Yes, it was totally worth every penny, when I saw my son having fun trying to carry the box (or rather dragging it) all by himself, picking the berries and correctly putting it in the carton, with a sense of pride! 

As always I found this amazingly simple and healthy recipe in the July 08 issue of Parents magazine.  I reduced the quantity of ingredients because it was my first try.  But the end product was so good, I wish I had followed the original recipe!

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

I had 4 very ripe bananas at home.  Usually I make carrot cake with it, but this time I wanted to try something new.  Then only I remembered watching an episode of Good Eats in Food TV, where Alton Brown prepared banana ice cream without eggs.  So immediately went to the site to get the recipe.  Interestingly I had all the ingredients at hand.  But the only thing was the bananas had to be frozen overnight and thawed, before making the ice cream.  I have wanted to try this for a long time now, so did not have the patience to do it the next day and also the bananas were very ripe.  So proceeded to make the ice cream and it did come out very well.  Maybe I’ll try the freezing method next time.  So check here for the original recipe. 

Ingredients:
Bananas – 4
Lemon Juice – little (may be a teaspoon)
Light corn syrup – 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
Heavy cream – 1 cup

 Procedure:
1.  Peel the bananas and place it in a blender.

2.  Blend it alongwith the lemon juice. 

3.  Add corn syrup and vanilla essence and blend it once again.

 4.  Add the cream and blend it until smooth.

5.  Transfer the mixture to a container and chill it in the refrigerator until it reaches 40 degrees.  (I forgot this step)

If you don’t have an ice cream maker:  (check here for detailed instructions)
6.  Even before starting the process of making the ice cream, put a stainless steel container or any other freezer safe container in the freezer until the ice cream mixture is ready. 

 7.  Once the mixture is ready transfer it to the freezed container and close it with a lid.

8.  After 45 minutes, open the door and check it.  As it starts to freeze near the edges beat it up either using a spatula, whisk or stick blender to break any frozen sections.  Return to freezer.

9.  Keep checking it periodically and stirring while it freezes until the ice cream is frozen.  It will take 2-3 hours to be ready.  

10.  I started making the ice cream very late in the evening, so I was able to do the above process only twice.  I had to put the ice cream in the freezer overnight.  The next day evening when I checked the ice cream had frozen rock hard and I was not able to scoop it.  So I transferred the container from the freezer to the refrigerator.  After about 45 minutes I was able to get the perfect scoop of delicious homemade ice cream.

First scoop of homemade ice cream.

I also added some chocolate chips to the ice cream mixture.   The ice cream was so DELICIOUS!!!

If you have an ice cream maker:
1.  Chill mixture in refrigerator until it reaches 40 degrees.
2.  Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and process according to manufacture’s instructions.
3.  Place mixture in an airtight container and freeze it for 3 to 6 hours before serving.

Update:  A small note to both banana lovers and haters, try this ice cream with just one banana first.  The original recipe calls for 6 bananas, but I have  used only 4 bananas, even then the flavor of banana is overpowering.  The ice cream got mixed reviews.  But the happy news is my toddler liked it very much. 

JZ of Tasty Treats has passed me the “Blogging with a Purpose” award. Thank you very much JZ.

I would like to pass this to
Vaishali
Libby
Zlamushka

I’m sending this to Mike’s “You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts!” event.

My friend Dee made the announcement for the event she is hosting for AFAM (A Fruit A Month), started by Maheshwari on 1st of May and I can’t believe it’s the 24th already.  She has chosen Raspberries as this month’s fruit.  I did spend a lot of time searching the net for interesting recipes and bookmarked a lot of them, but somehow it got delayed.  Finally here I am, with a recipe for a simple lemonade with raspberries.  Hope I will able to send another one too.

Before going to the recipe, a small trivia I found about Raspberry.  According to legend, raspberries were originally white. The nymph Ida pricked her finger while picking berries for the crying infant Jupiter, and raspberries have since been tinged red with her blood. (The botanical name of the raspberry is Rubus idaeus. Rubus means “red”, and idaeus means “belonging to Ida”).

Ingredients:
Frozen or Fresh Raspberries – 2 cups
Juice of 1 big Lemon
Water – 5 cups
Sugar – ½ cup

Procedure:
1.  If using frozen raspberries, thaw them as per the instructions in the package.
2.  Blend it using approximately 2 cups of water.
3.  Strain the raspberry juice using a fine sieve repeatedly to get rid of the seeds. (that’s what it’s called right?)
4.  In order to dissolve the sugar, I added the sugar, lemon juice and a little bit of the raspberry juice in a blender and blended it thoroughly.  To this add the remaining 3 cups of water, raspberry puree and mix it well.  That’s it, Raspberry Lemonade is ready now.  Serve it in a glass with ice cubes and garnish it with mint leaves.

Alternatively you can also pour the lemonade in ice pop moulds and freeze it, for a cool popsicle.  My son loved this version.

And this will be a lovely treat for summer.  Enjoy!

Sangeeth has passed me the “You Make My Day Award”.  Thank you very much Sangeeth.  You also make my day with your lovely comments in my blog.

I can say that this recipe is a classic example for “serendipity”. I think you can guess where I’m going if you’ve read my choconut muffins story. To cut the long story short, my first batch of muffins did not come out well. The bottoms were moist but the tops were dry. I wanted to bake another batch of those delicious eggless chocolate muffins, but didn’t know what to do with the first batch, then an idea flashed in my head. Why not turn it into an ice cream layered cake? See, watching Food TV does help, especially Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade Cooking. I’m a big fan of her innovative ideas.

Now back to the recipe, I won’t say this recipe is my discovery, but come on guys, I need some credit here for thinking quickly and not wasting food. Right? I’ve seen Oreos Cookie Pie crust in stores, so that was also an inspiration. I’ve always wanted to buy it and make something. My idea was similar to that. I wanted to crush the muffins, both tops and bottoms in a food processor, put it in a pie tin and layer with ice cream and freeze it. I had vanilla ice cream at home. I wanted a Neapolitan Ice Cream look so thouht of going with strawberry and chocolate flavors. Then realized that my mother in law is not a big fan of strawberry and she likes pistachios. Unlike India we don’t get pista flavored ice cream here. I thought why not go with instant pudding mix. I’ve seen it being used by Food TV chefs all the time. So thought of giving it a try.

The beauty of this cake is there is no set of baking procedure or must have ingredients. You can play with your imagination. Anyway I’ll list what I used and what other variations can be made.

I used:
1. Muffin crumbs.
2. 1 packet JELLO Instant Pudding Mix, pistachio flavor.
3. Turkey Hill Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.
4. Walnuts and Pistachios, unsalted and chopped.

Other Variations:
1. Crush Oreos cookies or brownies, or line the pan with frozen pound cake, or use ready made pie crust.
2. You can either go with all pudding mixes with different flavors or cool whip or all ice cream layers or mix and match.
3. Toppings are also limitless, from fudge sundae, caramel topping etc.

Procedure:

Stage 1:

Crush the muffins in a food processor.

Stage 2:

I used a 9 inch round cake pan. First I thought of using a pie tin, then I changed my mind. I lined the pan with plastic wrap because I vaguely remembered something similar to this in one episode of Food TV. I wrapped it completely covering the entire pan and also left some extra outside so that I can lift the cake with the wrap once it freezes.

Stage 3:

I pressed half the quantity of muffin crumbs on the bottom of the pan, nice and firm. Actually I had stored the muffins in the refrigerator to dry them up so it will powder easily in a food processor. If I had left the moist bottoms out,it would have become one big lump I guess. Reserved the other half for another layer.

Stage 4:

Prepared the pudding as per the directions of the package. It was very easy. Just pour the mix in milk and stir. Initially it’s in a liquid form and within 5 minutes it firms up. I also mixed some chopped pistachios to the pudding.

Stage 5:

Now top the crumbs with the pudding and form a nice thick layer and top it with pistachios again.

Stage 6:

Top the pudding layer with the remaining muffin crumbs.

Stage 7:

Now a layer of vanilla ice cream over the muffin crumbs. I microwaved the ice cream with the paper container for 15-25 seconds, so I could spread it. Give the final touch of adding some more walnuts and pistachios.

Stage 8:

Freezing for 4 hours should be fine. Carefully remove the cake with the help of the plastic wrap. When I took it out after 4 hours it was good, but another 1 or 2 hours should be perfect. Slice and serve it!

My Notes:

1. You can also try this with a loaf pan.
2. I noticed that when pudding freezes it’s very hard than the ice cream. If you don’t like that to happen you can make all ice cream layers or dig in after thawing it for a couple of minutes.
3. The taste was out of the world. I miss Indian Cassata ice cream very much. The taste of this ice cream cake was very much similar to that, I think it was because of the pistachios and walnuts.