Banana Soft Serve

What if I told you that you could make your own ice cream right now with only one ingredient...frozen banana? You'd think I was a little nuts...or at least forgotten what real ice cream actually tastes like! And you might be right; but I do know this stuff is AMAZING! I'd seen this technique all over the blogs for a while and I'm not sure why it took me so long to try it at home, but when I finally made it I was truely blown away! This stuff tastes and lookes just like soft serve ice cream! And it's so easy to make it's almost criminal...

I've provided a few extra pictures to give you some context for what to expect when you try this at home.

First, as seen below, peel two frozen bananas and chop them into approximately 1 inch chuncks; then throw them into your food processor.

(Note: I think a food processor is probably key for this recipe, if you're trying with a blender, I'd suggest cutting the banana into smaller chunks to start...that may help.)

Next, blend the banana for 2-3 minutes until you see it getting nice and creamy, like below. Scrape down the bowl to incorporate any escaped banana chunks.

This is where it gets fun, at this point, add any flavours or additions you'd like to personalize your ice cream. My favorite is a touch of salt and about 1 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (as pictured above). You could also add other frozen fruit or just plain vanilla. Continue blending for another 1-3 minutes until it reaches a desired consistency. Sometimes at the end I like to drop in a big spoonful of creamy peanut butter and just pulse it through until it's just barely incorporated...Oh my! Heaven!

Just keep in mind that the more ripe that banana, the sweeter the ice cream - so save those really spotty and soft fellas for a special (and very guilt free) treat!

Enjoy!

Broccoli-Almond Pesto with Rice Noodles

Phew! It's been a busy few months...resulting in a severe lack of posts! My apologies. The good news is that I've got a good number of recipes ready and waiting to be shared with you in the coming weeks - Yay!

So, back to it...it's spring again, and that means time to clean up our diet a bit. By way of another blog I frequent, I found a great New Year's cleanse hosted by Whole Living Magazine. It's called the Whole Living Action Plan 2012. It's a three week diet cleanse that has you omitting everything except fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds, beans/legumes/tofu (in week 2), and gluten-free grains (in week 3). For non-vegetarians, the diet also permits the addition of seafood and eggs in weeks 2 and 3 respectively. It sounded challenging in the beginning, but after the first few days we got the hang of it and really enjoyed starting the day with a big smoothie and eating a new variety of vegetables and fruits throughout the day. We all get in our ruts where we find ourselves eating the same things week after week; this was a fantastic kickstart to get back to eating new and varied whole food meals!

We're currently rounding out our third week and feeling fantastic. I've gained energy and lost some weight (yay!). I highly recommend it for anyone feeling the effects of the long winter (both in health and pant size!). Today, I'm sharing one of my favorite recipes from the Action Plan so far...it's a Week 3 recipe but it was soooo worth the wait!! It combines almonds, basil and broccoli to create an incredibly vibrant pesto...one that I would happily use in place of any other based on a standard recipe. Trust me when I say you'd never know there's broccoli in there! Because the diet is exclusively gluten free, it calls for use of rice noodles; however, use any noodles you'd like based on your own preferences.

Rice Noodles with Broccoli-Almond Pesto

Ingredients
1 head broccoli, florets and sliced stems
6 tablespoons raw almonds
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons lemon juice
5 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
pepper to taste
8 ounces rice noodles
Sliced almonds (optional)

Directions
1. Steam broccoli florets and stems until bright green and just tender, about 3-4 minutes. Rinse in cold water to stop cooking process and set aside. Roughly chop 1 cup cooked florets; set aside.

2. In a food processor, puree almonds until they resemble a course meal. Add remaining ingredients (except noodles) and puree until smooth. Set aside.

3. Cook rice noodles according to package instructions. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, drain noodles, and return to pot. Toss with pesto, adding reserved pasta water until creamy. Top each bowl with chopped florets, small basil leaves, and sliced almonds.

Enjoy!

This recipe was adapted from Whole Living Magazine's Whole Living Action Plan 2012