Dixie-style paper cups or similar. Insert a popsicle stick or small plastic spoon into each pop so you’ve something to hold onto.

3. Freeze for two to four hours, depending on the size of your popsicles.

4. Enjoy!

Notes

I actually had a few bricks of tofu to use up, so I doubled the recipe. I was also woefully unprepared – no popsicle molds or small paper cups to be found! – so I used four larger “disposable” plastic cups,* filling them just 1/3 full. Plastic spoons made for nice “sticks,” with two per cup to make a grand total of eight pops. (If you go this route, I recommend removing them from the freezer after a few hours to cut them in half while they’re still soft on the inside. They might freeze together once you return them to the freezer, but they’re easy enough to pry apart.) The pops are a bit on the large size, but still edible! And delicious!

* While I loathe disposable dinnerware, I’ve literally been carting a box of plastic cutlery and paper plates from house to house for over a decade. I don’t even remember buying this shit! So don’t judge me, mkay?

Remember the eye-popping vegan pizza nom roundup I posted a few weeks back? (No? LUCKY YOU, HERE IT IS!) Well, now it’s ICE CREAM’S turn!

Mostly I’ve been blogging ice cream recipes as I make them – Vegan Vanilla Buttercream and Vegan Vanilla & Chocolate Buttercream Swirl, holla! – but the odd few have slipped through the cracks, mostly because I’ve no recipe to accompany them. And just posting a photo without a recipe seems a wee bit cruel, dontchathink? (Posting them all in one big fat roundup? The ultimate tease!)

What makes this ice cream binge extra-sweet is that I recently received the results of my blood work, and I do not – in point o’ facts – have hypoglycemia or diabetes.* SO BRING OUT THE ICE CREAM AND PIZZA!** Ditto: the pasta, potatoes, bread and chocolate! Of course, this begs the question of my actual dysfunction, but I shall worry about that later. Preferably with a pint of ice cream in tow.
 

Caramel Ice Cream

Caramel ice cream topped with caramel sauce! (Note my super-adorable, dinosaur-themed Welch’s jelly jars. Coming at you straight from the 1980s!)

Upon seeing the caramel extravaganza spread in the December 2010 issue of VegNews, I decided that I had to give the caramel ice cream a try. After combing the local grocery stores for brown rice syrup to no avail (what’s up with that, Price Chopper?!), I finally ordered it online and got down to biz. I started with a batch of the soft serve caramel, which you mix into a quart of vanilla ice cream to make caramel ice cream. Pretty simple, right? Alas, I never could get the caramel to set properly; it was more like sauce than soft serve candy (as you can see in the photo – the “sauce” is really some leftover “caramels”). Also, the taste seemed a little off and wacky. Could be I’m just fussy; you won’t get any argument from me. Either way, not a big fan.

The good news is that the caramel tasted divine when combined with the vanilla ice cream! The ice cream recipe in VegNews calls for coconut milk – which I didn’t have on hand – so I went with a soy-based recipe from Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop instead. Delicious and relatively easy to make. (Cleanup, not so much.)

If you don’t have access to either of these recipes, you can use this recipe for caramel sauce from the Spooky Vegan, along with A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise’s vanilla ice cream formula, which is nearly identical to del Torro’s. Or just sub in your own favorite caramel sauce/candy and vanilla ice cream recipes – it’s hard to fuck up caramel ice cream, as I think I’ve demonstrated!
 
(More below the fold…)

So remember last week when I shared that super-awesome Vegan Vanilla Buttercream Ice Cream recipe? And I suggested that, for maximum nom, you should add the buttercream to the ice cream batter near the end of the cycle? Or, better yet, stir it in later? Well, I have to confess … I WAS TOTALLY GUESSING, Y’ALL. (Probably this means that you should NEVER FOLLOW MY ANY OF MY RECIPES, EVER! JOKING!)

You see, with that first, experimental batch, I added the frosting in the middle of the cycle, giving the machine enough time to blend ice cream with frosting – all smooth-like, little beads of fat excepted. (I encountered a similar phenomenon with the cookie dough ice cream from Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop, fwiw.) Like I said before, weird but delicious.

Anyhow, after that snafu, I merely ASSUMED that adding the buttercream to the ice cream after it was done processing would better help preserve the integrity of each. ASSUMED but not CONFIRMED, at least not prior to blogging the recipe. So it’s a good thing that yesterday’s experiment CONFIRMED it! IRREFUTABLY! (Or else I’d be a LIAR LIAR YOGA PANTS ON FIRE!) Just look at those amazing swirls of awesomeness!
 

 
Instead of vanilla buttercream, I tried chocolate – both because the contrast in colors highlights the swirls, and also ’cause I’ve never made chocolate buttercream before! But again, you can go with any ice cream/buttercream flavor combination: green tea and matcha! vanilla and strawberry! chocolate and almond! cherry and carob! USE YOUR IMAGINATION, PEOPLES! And your fancy flavor extracts!*

(More below the fold…)

I first had the idea for this dessert several weeks ago, probably while snacking on some vegan vanilla buttercream frosting (left over from my first and only batch of VEGAN TWINKIES!!!, natch). As sugary sweet and headache-inducing as it can be, that shit is ADDICTIVE. (Even more so when you’re scooping it up with bits of chocolate bark, all tortilla chips -n- salsa styley! I know sick right!) And yet I don’t think I’ve seen a buttercream-flavored ice cream, like, ever. Clearly Big Ice Cream has been criminal in its oversight! Luckily, I’m on the case. Agent Garbato, NNU. Neglected NOMZ Unit.

This recipe is not for the faint of heart, people. Even though I made a slightly less sugary ice cream base than usual, the cup of powdered sugar in the frosting more than makes up for it.

I stuck with a basic vanilla ice cream recipe (a variant of that found in Wheeler Del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop, which is similar to A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise’s own concoction), but you can just as easily use your own favorite recipe. I can’t imagine that vanilla buttercream would taste gross when blended with chocolate, strawberry or green tea ice cream, you know what I mean?

The buttercream recipe is the same I used for the Twinkies – i.e., the Cream Filling from Shmooed Food – but again, feel free to sub in your own favorite recipe and flavor. Vanilla ice cream with strawberry cream swirls, anyone?

I was able to fit a full dish of frosting in my machine but you can always mix in any extras later – or use it as a topping. Along with plenty of cherries and sprinkles, of course!

Whatever you do, send me your ice cream not-porn!: fuck yeah vegan ice cream.

Please and thank you.
 

 
(More below the fold…)

In a New Year’s-inspired bid to clean out my kitchen cabinets, a few weeks back I finally cracked open one of the pistachio instant pudding mixes – Jello brand – that my mom gave me a few years ago. Firstly, I know what you’re thinking: Jello!?! That’s not vegan, woman! It was my first reaction, anyway, and my mom’s too. But as far as I can see, certain Jello pudding mixes are free of animal products. At least, none of the usual suspects – not gelatin, nor milk powder, nor even whey – are present. And the pistachio mix in particular is included in a number of “everyday vegan” lists (and not just PETA’s).

Anyhow, either I messed up the recipe – which would be really, terribly sad – or the mix was just too old, but the batter never did firm up into a pudding-like consistency, not even after an overnighter in the fridge. Stumped, I decided to freeze the batter until I could figure out what to do with it. And then, it finally hit me: if life gives you runny pudding, make frozen ice cream!

As you can see, the dessert shaped up nicely: rich, creamy, and oh-so-pistachio-y! I don’t really have a recipe per se, but you can try this with any instant pudding mix. Just make as you would normally, adding a little extra nondairy milk so that the batter doesn’t thicken too much, chill in the fridge for several hours, and then process according to your ice cream machine’s instructions. This also makes a nice fix if your pudding doesn’t come out quite right, as was my dilemma.

By the by, the ice cream in the photo above is shown nestled in a four-ounce shot glass because I forgot to take a picture prior to eating most of the batch, so delicious was it! Even your nonhuman friends will agree; new arrival Lemmy kept sneaking bites from my glass,

while Kaylee damn near strained her tongue muscles whilst licking it clean!

She lives for dirty dishes, I tell you what.

Oh, and did I forget to mention? The night I found Lemmy, I was scarfing down the rest of a quart of vanilla SoDelicious, flavored with maraschino cherry juice; the little scrub tried to stick his head in the container, so I let him have a little lick from my finger. Big mistake. He became more and more excited – pushier, you might say – until he finally started nibbling on my cherry-stained finger. That freak loves ice cream! Popcorn, too.

Errr, not that I’m spoiling him with junk food, mind you. He just happened to catch a few stray kernels from the popcorn machine Friday night. Pinky swear!

Left under the tree for Santa: one quart of each of Silk’s seasonal flavors. Left to right, there’s: Soy Nog, Mint Chocolate and (my personal favorite!) Pumpkin Spice.
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If you’re anything like me, the thought of Silk’s seasonal soy milk flavors send you into such a frenzy that you manage to overbuy at least one flavor (more likely, two or three). Every. Stinking. Year. Luckily, you can extend the shelf life of all that liquid nom by transforming it into an equally nomy frozen dessert.

Last year, I shared recipes for my very own Vegan Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream and Vegan Soy Nog Ice Cream. This year, there’s a new flavor in town: Mint Chocolate Silk. And it’s set to expire…yesterday! Eek! What are we waiting for? Let’s get to it!

Below the jump you’ll find not one, not two, but three (three!) recipes for making ice cream with that extra Mint Chocolate Silk. Recipe #1 I tried yesterday and, while I followed much the same process as in the Pumpkin Spice and Soy Nog recipes, the texture came out more like sorbet than ice cream. (I’ve really no idea why. High water content in the Mint Chocolate Silk? A minor but crucial flub-up on my part? Who knows.) Which is all fine and good – who doesn’t like sorbet, right? – just be prepared to defrost the leftovers in the microwave before doling them out. The “sorbet” gets as hard as a rock once fully frozen!

Recipes 2 and 3 are variations on #1 that should result in a frozen dessert more akin to ice cream. I say “should” because I haven’t yet gotten a chance to try them out. #2 is very similar to the recipes found in The Vegan Scoop, while #3 was inspired by this recipe for strawberry chocolate ice cream, which I made and loved.

Mint Chocolate Silk Sorbet with chocolate bark and garnished with a strand of ribbon candy.
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(More below the fold…)

Yesterday, I reviewed Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop, otherwise known as MY FAVORITE COOKBOOK OF ALL TIME. (It’s a must buy for all ice cream-loving vegans. In other words, all vegans.) Since most of the recipes contained within require an ice cream maker, I thought a review of my own machine might be fitting.

In Christmas 2008, my lovely mom gifted Shane and I an ice cream maker. Specifically, a Cuisinart Ice-45 Mix-It-In Soft-Serve 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker. It retails for $185 on Amazon, but at the time of this writing, you can score your very own for just $87.95 (with free shipping!).

When it comes to purchasing an ice cream machine, you have several styles from which to choose:

Manual vs. Electric:

[Manual] machines usually comprise an outer bowl and a smaller inner bowl with a hand-cranked mechanism which turns a paddle, sometimes called a dasher, to stir the mixture. The outer bowl is filled with a freezing mixture of salt and ice: the addition of salt to the ice causes freezing-point depression; as the salt melts the ice, its heat of fusion allows it to absorb heat from the ice cream mixture, freezing the ice cream.

This type of ice cream maker is inexpensive, but inconvenient and messy as the ice and salt mixture produces a lot of salty water as it melts, which the user must dispose of, and the ice and salt mixture has to be replenished to make a new batch of ice cream. [...]

[Electric machines] have an electric motor which drives either the bowl or the paddle to stir the mixture.

Counter-top vs. Self-freezing:

Counter-top machines use a double-walled bowl which contains between the two walls a solution that freezes below the freezing point of water. This is frozen in a domestic freezer for up to 24 hours before the machine is needed. Once frozen, the bowl is put into the machine, the mixture is added and the machine is switched on. The paddles rotate, stirring the mixture as it gradually freezes through contact with the frozen bowl. Twenty to thirty minutes later, the solution between the double walls of the bowl has thawed, and the ice cream has frozen. The advantage of this type of electric machine is low cost, typically under $100. The disadvantage of the pre-frozen bowl approach is that only one batch can be made at a time. To make another batch, the bowl must be frozen again. For this reason, it is usually possible to buy extra bowls for the machine, but of course these take up a lot of freezer space. [...]

More expensive, and much larger, machines have a freezing mechanism built in and do not require a bowl to be pre-chilled. The cooling system is switched on, and in a few minutes the mixture can be poured in and the paddle switched on. As with coolant-bowl machines, ice cream is ready in twenty to thirty minutes, depending on the quantity made. These machines can be used immediately with no preparation, and any number of batches of ice cream can be made without a delay between batches.

As you’ve no doubt already surmised, the Ice-45 is an electric counter-top model. Keep this in mind while reading my ratings, since each is in comparison to other electric counter-top models – versus, say, a high-end $1,000 self-freezing machine.

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The Vegan Scoop: 150 Recipes for Dairy-Free Ice Cream That Tastes Better Than the “Real” Thing by Wheeler del Torro (2009)
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WHEELER DEL TORRO’S THE VEGAN SCOOP IS MY FAVORITE COOKBOOK OF ALL TIME. The end. Shortest book review ever.

I kid, I kid – but just about the last part. In all seriousness, The Vegan Scoop really is a personal favorite. I love everything about this cookbook: the gorgeous, glossy pages. The luscious, lovingly-photographed balls of frozen deliciousness. The easy-to-follow – yet terribly creative – recipes. The sometimes-sneakily subversive “tasty tidbits” that grace each page’s margins. The way del Torro encourages readers to experiment with different fruits, spices, seasonings and – yes! – even vegetables on their own. The freaking color palette. Simply put, The Vegan Scoop is all kinds of awesomeness.

Besides, who doesn’t *heart* ice cream, hmmmm?

The book, which – have I not already mentioned? – itself looks yummy enough to eat – features 150 recipes for vegan, dairy-free ice cream and ice-cream related foodstuffs. (Disclaimer: all of the ice cream recipes require an ice cream maker. I’ll be reviewing my own model tomorrow, so stay tuned!)

del Torro arranges his frozen concoctions into nine categories:

Classic Flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Rocky Road, Caramel and Butterscotch;

Fruity Flavors: Blueberry, Nectarine, Honeydew, Green Apple and Pear;

Healthy Flavors: Lavender Mint, Vanilla Cardamom, Sweet Potato Basil and Oats and Fig;

Asian Flavors: Black Sesame, Wasabi, Cherry Blossom and Goji Berry Banana;

Caribbean and Island Flavors: Guava, Coconut, Star Fruit and Ginger Beer Sorbet;

Novelty Flavors: Chestnut, Chocolate Pretzel, Pecan Apple Danish and New York Irish Creme;

Aphrodisiacal Flavors: Jasmine, Rose Water, Licorice and Fresh Mint Lime;

Ice Cream Vessels and Sauces: Sugar Cones, Hot Fudge, Caramel Sauce and Very Berry Sauce; and

Ice Cream Sides and Desserts: Blondies, Chocolate Chip Biscotti, Boston Cream Pie and Italian White Cream Cake – to name but a few.

While many of del Torro’s ice cream flavors are incredibly imaginative (Seaweed! For reals?), all use the same base as a jumping-off point, namely: 1 cup of soymilk, 2 cups of soy creamer and 2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder, with 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar, depending on the dish. (This is the same foundation on which many of the recipes at A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise are built. Frugal vegan alert!) The cool thing about this, of course, is that uniformity leads to familiarity, which – in this case – breeds confidence and self-esteem. After a little time spent practicing with the recipes in The Vegan Scoop, even this amateur felt comfortable enough to experiment with her own fantasy flavors.

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www.schlongs4seals.com is now open and ready for business!

Currently, only the blog – where I’ve already logged more posts in August than I managed to write for this here blog in the entire month of July – is fully functional. I’m still working on the promised interactive photo gallery and discussion features, but hope to have these done soon. (To this end, WP-compatible software recommendations would be most appreciated!)

That said, the template and static/informational pages are all finished and look, if I might say so myself, kickass. I found a template that mimics Facebook almost to a M (for misogyny, natch), so it’s almost like we never left. (And by “left” I mean “were kicked off.”)

Additionally, I created a temporary set of photo pages to house all the “man meat” I’ve “processed” thus far: VAPETA PSAs, promotional materials, junk shots, celebrity cock shots, South Park avatars, brother campaigns, etc. Browse, bookmark and check back often, because there’s more in the pipes.

If you’re still out there and, um, excited to participate (excited! get it!?), send me your package at schlongs4seals [at] gmail.com and I’ll be equally excited (tee hee) to feature it on the appropriate page.

Also, if you visit the front page, you’ll see a little Facebook “like” button in the left-hand sidebar (right under the hot white torso wearing the hot red boxer briefs). Click it, won’t you? We need friends! And sharing! On Facebook!

I’ve been a connoisseur of men’s briefs since early childhood.
Behold the rapturous glee on my chubby chipmunk cheeks!
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SeaL Shepherd may have succeeded in removing our page from Facebook, but he can hardly prevent us from sharing content in the form of links.

Can’t stop the schlong, yo.

(A note for the newbies and occasional readers: if all this cock talk has you flummoxed, go here for some background.)

Tofurky Pizza with Daiya Cheese has finally made its way to Kansas City!:

The Whole Foods in Overland Park, to be more specific. And now it’s in my freezer. Nom nom nom.

As if this isn’t already more awesomeness than the KC metro area can handle, Kansas City is now home to a brand-spanking-new vegan bakery. Gluten-free, to boot. And, if you live in the KC area, they deliver!

Shane ordered a box of Golden Girls – the vegan feminist version of “real” Twinkies, if you will – for delivery to his office Monday.

They are super-yummy – a little denser than Twinkies (according to Shane; I’ve never partaken), with a sponge- or angel food cake-like consistency. The creamy filling is the bestest, though methinks the cakes could use more. I say the same of Ronald’s Donuts and Newman’s O’s, so grain of salt.

Egads. In all my excitement, I almost forgot to name drop. Brody’s Bakery is the name of the biz – hit ‘em up on Facebook, and if you’re ever in the KC area, shop team vegan, mkay? Jasmin of Our Hen House also did a nice writeup on Brody’s this week; see Brody’s Bakery Bakes Up Compassion. (Color me jealous, btw.)

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I know, I know. Ice cream!? On a snowy January morning!? In the middle of a bitter, polar-like, transnational cold snap!? Am I kidding!? A sadist!? Ms. Freeze, maybe!? What gives!?

Nah, I’m just a vegan – a vegan with a little extra, week-past-the-expiration-date Silk Pumpkin Spice stashed in the fridge. And since this liquid yum is only available a few months out of the year, there’s no way I’m letting it to go waste.

Enter: ice cream! Make a batch or two now, and freeze it ’til spring. Or eat in it front of a nice, cozy fire. Wev.

Bonus: you can now enjoy Silk’s holiday flavors year-round. Just in a different state, yes?

Silk Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

Inspired by my earlier Vegan Soy Nog Ice Cream! recipe.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
4 cups Silk Pumpkin Spice soy milk, i.e., one full quart container (divided into 1/4 cup and 3 3/4 cup servings)
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice spices
2 tablespoon brown sugar

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Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Vegan Soy Nog Ice Cream

Inspired by this Egg Nog Ice Cream recipe at VegWeb.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1 cup soy milk (divided into 1/4 and 3/4 servings)
3 cups soy nog (I used Silk)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons brown sugar

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Since VeganMoFo is coming to a close, I decided to spend the afternoon experimenting with two recipes I’ve been meaning to try, namely, Green Tea Cupcakes and Black Bean Brownies. You may recall that I vowed to try the former at the beginning of the month – and what kind of VeganMoFo’er would I be if I broke that one teensy-weeny little promise?

(Actually, funny story. When making the black bean brownies, I spent five+ minutes trying to coax the cover of the food processor to lock into place. Turns out I had it on backwards the whole time. But wait! That’s not all! Later on, I set the oven timer to what I thought was 30 minutes. It went off 30 seconds later. Oy. Turns out I’m not much of a MoFo’er after all!)

First up: Green Tea Cupcakes with Matcha Glaze from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Two words: Fucking. Awesome. Seriously, these things rock. Assuming you like green tea, which I totally do.

The Matcha Glaze is kinda funky; before looking the recipe over, I thought the frosting would be a variation of Isa’s iconic vegan buttercream concoction, but as the name implies, it’s really a glaze. It’s different, but nicely so. Also a bit of a relief, because the sugar-heavy buttercream tends to give me a sugar headache. (Any tips for reducing the sugar content? Should I just add more shortening/less sugar? Anyone?)

Matcha is on the expensive side, but most recipes don’t call for all that much. I originally purchased a small box to try out in the Green Tea recipe from Wheeler del Torro’s The Vegan Scoop (also awesome, btw); now, methinks it’ll remain a pantry regular.

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