Summer teases me. It's almost Summer heat outside, classes are over, and I have so many plans of things to do. But Finals are still clinging with sharpened claws around my grey matter and Summer will not come.
Perhaps this is revenge for all the years I've said that I don't like Summer. It's hot. Too hot. Ridiculously hot. I can look forward to triple digits for my July birthday, consistently.
But I've found a new way to beat the heat, and it's cheaper and healthier than ice cream.
I've ended up calling it Ice-Not-Cream. It has three ingredients: Banana, Peanut Butter, and Nutcao.
That's it.
Really.
I made this for work one day, but I was not able to be there when they served it. The next day, at a luncheon for the Theology department at school, one of my employers complemented me on it and continued chatting it up to the professors around us.
Later one of the guests from work that had had some came up to me and told me how great it was.
One of my co-workers did the same.
A week later, I was at a staff luncheon and my co-workers and employers brought it up again.
It's really good.
I wanted to make this because one of my co-workers and a few of our guests can't have dairy and we had planned to serve ice cream. I wanted everyone to have something creamy and cold, so I whipped this up from a recipe I found through Pinterest.
Here's the original link: http://userealbutter.com/2010/08/12/single-ingredient-ice-cream-recipe/
First, Slice bananas and freeze them. It's best if they are frozen completely solid, not just frosty or sightly hardened. The more frozen, the better.
Second, dump the frozen banana slices into a food processor and blend.
If you froze your slices enough, the bananas will go from chunks to gravel to marshmallow fluff. If you didn't, they will go from chunks to chunky slime to marshmallow fluff. It'll still work, but you'll spend some time looking at it during the slime-stage wondering if it will ever appear as appetizing as you're told it should be- like I did.
Now comes the spontaneous part. Once you have your cold marshmallow-fluff-ed bananas, dump in some Nutcao and Peanut Butter. Or not. Use what ever kind of nut-butter or chocolate substance you want or don't want. And, use how ever much of it you so desire. For 4 1/2 pounds of bananas, I used about four tablespoons each of Nutcao and creamy Peanut Butter. It's completely up to you.
Let me give you one piece of advise that I figured out the hard way. Do NOT freeze this after it is made. Because it's made of solids, not liquids, it cannot melt. But it can harden and become impossible to scoop. Keep it in the refrigerator.
If you want to keep it for a very long time, maybe you can store it in the freezer and thaw when you're ready to serve. I just haven't tested it yet. So if any of you try storing this Ice-Not-Cream in the freezer, let me know how that goes!
I have some bananas sliced in the freezer for the family right now. They should be very happy later today.
As for the garden, it's all still growing. The plums are even bigger on the tree. My loquat seed disappeared, unfortunately. I went out one day to find its pot empty. I'm still not really sure what happened. But I had picked up three more seeds from the side walk, so I planted two of them and kept one in reserve.
I also found an avocado tree, about a foot tall, sprouting from the family compost bin. It, and two others that I found as I dug around, are in pots on the front porch for protection.
Our Gardenia from our paternal grandmother is booming and bending under its own weight. I crawled under its branches and layered a couple.
Someday, when I have my own yard (or at least a door step with room for pots) I hope I can keep these plants with me. I want to keep something to care for and something green and full of life.
Until that day, I mind the bananas.
Perhaps this is revenge for all the years I've said that I don't like Summer. It's hot. Too hot. Ridiculously hot. I can look forward to triple digits for my July birthday, consistently.
But I've found a new way to beat the heat, and it's cheaper and healthier than ice cream.
I've ended up calling it Ice-Not-Cream. It has three ingredients: Banana, Peanut Butter, and Nutcao.
That's it.
Really.
I made this for work one day, but I was not able to be there when they served it. The next day, at a luncheon for the Theology department at school, one of my employers complemented me on it and continued chatting it up to the professors around us.
Later one of the guests from work that had had some came up to me and told me how great it was.
One of my co-workers did the same.
A week later, I was at a staff luncheon and my co-workers and employers brought it up again.
It's really good.
I wanted to make this because one of my co-workers and a few of our guests can't have dairy and we had planned to serve ice cream. I wanted everyone to have something creamy and cold, so I whipped this up from a recipe I found through Pinterest.
Here's the original link: http://userealbutter.com/2010/08/12/single-ingredient-ice-cream-recipe/
(Ignore the coffee pot in the corner. We've never used it once at work.)
First, Slice bananas and freeze them. It's best if they are frozen completely solid, not just frosty or sightly hardened. The more frozen, the better.
Second, dump the frozen banana slices into a food processor and blend.
If you froze your slices enough, the bananas will go from chunks to gravel to marshmallow fluff. If you didn't, they will go from chunks to chunky slime to marshmallow fluff. It'll still work, but you'll spend some time looking at it during the slime-stage wondering if it will ever appear as appetizing as you're told it should be- like I did.
Now comes the spontaneous part. Once you have your cold marshmallow-fluff-ed bananas, dump in some Nutcao and Peanut Butter. Or not. Use what ever kind of nut-butter or chocolate substance you want or don't want. And, use how ever much of it you so desire. For 4 1/2 pounds of bananas, I used about four tablespoons each of Nutcao and creamy Peanut Butter. It's completely up to you.
(Yum.)
Let me give you one piece of advise that I figured out the hard way. Do NOT freeze this after it is made. Because it's made of solids, not liquids, it cannot melt. But it can harden and become impossible to scoop. Keep it in the refrigerator.
If you want to keep it for a very long time, maybe you can store it in the freezer and thaw when you're ready to serve. I just haven't tested it yet. So if any of you try storing this Ice-Not-Cream in the freezer, let me know how that goes!
I have some bananas sliced in the freezer for the family right now. They should be very happy later today.
As for the garden, it's all still growing. The plums are even bigger on the tree. My loquat seed disappeared, unfortunately. I went out one day to find its pot empty. I'm still not really sure what happened. But I had picked up three more seeds from the side walk, so I planted two of them and kept one in reserve.
I also found an avocado tree, about a foot tall, sprouting from the family compost bin. It, and two others that I found as I dug around, are in pots on the front porch for protection.
Our Gardenia from our paternal grandmother is booming and bending under its own weight. I crawled under its branches and layered a couple.
Someday, when I have my own yard (or at least a door step with room for pots) I hope I can keep these plants with me. I want to keep something to care for and something green and full of life.
Until that day, I mind the bananas.
