Keeping cool

I confess...while we have a fairly clean diet, I do have a couple of weaknesses - chips in the winter and ice cream in the summer.  During weeks like this, when the days are scorching hot and everyone feels as if they are melting by the time supper rolls around, I clearly hear the breezes softly whispering "ice cream" in my ear. 

While I know I could gather up ingredients to make home-made ice cream in individual portion sizes, as the kids have made with folks from the science centre, I wanted something a little lower in fat and with less refined sugar that I could simply pull out of the freezer.  Something less expensive.  Something that we truly could eat every day and not have an ounce of guilt over.  Something that had the creamy consistency of soft serve.

And then I stumbled upon this recipe for gluten-free, dairy-free ice cream sandwiches.  While I may not actually go all the way to make the sandwiches (though they do look super-good), I most definitely did find the time to make the "ice cream".  What's not to love about a recipe with only one ingredient...bananas!  I made up a double batch and have a stash of it in my freezer for those days when we need a little something to help us cool down.  I did stray from the recipe just a bit, by adding a bit of homemade vanilla flavouring while the bananas were pureeing in the food processor.  Maybe next time I'll see what happens if I add a touch of cocoa.  And if that works, we just may never need to buy ice cream again.

The happy news is that my entire family seems over the moon with bananas disguised as ice cream.  My son will more than happily volunteer to take it out of the freezer to thaw just a touch before serving, and he will be my right-hand man when it comes time to scoop the "ice cream" into bowls or dollop it on top of fruit crumble (at least two servings of fruit in every serving - yay!).

How are you keeping cool this summer?