Happy 2016! New year, new you. Many of us approach the new year with high expectations for the year ahead, ambitious hopes, and resolutions that appear to be perfectly attainable. However, only a couple of weeks (or even days) into the new year, our resolutions often become elusive. The commonly broken New Year’s resolutions that fail time and time again generally consist of phrases along the lines of eating healthier, becoming fit, saving money, or spending more time with family. Although I cannot help you with everything, I am here to help you stick to one specific resolution: to eat healthier. To jumpstart your way into the year and become the healthier version of yourself, I have just the right recipe for you. Say a not-so-sorry goodbye to your favorite indulgence of ice cream and say a hello to nice cream.
With ice cream trucks parked outside your school doors, trendy froyo shops opening up around town, and wacky new ice cream flavors popping up in your local grocery store, it’s no wonder that we’re all ice cream fanatics. There are numerous forms of ice cream that exist — including gelato, sorbet, soft serve, sherbert, ice cream sandwiches, and frozen yogurt — offering a frozen treat for everyone. We’ve all had a night to ourselves digging that spoon into a tub of Half Baked Ben & Jerry’s.
Other times we’ve opted for a “healthier” style of ice cream with self-serve froyo. However, before you know it, you find yourself paying $10 for a cup of Nutella-flavored froyo topped with an exorbitant amount of rainbow sprinkles, cookie dough balls, sour gummy bears, and chocolate syrup. But it’s still frozen yogurt, so it’s healthier than regular ice cream, right?
Let’s just all admit right now that ice cream is definitely a guilty pleasure of many. There is something oh-so-satisfying about indulging into a cold, creamy, and flavorful treat. Whether you’re a froyo fanatic, a lover of Stracciatella gelato, or more of a mango sorbet kind of gal, I would like to add one more type of ice cream to your repertoire: nice cream. Nice cream, simply put, is blended frozen bananas mixed with any other ingredient of your choosing. It’s perfect for those hot summer days or, better yet, for when you’re dreaming it’s summer. Just make sure you have a warm and cozy blanket nearby.
I can (almost) guarantee that you’ll soon prefer nice cream over any other type of ice cream because it’s fluffy, light, and free of processed ingredients, animal products, and chemicals. No need for an ice cream maker since a high-speed blender or a food processor will do the trick. Today we are going to keep it simple with just two ingredients: frozen bananas and frozen raspberries — because why not? Let’s make nice cream your newest BFF this year.
Ingredients:
Serves 1
- 2 chopped frozen bananas
- 1 cup of frozen raspberries
Directions:
- Using a high-speed blender or a food processor, combine the frozen bananas and frozen raspberries.
- At first, the bananas and raspberries may appear crumbly. Depending on the power of your blender, you may need to stop the blender and scrape down the sides.
- Continue blending until achieving a creamy texture and a solid pinkish color.
- Put your nice cream into a bowl and enjoy!
Although this recipe is super easy, there are innumerable ways to take this recipe to the next level. You may choose to combine frozen bananas with whatever your taste buds call for: coconut water, freshly squeezed orange juice, mint leaves, cinnamon, cardamom, cacao powder, Matcha powder, vanilla extract, strawberries, pineapples, blackberries, pecans, cashews, avocado, maple syrup, almond butter, walnut butter, dark chocolate… evidently, the list goes on. What mix-ins are you going to add?