Coconut & Pomogranate Ice Cream

My last attempt at making ice cream wasn't exactly the most delish ice cream I have ever eaten. In fact, it turned out more like an icy sorbet than a creamy ice cream. Since I do not have an ice cream maker, and will not use either milk or eggs, I shouldn't really ask for any thing other than what I did end up with. Therefore, understandably, I haven't rushed in to make another batch for a long time. Don't get me wrong - It was delish, but just not as creamy as store-bought ice cream.

But then I saw this no churn pomogranate icecream recipe by Nigella Lawson. I had a pomogranate at home. And more importantly, I had a can of coconut cream, that I was dying to dig into. So I did start off with the idea of just making a pomogranate icecream. But, as I added my coconut cream to the pomogranate juice, I really liked the nutty flavor and so, probably, added more coconut cream than I should have. The result is my coconut and pomogranatae no churn, vegan ice cream. No sugar as well. I used maple syrup - which is what turned the ice cream color from a rosy pink to a soft plum color.

Coconut & Pomogranate Ice Cream

Serving: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1 large pomogranate (about 2 cups of pomogranate seeds)
• 1 cup coconut cream (more if you're using coconut milk)
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 lime

To make:

• Peel the pomogranate to get about 1.5 to 2 cups of pomogranate.
• In a juicer, juice the pomogranate along with the juice of half a lime. Its up to you whether you want to include the pomogranate seeds or discard them. I included them as they're very healthy.
• Tranfer the pomo-lime juice into a bowl. Stir in the maple syrup.
• Add little by little the coconut cream into the mixture, stirring all the while.
• You may also want to transfer this mixture back in a blender and just get some air in by blending for 5-10 minutes.
• Lay the mixture in a tin bowl and put it in the freezer with a lid on.
• After an hour or so of putting the mixture in the freezer, take it off and break the chunks and stir around for some time, and put back in the freezer to reset. Repeat this process a couple more times after an hour or so. Then leave it in the freezer for 4 hours to set one final time.

Fig, Apple, and Roquette Salad

I had this for lunch yesterday. One tip though - any dressing with maple syrup should be added right before you are about to eat your salad or your salad leaves start to wilt. My salad was fine for about 4 hours, but by 7 hours, it was begging for mercy.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 cups of roquette lettuce/arugula
• 2-3 figs
• 1/2 an apple
• 1 cup of red and green peppers

Dressing

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup
• Teaspoon of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• Half a teaspoon of sumac powder

To make:
Chop the veggies and fruits into bite sized morsels.

Combine in a bowl.

Make a salad dressing with the dressing ingredients.

Pour over the salad when you want to eat the salad.

Strawberry Lettuce Salad

For lunch today, a delightful sweet salad consisting of strawberries and lettuce, with maple adding to the sweetness.

Lettuce isn’t just a sweet and crunchy vegetable that makes salads appetizing, or the mandatory greens you add atop your burger! It’s one of the most nutrient-dense foods around, according to Dr. Joel Fuhrman. Nutrient density can also be understood as the ratio of the nutrient composition of a given food to the nutrient requirements of the human body. This, according to the eBook 'Profoundly Raw'. OK, as you see from the chart below, it’s nowhere close to the heavy weights kale and spinach, but would you rather eat a kilo of kale or lettuce?

Strawberry Lettuce Salad

Ingredients:

• 10-12 strawberries
• 2-3 cups of lettuce
• 10-12 green olives
• 1 cup of green pepper
• ½ cup of red pepper
• Tablespoon of maple syrup

To make:

• Tear up the lettuce - I used iceberg – into bite sized chunks.
• Chop up the peppers into little squares, and the strawberries you can leave whole or slice in half, depending on the size.
• Mix all the ingredients.
• Pour the maple syrup on top right before you want to eat the salad or the lettuce will start to wilt away.

 



Orange and Fennel Salad

Three ingredients – orange, fennel bulb, and maple syrup. Ready in a jiffy and makes for a delicious breakfast.

To make, you'll need one orange, half a fennel bulb, and a teaspoon of maple syrup. Just shave off shards of the fennel bulb; slice the orange horizontally to get thin round discs. Reserve a little orange juice and add that to the maple syrup to make the dressing. Combine, mix and tuck in!

Sweet and Sour Bean Sprouts Salad

I had a really good day yesterday – for the first time in a long time, I was completely raw yesterday. Well, the flax seed chikki is technically cooked, in that the jaggery is heated until it melts. But I will slot this under the raw category as there was hardly any jaggery and a ton of raw flax seeds. So, this morning, I thought I’d continue the raw trend. But dumb that I am, I put my endive lettuce in the freezer for lack of space in the veggie compartment below. I thought it would nicely thaw out like my frozen peas. But sadly, it’s all not looking too appetizing right now, so I laid those out in the sun today to dry out. Which meant, I had one less – and important – ingredient to work with for today’s lunch. Let’s face it – Salads with lettuce are so much easier to scarf down. So, a mung bean sprout salad, it had to be!

Mung beans - I've had them tons of times cooked as lentils in daals. But the first time as sprouts. I got a batch from Nature's Basket last week, but looks like they are quite easy to make at home. At least I think they are mung bean sprouts. Aren't they?

The salad's got peppers, ginger, mint and is dressed with (Korean) miso and maple syrup. So, its quite tangy and refreshing at the same time.

Sweet and Sour Mung Bean Sprouts Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1/2 inch knob of ginger
• 1/2 cup of mint

Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon of miso paste
• 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil
• Juice of one lime

To make:
Slice your peppers, mint, and ginger finely.

Add to the bean sprouts.

Heat a little water and add to the miso paste till it dissolves. Add that to the maple syrup, lime juice, and oil mixture.

Add the dressing over the salad. Mix well.

Guava, Mulberry and Maple Salad

This is a really easy salad/dessert to make with very few ingredients. I added a couple of broken down pieces of my flaxseed chikki for added crunch. Flaxseed chikki is really easy to make – just melt some jaggery or brown sugar in a pan. Let cool for 5 minutes. Add the flax seeds. Stir well. Transfer to a flat bottomed pan and cut into diamond shaped or square pieces and let it set till it’s a solid mass.

Guava, Mulberry, Maple Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 large guava
• 10 mulberries
• 1 cup iceberg lettuce
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 2 pieces of flaxseed chikki (optional)

To make:

• On a bed of lettuce leaves, lay the guava pieces.
• Add the mulberries and the maple syrup on top.
• Finish with chunks of flaxseed chikki on top.