Wednesday, May 4, 2016

I Scream for Ice Cream!

I love ice cream.  I eat it all year long.  We live in western NY, and I believe our heater runs about 8 months out of the year and the AC perhaps a single week, but that doesn't stop my ice cream love affair.  I eat it when there's four feet of snow outside my door and I'm shivering from the cold. 

That's usually my downfall with eating low carb.  There's a lovely little ice cream shack in the next town over, that serves fairly locally made ice cream (that's very good), and Chad and I frequent it at least once a week in the summer.  Sometimes three times a week, because we love ice cream.  And I've been known to get two giant scoops of the melty goodness, which as you can imagine, probably has a billion grams of sugar in it.  Especially the kinds with pieces of cake or bits of brownie, or ripples of caramel (aka browned sugar).  I know if I want to stick to this diet for any length of time, I'm going to have to get serious about making my own ice cream. 

Thankfully, I discovered that Carolyn over at All Day I Dream About Food has a pretty impressive list of low carb ice cream recipes.  Last night, I tried her recipe for peanut butter fudge ripple ice cream, and it was pretty darn good.  I haven't tried it now that it's fully ripened, but even if it's still kind of hard and icy, it'll still be delicious. 

It does call for some things I don't normally have in the house, like Swerve sweetener and almond milk, but I have a trick up my sleeve.  My mom and I frequently go to a discount grocery store run by some Amish folks.  They go around and buy short dated items and stuff from stores that are closing, and resell it for amazing prices.  I got seven bags of Bob's red mill almond flour for $1 a piece!  That's a savings of about $60, no kidding.  I put it in my big freezer so it'll stay good longer.  The other day, I was lucky enough to run across two bags of Swerve sweetener for $2 a piece (it's usually $11 online), and some cartons of almond milk for 69 cents.  I love that store!  It's funny to listen to other people walking through the store, telling their friends to watch out for outdated food!  Folks, the expiration date is a suggestion, not a hard and fast rule.  It's almost always still good to eat for a long time after the date (with the exception of certain fresh food and things like nuts and grains, which can go bad/rancid, but you'll definitely know by how bad it smells).

I probably should take some pictures of my ice cream, but it's all the way downstairs and I'm happy right where I am. 

I'm thinking about buying some cake/wafer type cones to eat my ice cream on.  It's made of starch, but it's practically nothing but air.  I believe a whole cone is around 3 carbs.  And ice cream just isn't as fun when you eat it with a spoon. 

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