Surprise Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

February 7, 2010 · Filed Under Slightly Indulgent, Suite of Sweets, dairy free, dessert, easy, gluten free, ice cream, recipe, sugar free, treats · 28 Comments

This post is linked to Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays over at Amy’s Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free.

This recipe post is the kickoff of SSS … a Suite of Sweets for Sweethearts. With Valentine’s Day this coming weekend, I thought it would be fun to share a variety of sweet recipes this week. Hopefully, you’ll find one to share with your sweetheart—whether that sweetheart is a significant other, a child, a friend, or anyone you want to feel loved.

When you saw that title, you may have thought that this recipe would make a better St. Patrick’s Day recipe instead of a Valentine’s Day one. I thought of that, but really I didn’t want to keep this recipe from you any longer. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is a favorite of many (including me!) and my version has a surprise ingredient. (I love surprise ingredients.)

I bought my ice cream maker late in the summer and I haven’t put it away for the winter. Admittedly, it’s been on a bit of a hiatus of late, but ice cream can still be enjoyed in cold weather. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is not just a favorite of mine; it’s my absolute favorite ice cream. If you gave me some for Valentine’s Day, that would definitely say love to me! And, maybe it’s the kid in me, but I really like the green varieties. They always taste better to me than the white versions, which also look rather blah. However, I know that food coloring is not a good thing, so I’ve been pondering a much healthier version of mint chocolate chip ice cream for some time.

We had a support group meeting a few months ago where a few of our members made green smoothies for all to sample. One member, Jennifer, made a green smoothie using bananas, spinach, and water. It was such a lovely pale green and the taste was mild and delicious. Everyone who sampled it just loved the taste. I found both its taste and color so very appealing and it kept surfacing in my mind, but I wasn’t sure why … at first. Then another member, Sharon, mentioned her love of mint chocolate chip ice cream in an email discussion on dairy-free ice cream (and my Snickerdoodle ice cream). It was after that conversation that I realized why those pale green smoothies kept popping into my head. A little bit later, I came across Katrina’s (Gluten Free Gidget) chocolate mint chocolate chip ice cream recipe. Katrina’s ice cream looked wonderful and I immediately made a quick version using chilled coconut milk (versus prechilling whole recipe) with honey (and without xanthan gum). We enjoyed it very much, but by definition, sadly, it was not green. Working on the success of that version though, I came up with this recipe for Surprise Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. It’s naturally gluten free, and dairy free, if dairy-free chocolate is added. It’s also refined sugar free if peppermint extract is used versus peppermint schnapps. (I don’t think any liquor is considered refined sugar free.) I love this ice cream. It’s green, and it’s delicious! And, I’m sure you’ve surmised what gives it its natural green coloring …

Surprise Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
(Click here for a print version of this recipe.)

2 3/4 cups full-fat coconut milk, chilled

2/3 cup honey (to taste, can use slightly less)

1/8 cup fresh spinach (the surprise ingredient! I used baby spinach leaves and discarded the stems)

1 tbsp peppermint schnapps (or 2 tsp peppermint extract)

2/3 cup mini chocolate chips (use only about 1/2 cup if using regular-sized chocolate chips)

Mix ingredients except for chocolate chips in blender until there are no visible particles from the spinach leaves. Pour into ice cream maker. Churn for 20 minutes. Add chocolate chips and churn another 2 minutes until chips are mixed in.

Shirley’s Notes: I’ve learned from my fellow bloggers and experimentation that adding alcohol to ice cream ensures creaminess and less crystallization. I used Nestle Toll House semi-sweet mini morsels, which contain dairy. Enjoy Life chocolate chips are dairy free; another option is using a dairy-free chocolate bar that you’ve crushed into small pieces. The beauty of making ice cream without eggs is you can keep tasting your mix until you get a taste you like. This recipe made a pale green mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was so pale that I had a hard time getting photos that showed the green properly. But, in reality, it was a lovely color and the ice cream had a light, minty flavor enhanced by the little bits of chocolate.

I told Mr. GFE about the surprise ingredient in this Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream after he sampled it and murmured his approval. “Spinach? I am Yam what I Yam!” he said (that last part in his best Popeye voice, of course). Then he proceeded to happily eat his bowl of ice cream. This ice cream is irresistible to me. There is no spinach taste. (Mr. GFE would not have eaten it if there had been.) I know there’s not enough spinach included to really provide much in the way of nutrients, but that’s not really the point with this recipe. The main thing is my beloved, green Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream can be made easily (gfe! and dairy free easily—dfe!) without food coloring. It’s heavenly all by itself, but this ice cream would also make a very special topping for one of my chocolate desserts like 3-minute chocolate cakes, Mediterannean chocolate cake, or Katharine Hepburn brownies.

Hope you’ll follow along this week to check out all the sweet treats! Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for The Spunky Coconut Cookbook on my Out and About page here.

One last thing, and an important one … Lauren, who we all know and love as Celiac Teen, has finished her very generous ebook effort to raise money for Haiti’s earthquake recovery. Her ebook is titled A Hand for Haiti. It’s a compilation of 87 recipes from 71 bloggers who have shared the recipes that mean home to them. Please check out the details here to see if you’d like to purchase it and provide support to the Haitian people at the same time. I’m one of the bloggers who provided a recipe and I was so happy to be able to provide that tiny bit of input. Full credit for this awesome project goes to Lauren! Frankly, she just rocks, and I think it’s so timely that she just finished the ebook as we approach Valentine’s Day. As the song goes, “Think of your fellow man. Lend him a helping hand. Put a little love in your heart.”

Shirley
Not just gf, but gfe!

Tags: dairy free, easy, GFE, gluten free, green, healthy, honey, recipe

Until I Return …

July 17, 2009 · Filed Under breakfast, camping, crustless, dessert, easy, entree, gluten free, hiking, picnics, recipe · 32 Comments

I had planned a clever post before I headed out the door for our 10-day, multi-state, 2,000 plus-mile motorcycle trip to New England, but that’s just not happening. Mr. GFE is due home in a half hour and we are supposed to leave within a half hour of his arrival—yeah, that’s not happening either. The downstairs computer is acting up and I don’t even have all the directions printed out yet. Did I mention that he’s the driver and I’m the navigator? I’m the one on the back of the bike with a plastic sleeve full of directions, maps, phone numbers, a bottle of water, and a camera. I’m really quite content back there though. (Our Ultimate Seat that I insisted on buying after our first 2,500-mile New England trip is wonderful!) Our departure should not be long after he arrives though, so I only have time for a very quick post (stop that clapping! LOL).

Seriously, I hope you won’t mind my sort of non-post since it’s my birthday today. Yes, I celebrate my birthday by doing adventurous things like these awesome motorcycle trips! I also believe in celebrating one’s birthday for at least a week, so the timing of this trip works out nicely. Gettysburg and Tannersville, PA; Warrensburg, NY; Ludlow, VT; Jackson, NH; Rangeley, Bar Harbor, and Lincolnville, ME; Barre, MA; and New Hope, PA;—here we come! Of course, I’ll share my gluten-free experiences when I return. I am particularly excited about the inn that offers not only gluten-free dinner and breakfast (with homemade gluten-free baked bread–yes, I do indulge in that now and then), but also a gluten-free tea! (I think Mr. GFE will nap through that.)

Hey, it’s raining right now (boo hiss!) … this too shall pass, though, and that gives me more time to get everything done. Uh, packing for example. How much can I squeeze into two saddle bags and a tail bag on our Honda Valkyrie? It’s always such a dilemma. One has to be prepared for all kinds of weather and dining out, but with very few outfits. The old “mix and match” and layering guidelines come into play. Food, you say? I don’t take any food with me at all. That is the beauty of eating gluten free naturally. I am not looking for gluten-free specialty foods along the way either; I just focus on foods that are gluten free to begin with … meat, seafood, fruit, veggies, and dairy (most). Even convenience stores usually carry a decent supply of bananas, apples, nuts, and such for the stops in between meals. But, I’ll share more on my travel methods when I return.

Please remember that Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten Free! blog carnival entries are due on Tuesday, July 28. The theme is Make Me A Happy Camper. You can read more here, but “camping” for this blog carnival really means outdoor activities, so everyone should have a recipe that qualifies. Please enter your recipe!

Finally, as my parting gift to you, I offer a few photos of recipes I will be sharing soon. Note that in addition to posting the Go Ahead Honey blog carnival at the end of the month, I will also be doing a post featuring one of the recipes below that offers a giveaway to gfe’s readers—my first!

Green Smoothies

Mahi with Pico de Gallo

Zesty Pork Chops

Crustless Coconut Pie

Shirley
Not just gf, but gfe!

Tags: breakfast, camping, easy, fish, gluten free, green, healthy, pie, pork, smoothie

A Little Crunch of Cabbage

January 25, 2009 · Filed Under easy, entree, gluten free, recipe, salad · 37 Comments

UPDATE: This post is linked to Slightly Indulgent Mondays over at Amy’s blog, Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free. Many, many thanks to Amy for featuring me and the gfe concept there! If you haven’t checked out your her blog yet, you should. It’s every bit as delightful as she is! This post is also linked to my fantastic BlogHer Food ‘09 travel buddy Diane’s Friday Foodie Fix—Cranberries at her blog, The W.H.O.L.E. Gang. Check their blogs and carnivals out!

As a child, I was really not exposed to a lot of different foods. Looking back, my mother largely prepared the foods my father liked and, overall, that was a somewhat limited menu. If my sister or I tried something and didn’t like it, well, we never had to eat it again … Mom happily fixed us a quick alternative. That seemed like a wonderful thing as a child, but as I grew up I found out there were lots of foods that I’d never eaten at all before and many others that I’d never really given a chance.

When I met my future husband while I was still in college, he introduced me to steamed artichokes. Heaven … pure heaven! (Thank goodness for that one high school sweetheart originally from San Jose who introduced him to artichokes!) When I was pregnant with my son, I wanted to eat healthier, so I tried broccoli again. It soon became my new favorite vegetable. Just last year, I finally learned to enjoy asparagus. (Grilled asparagus with a little olive oil and seasonings is incredibly good.) I suppose it’s somewhat surprising that at my age I am still learning to appreciate new foods, but it also makes sense. When one goes gluten free and takes the easy approach (gfe), you consider all the foods that are naturally gluten free. Fruits and vegetables top that list. As they are so inherently healthy, it just seems like a “win-win” to add more to your menus.

At one of our girlfriend dinners a few months ago, my dear friend, Kathi, volunteered to bring a salad that she promised was great and easy to make. (Someone had made it at a potluck she’d attended and she fell in love with it. Good recipes spread as quickly as bad gossip … or “good” gossip, depending up on which camp you’re in on that topic! LOL) She showed up with a grocery bag that contained all the ingredients she’d picked up on the way: romaine, spinach, cole slaw mix, almonds, dried cranberries, and Briannas poppy seed dressing. She mixed it up in a salad bowl and in 5 minutes, it was ready. Wow—such a great contribution to a dinner or potluck without hours of preparation needed. It was beautiful and it did taste great—a colorful combination of so many of my favorite ingredients producing a variety of flavors and a nice mix of chewiness and crunchiness.

Amazingly, the ingredient that I found myself enjoying the most in the salad was from the cole slaw mix: the shredded cabbage. The pungent flavor and just the little added crunch factor were surprisingly irresistible. I had always thought I hated cabbage. I had even suppressed a frown when Kathi had brought out the bag of cole slaw mix when she first made the recipe for us. But after eating the salad and enjoying it so much, I found myself adding the remaining cole slaw mix (the recipe only calls for a partial bag) to other salad greens for a quick salad. Sometimes, I topped the cole slaw mix with tuna salad or some sliced chicken. Every raw cabbage-based concoction I came up with was good, quite good.

The three-color cole slaw mix has now become a standard on my grocery list and a staple in my diet. (Of course, you can just purchase cabbage and do your own shredding, too.) Now, I often make my own single serving version of Kathi’s Great Salad, usually only adding a few dried cranberries, substituting different nuts for the almonds depending upon what I have on hand, adding different, simple dressings like a little extra virgin olive oil (or Gluten Free Kay’s delightful vinaigrette), and topping my salad with a little sliced chicken or salmon from time to time.

This salad recipe is ideal for sharing with folks who are not normally salad fans. They will try it and then surprise themselves by eagerly asking for more. For example, last night I took it to a family potluck (where the salads eaten are typically potato salad and pasta salad LOL), and it won rave reviews. I brought home just enough to enjoy for lunch today. I often prepare it for our celiac/gluten intolerance support group meetings. Group members now call it “our salad.” It really is a great salad, no matter exactly how you make it or what you call it. I am so grateful to Kathi for bringing it to our girlfriend dinner and re-introducing me to the crunch of cabbage!

Great Salad

(Click here for a print version of this recipe.)

one bag of Romaine (I use organic, so I use one box, I’ve also used spring mix, butter lettuce, and other greens when Romaine was not available)

one bag of spinach (again, I use organic, so I use one box; see note above on using other greens if spinach is not available)

one-half bag of three-color cole slaw mix (shredded green cabbage, red cabbage, and carrots)

one small package of slivered almonds (sliced almonds also work)

one small package of Craisins (original flavor is gf per my research) or equivalent amount of dried cranberries

one bottle of Briannas poppy seed dressing or equivalent amount of homemade poppy seed dressing

Mix all together except Craisins/cranberries. Sprinkle those over the salad once mixed (otherwise, they tend to sink to the bottom) and serve. This salad is best eaten immediately, but it will keep fairly well for up to 48 hours (if there is any left!).

Shirley’s Notes: Briannas poppy seed dressing is not certified gluten free, but I find no ingredients of concern on the label and I’ve also seen it on some gf lists. Regarding the option of homemade poppy seed dressing, I just found a simple poppy seed dressing recipe online and plan to adapt it to my own tastes using olive oil and perhaps some honey as part of the sweetener. (The main ingredient of Briannas poppy seed dressing is canola oil and I’d rather not use that.) Easy salad recipes are a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen. Usually when they participate in making something, they feel that “pride of ownership” and will excitedly dig in, as well as promote the merits of their dish to everyone else! Even more than one child can help make a salad like this one … one adds the spinach, one adds the romaine, and so on.

Update: If you’re looking for more wonderful ideas on using greens, specifically spinach, head on over to Diane’s The W.H.O.L.E. Gang blog. This week’s Friday Foodie Fix features spinach recipes and will have a roundup of great recipes. Diane hosts this informative and helpful carnival every Friday.

Enjoy!

Shirley
Not just GF, but GFE!