4
votes
What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
It didn't get many votes, but some of you may have read my previous post about the Ninja CREAMi that I bought... and while those first batches tasted great and turned out pretty good, the fruit ones were more sorbet-like than ice cream, and they all refroze rock hard so required a respin in the CREAMi to consume again.
So I did some research on recipes, and things to help with those issues, and /r/CREAMi has a ton of resources for exactly that. One of the things everyone there seems to recommend is adding 1/4 tsp of xanthan gum to help with the texture, and adding 1/2 tbsp food-grade vegetable glycerine to improve texture and also keep the ice cream still scoopable after refreezing.
I decided to order both and add them to my latest batches, and wow, they really did make a HUGE difference, at least texture-wise! No more icy sorbet, it's 100% creaminess for all of them now. I haven't yet tested the scoopability after refreezing though since I just made the batches a short while ago. But I will report back tomorrow on the results. Edit: It worked, see comment below.
p.s. The gum + glycerine make the mixture foam up a lot more when you blend it, so don't fill all the way to fill line on these ones. Or blend as you add the milk so you can gauge the mixture level more accurately.
Recipe for my latest batch of 4:
Piña colada ice cream
Add 1/2 can of coconut milk, frozen pineapple to fill line, 1.5tbsp maple syrup, 1tsp vanilla extract, and enough skim milk to go just below fill line. Use stick blender to puree it all. Freeze 24hrs before using in the CREAMi.
Mango coconut ice cream
Add 1/2 can of coconut milk, frozen mango to fill line, 1tbsp maple syrup, 1tsp vanilla extract, and skim milk to just below fill line. Use stick blender to puree it all. Freeze 24hrs before using in the CREAMi.
Raspberry Chocolate protein ice cream
Add 1 cup fresh raspberries, 1.5 scoops chocolate protein powder, and skim milk to just below fill line. Use stick blender to puree it all. Freeze 24hrs before using in the CREAMi.
Blue/Raspberry vanilla protein ice cream
Add 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 cup fresh raspberries, 1.5 scoops vanilla protein powder, and skim milk to just below fill line. Use stick blender to puree it all. Freeze 24hrs before using in the CREAMi.
I still really like the chocolate and vanilla protein ones, even moreso than the last time I made them since they're a lot creamier this time... but my favorites this time around are definitely the coconut milk ones. They're ~115 more calories per batch than a pure skim milk version, but goddamn is it ever worth it. The taste+texture is absolutely amazing!
cc: @patience_limited, if you want a MUCH more enjoyable way to consume your protein powder, this is it. ;) And to avoid the lactose, you could always use soy, almond, or oat milk instead of skim milk. I might even try that myself at some point just to see how it turns out.
Update: The vegetable glycerine did work to help maintain scoopability after refreezing. They still got a lot firmer than they initially were yesterday, but they're not rock hard again like the last batch after refreezing, and don't require a respin in the machine to get another scoop out. So I think I will try upping the glycerine to 1tbsp next time to see if that helps even further, since the recommendations on /r/creami ranged from 1/2tbsp to 2tbsp per batch.
cc: @patience_limited
Thank you for the recipes! The protein mixes will do fine in a blender for shakes. I did some reading, and it sounds like the shave-and-aerate mixing for the CREAMi is substantially different from a standard motorized ice cream maker with the pre-freeze tub. I'll definitely look into this - our ice cream experiments have been decadent, but rock hard. Spouse had xanthan gum on his shopping list, but we haven't made ice cream yet this summer because I can't eat it. I've had coconut ice cream before and it's divine - try this black sesame version.
I use soy milk for anything that would ordinarily call for dairy milk. It doesn't taste exactly like dairy milk, but it's pleasant enough, and usually fortified with enough calcium to be nutritionally equivalent. You'll want to be careful because there's often added sugar. Other plant milks generally don't have the same protein content, and are even higher in fat.
YVW. :) And yeah, the CREAMi isn't a churner or regular ice cream machine. It's basically a consumer-grade version of a Pacojet, which a lot of professional kitchens use.
Last batch mine went rock hard again after 24hrs of refreezing too... so I'll let you know if the vegetable glycerine fixes that issue. And I will definitely be trying that black sesame recipe, BTW. I f'n love Chinese black sesame buns, so that ice cream sounds right up my alley! Good to know soy milk works fine as a substitute too, so I will probably give that a try instead of milk at some point too just for the hell of it. :P
If you want something very decadent for a cheat day, try goat cheese ice cream. This recipe for roasted cherry goat cheese ice cream is a local favorite, deservedly so.
Goat milk and cheese are somewhat lower in lactose content than cow's milk, so I might take the chance again and substitute all goat products.
Despite my love of cheese it's just too damn calorie dense for me right now. I haven't eaten any in the last 6-ish months. So I will probably pass on that one. Although I fully intend to steal that roasted cherries idea for another ice cream. Roasted cherries in a chocolate protein ice cream, perhaps! :P
A short while back I had heard of edamame pasta. I’m not much of a fan of pasta in general and pastas made from alternative ingredients tend to fare even worse, but I bought some and made it and I was surprised how good it was! The texture isn’t quite pasta-like, but it’s nice and firm and has a good flavor to it on its own. The noodles I got were fettuccine style, but I just ate it with jarred spaghetti sauce and had it with roasted cauliflower.