Blueberry Lemon Sorbet

This is an easy sorbet to create. Some people who tried it also loved to mix it with the coconut vanilla ice cream for an even better dessert experience.

Vegan Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream

This is my standard vanilla "ice cream". Because I cannot have dairy, this is how I get the creaminess that I desire without the dairy. It's also a great base for all sorts of other ice creams.

I've run into several problems along the way, typically with texture. Understanding how to make this ice cream makes it easier to prepare the other vegan ice creams.

Originally I tried using a whisk to make these ice creams, but I often cannot get a smooth texture unless I put in a lot of work (my poor arms...). So I moved to using a blender to mix the ingredients and that worked better.

Sometimes, however, I would get a clumpy texture in the final ice cream. It appeared that the coconut cream had split like a typically dairy-based recipe might. With dairy, splitting cannot be fixed and you must start over. But with coconut cream, splitting means that you need to mix the cream for longer to get the ideal smooth, creamy texture. I detail how to do that in the first step of the instructions, below.

Raspberry Lemon Sorbet

This is a straightforward, delicious sorbet. I prefer buying frozen raspberries because they will be fresher than a clamshell of raspberries. Pineapple says it might be a little too sweet, so you might cut out 1-2 tablespoons of sugar.

Eggnog Ice Cream

Apparently eggnog is now in season for Easter. I personally do not consume it because it contains both milk and eggs. But Pineapple loves eggnog so when I saw it in the store long after Christmas, I picked up a half-gallon for her.

On a whim, we wondered if we could turn it in to an ice cream via the Ninja CREAMi and found success!

This is an easy treat for anyone who does not need to avoid dairy or eggs. Although it's not compatible for me on the Paleo API protocol, for many other people this would work. We may try and create a version which works for me, but that will have to come some other day.

Pineapple Sorbet

This particular sorbet took several iterations to get right. Our first attempts weren't very systematic, but we finally took a slow-and-steady approach to iterating on this and now we have a fantastic sorbet to share.

We tried this with varying amounts of lime juice, sugar, lime zest as well as with raw, grilled, and sous vide pineapple. Several different iterations are good, a few were the best, and we are sharing the best here.

In particular, we found that the agave nectar (or corn syrup) is necessary; it allows the sorbet to be smoother and less grainy than just pineapple. Incorporating lime juice will enhance the pineapple flavor, so it's highly recommended.

Sous Vide Pineapple

Pineapple is an amazing fruit. I love the flavor, tartness, and sweetness.

The first recipe I tried when making a sorbet was with canned pineapple. I loved the final texture of the sorbet, but unfortunately a tinny flavor permeates the canned pineapple and thus the sorbet.

My wife, Pineapple, and I wanted something similar to the canned pineapple result, but without the tininess. This means we wanted to preserve the texture, keep the pineapple flavor high, make the fibrous texture low, and eliminate the tin.

For our next attempt we chose to go with raw pineapple; we filled a pint with raw pineapple, froze it, and processed the pint on "sorbet" but found that the flavor wasn't sweet enough and the pineapple flavor was dull. Also, my mouth and my gut do not like it when I eat more than about a scoop of raw pineapple.

Lemon Sorbet

Corn products do not agree with my body so I try and avoid them. Thankfully agave syrup is an acceptable substitute for corn syrup, so I use it instead.

Lemon juice is a common ingredient in my sorbet recipes. I often make several different ice cream/sorbet pints at the same time so that I can select among them when a craving strikes. Consequently, I will prepare 1-2 cups of lemon juice and just use 1/2 cup for this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup cane sugar (I prefer organic)
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup (or corn syrup)
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (I prefer fresh juice from lemons which requires 2-3 lemons in this case)

Directions

1. Prepare the lemon juice
1. Cut lemons
2. Squeeze out lemon juice
3. Scrape out the pulp
4. Blend the pulp and lemon juice for ten seconds
2. In a large bowl, mix the cane sugar, warm water, agave syrup, and lemon juice until the cane sugar fully dissolves
3. Pour the mixture into a CREAMi Pint
4. Freeze for 2 hours and check whether the pulp has risen; If so, stir the mixture
5. Freeze for 22 more hours
6. Process on Sorbet
7. Serve and enjoy!