I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Except that JJ goes berko after eating store bought / commercial ice cream. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but there is some ingredient (or combination of ingredients) in store bought ice cream that doesn’t agree with her. She’s only had store bought ice cream half a dozen times, and each time she’s gotten really hyperactive for hours afterwards.
Solution – home made “ice cream”, and other yummy dairy treats like smoothies and lassis. Yum!
Homemade Ice-Cream
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I do however have a set of these Tovolo ice cream moulds that I bought last year and I highly recommend them. They are BPA free and dishwasher safe (both “musts” for me) and bonus that the “cone” acts as a drip catcher. The swirly designs and cone bottom also look like the stereotypical ice cream in picture books, so JJ doesn’t realise she isn’t getting the real deal.
But the best bit is that you can refill the ice creams individually. So whenever I make a smoothie or have left over fruit, I can just fill up any empty moulds, meaning that we always have at least 3 ice creams in the freezer at any one time, and usually in a variety of flavours.
Here are ice cream flavours that we’ve tried and love:
- Frozen smoothies – see the smoothie recipes below. This is our most common ice cream flavour. as we make smoothies quite often, and I always top up the ice cream moulds before I serve up. The texture is wrong – it is more of the texture of an ice block rather than an ice cream, but it’s still yummy and JJ doesn’t know any better. Bonus that I often include spinach in my smoothies, so she’s getting a tad of vegies in her afternoon snack.
- Roughly mushed mango
- Roughly mushed mango interspersed with plain sweetened yoghurt (I like Gippsland or Harris Farm). Tastes just like a Weis Bar.
- Roughly diced strawberries with plain sweetened yoghurt or cream. (We’ve also done these in heart moulds)
- Mushed watermelon – my fave!
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| JJ eating a frozen strawberry smoothie ice cream out on the balcony. No ice creams allowed inside, regardless of drip catcher! |
Smoothies
We make a smoothie about every other day. Especially if there is recently almost expired yoghurt in the fridge. I use a stick blender, and JJ loves to help press the button.
We add a handful of baby spinach leaves to everything – they don’t affect the taste, although they do change the appearance quite dramatically, adding flecks of green. JJ is going through a Charlie & Lola craze at the moment and asks for pink milk, although she doesn’t really mind what the colour ends up being.
I keep a slash of very ripe bananas in the freezer, which are a great way to sweeten without adding processed sugar. I also use a sweetened yoghurt, which is very yummy (although not great for my weight loss). Or I occasionally add some honey.
Here are our favourite flavours:
- strawberries, baby spinach, sweetened yoghurt & milk
- strawberries, baby spinach, frozen banana, & milk
- frozen blueberries, baby spinach, blueberry & vanilla yoghurt, honey & milk
Mango Lassi
This is really just a mango smoothie with a fancy name, but they are so yum that they are worth a special mention. And with the summer mango season in full swing, the time to give these a try is right now. Just blend up mango, sweetened yoghurt, honey and just a touch of milk.
Heaven….
What do your afternoon treats look like?
Have you tried one of those home made ice cream machines yet? (I’ve seen some making the rounds of other blogs at the moment… I keep telling myself that we don’t have the space to store it, and I’d have to clean it, etc etc. But I must admit I’m a bit curious as to the textural improvements…)
xxx Danya