There are 2 big things I miss on my diet: ice cream and potato chips. I can now have ice cream again, albeit a little different from what I used to get.
Because dairy (i.e. cow's milk) now bothers my digestion I cut it out entirely. I found some sheep's milk and goat milk ice creams, but those include guar gum which makes my mouth feel fuzzy. I've gotten pure coconut ice creams, but those also contain guar gum.
I've purchased several different sorbets. Sometimes they work for me, but only if they do not include guar gum or other bean derivatives nor anything I am allergic to like mango or kiwi. Consequently, for me there is a dearth of other sorbet options. So I often do without.
Sweet Salvation
A couple of months ago I found a device called the Ninja CREAMi. This machine allows me to make my own ice cream and sorbets. The device comes with about 50 recipes and a list of acceptable substitutions for the standard ingredients for dairy-based ice creams. So far, I've been eating ice cream or sorbets from this machine nearly every single day.
I bought the Ninja CREAMi at Costco. It was the last one in stock at the store and was on sale (probably because it hasn't sold as well as they wanted). The Costco version of the Ninja CREAMi has the best price and comes with 3 pint containers whereas options at other stores only come with 1 or 2 pints. I frequently crave something sweet and smooth, so I want to have a lot of options available. Because more pint containers means more options, I bought 10 additional pints for use in the machine.
First Attempt
When I first bought the Ninja CREAMi, I went through the recipe book to find any ice creams or sorbets I could make with ingredients I had on-hand. The only recipe which matched my current pantry was a recipe for pineapple sorbet. You pour a can of pineapple into the pint, freeze the pint (for 24 hours), and then process the frozen pint as a sorbet.
The final sorbet was amazingly smooth and definitely tasted of pineapple. The simplicity of that recipe and the smoothness of the result sold me.
Experiments
Unfortunately, the pineapple sorbet also tasted tinny: meaning the sorbet tasted like canned pineapple. The tinniness doesn't bother me as much as it bothers Pineapple (my wife), but since I like to share, I need to find ways to get options which work for both of us.
Another recipe in the the supplied recipe book is to fill a pint with fresh fruit. There are a limited number of fruits which work using this recipe, and pineapple is one of them. So I bought some fresh pineapple and processed it several different ways before putting it into a pint. In each case, I cut the pineapple into spears and then tried different options:
- Plain, fresh pineapple
- Grilled pineapple
- Sous vide pineapple
I also tried adding different flavors to the pint. For example, blueberry or coconut (i.e. pinada: pina colada without the alcohol).
And we've I've tried many other fruits and flavors:
- Various berries, alone and in combination
- Watermelon
- Lemons
- Meyer lemons
- Limes
- Vegan vanilla ice cream
- Sweet potato pie
- Vanilla goat milk
- Ginger
What's Coming
I'll be perfecting these recipes and sharing them here. Sometimes the recipe is an instant success. For example, the berry & lime concoctions have been good.
Sometimes a recipe takes a little time to get right. For example, Pineapple recommended that we try to make a sweet potato pie ice cream. The first iteration was okay, but we kept at it. By the 4th iteration (2 separate pints and trying different mix-ins) we've perfected that recipe which tastes like pumpkin pie! Everyone loves it.
And some recipes are a spectacular failure on the first iteration. But even the failures can be made into a success. For instance, I like goat milk and drink it regularly, so I made a vanilla goat milk ice cream. I like that ice cream, but for other people it was a little too "goat forward". So Pineapple recommended that we add ginger to it which, surprisingly, toned down the "goat" while not overwhelming the ice cream. We're still perfecting this recipe, but we'll be sure to share it when we're done.
I am having a ton of fun with the Ninja CREAMi. I get to satisfy my sweet tooth. I get creamy textures. I get to try lots of different flavors. I can control the sweetness (each recipe which requests sugar I have dialed back a little). There are no preservatives. And it's just plain fun to take various ingredients and make ice creams and sorbets.
I can't wait to share more!
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