5 Minute Ice Cream

Jeff and I have always enjoyed running down to the local $1 a scoop ice cream place in our town after dinner, but now that we are eating dinner together almost every night instead of just on the weekends, I've been looking for easy and less guilty desserts for us to enjoy.

I found this recipe a few weeks ago on Dianasaura Dishes and thought it sounded perfect for our situation. In a matter of minutes you can have soft-servesk ice cream, minus the cream, sugar and hours other recipes require!

Banana Ice Cream

Ingredients

3 bananas

+/- half a cup of milk

1) Peel and chop your banana's into small pieces. Then, freeze them.

2) When your ready to make your ice cream, simply throw the frozen banana pieces into the food processor along with 1/4 cup of milk and whirl. Continue to whirl and add milk until your bananas reach a creamy soft serve consistency. Hold onto your food processor while doing this step.

3) Either eat now or return to the freezer until firm if you want hard ice cream.

Alterations

The above was the original recipe I used, but as you can imagine, this recipe is very open to changes. For example:

-add a small amount of nuts and chocolate chips for added sweetness. We had a couple nut clusters lying around so we threw those in.
-substitute a different fruit for one of the bananas. We tried half a mango we had from breakfast and we substituted the regular milk for light coconut milk which we had left over from a curry the night before. The result was a refreshingly tropical ice cream!

There are some other additions I haven't tried yet but plan to are: strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, raspberries or a spoonful of jam! I'd be careful with how many berries you add simply because their water content is so much higher. You should be fine as long as you adjust the amount of milk you put in. If you happen to have some nilla wafers lying around, that could be tasty to add as well. Even if you do an add in like a little chocolate or a cookie, it's still better for you that the double chocolate marshmallow caramel crunch style ice creams you'd get at the store. Feel free to comment if you have any other recommendations.

A Note of Caution

*I know all of you would be wise enough to not freeze your fruit in one giant mass. If you did, your food processor would have to tackle a large hard frozen ball which would be pushing the limit of its powers. If you try and make it chop up said frozen ball of fruit, you might think for a moment that you have broken your beloved food processor, and you will start coming up with excuses that you will tell your boyfriend about how the food processor was really broken, that have nothing to do with your lack of forethought. I know you won't make this mistake, but just in case, you have been warned.