Banana ice cream

I have a serious obsession with ice cream. It's probably the sole reason I never lost the rest of my baby weight after I had my daughter about 10 months ago. Ok that and I don't exercise. But who's keeping track?

My ultimate weakness is called Tillamook mudslide. It's like a chocolate party in every bite, along with about a million calories. For those who are not familiar with this ice cream, this is what it looks like (this picture is from www.tillamook.com). If you ever see it, buy it immediately. It's worth every penny.

Back in the real world, we really can't be eating ice cream every night. And neither should our kids. I have been looking for an ice cream alternative for quite some time. Finally, I read about turning bananas into ice cream and I knew I had to try it. Here's how it works.

First, slice bananas and put them in your freezer for about 1-2 hours minimum.

Next, put them through your food processor (I'm sure a blender would work too but I have only used a food processor for this). 

The bananas turn the consistency of soft serve ice cream. Scrape the sides and remove all your "ice cream" from the food processor. If you want it a consistency you can scoop, just put what you have removed from the food processor back in the freezer for a few minutes and let it harden a bit.

I was skeptical at first, but it really works. In fact, this is the bottom shelf of my freezer. Pretend it's organized.

I sliced each banana and froze each banana in its own bag. If you don't slice the bananas before you freeze them, you won't be able to get the banana to slice up in the food processor so make sure you don't freeze the bananas whole. I also waited until the bananas were starting to show brown spots on the peels before freezing them.

If I REALLY need ice cream, I put two of the bags of frozen bananas through my food processor, but usually one banana is a good serving size.

As far as taste goes, it's really strongly banana flavored (which makes sense since it's only bananas). I have tried adding various amounts of cocoa powder and peanut butter which turned out okay. It's no Tillamook mudslide, but it helps get rid of my craving for chocolate ice cream. I'd bet other fruit mixes with it well, but I haven't tried that yet. 

My two year old liked this pretty well and ate all that I gave her. I'm hoping to raise my girls on eating this for dessert as they get older. My "diets" when I was in high school always made an allowance for ice cream. Maybe that's why they never worked...

Jenn