Banana's for: Banana Blueberry Soft Serve Ice Cream

I've been on a bit of a banana ice cream kick lately! Partly because I had lots of ripe bananas left over from the expo last weekend that went into my freezer, partly because it's so quick and easy to make, and partly because it tastes amazing!!! It has the exact same creamy smoothness as soft serve ice cream. Nikki and I made this yesterday afternoon as a treat - I usually make straight up banana ice cream but I had already had that for breakfast!

I have three dogs and am babysitting two real sweethearts for the weekend so I thought a puppy play date would be fun!  Nikki came over first with her two dogs Lucy and Rouge. She was hungry and all I have in the house is bananas so the choice was clear - Banana ice cream! I also had some frozen blueberries so we added them to the mixture. It was the perfect afternoon snack and really hit the spot. If you haven't tried banana ice cream yet I suggest you try it! It's super easy and simply delicious! (RECIPE BELOW)

Chelsea came over shortly after with her dog Ollie. There were 8 dogs in my backyard and they had the time of their lives running and playing together. You can just imagine how tired they were after! 

     

Now back to the ice cream! I used both frozen blueberries and frozen bananas to make my ice cream and I added a handful of fresh ones to it after I blended it too! You can do this with almost any sweet fruit. Blended frozen mango is delicious too! 

Here is the recipe for

 Banana Blueberry Soft Serve Ice Cream

INGREDIENTS:

Frozen BANANAS and BLUEBERRIES!

Slice bananas 1/4-inch thick. Make sure they are ripe with lots of brown spots!!

Freeze in a single layer on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper — or in one layer in a resealable freezer bag, laid flat — until solid, at least 6 hours. (I usually freeze them overnight)

Take out 3-5 bananas and measure 1/2 cup frozen blueberries 

Transfer to food processor OR Vitamix/high powered blender and blend. 

The Vitamix works wonders for making banana ice cream. But you can use a food processor too! When you use a food processor the bananas will first go sort of granular, then you’ll start to notice it going a bit creamy near the edges. Once this happens, scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to blend, scrape, blend, scrape, etc. until the whole thing is a smooth, silky, creamy, moussey dream. This whole process should take 3 to 4 minutes in the food processor and 1- 2 minutes in the Vitamix. 

I don’t suggest doing this in a blender unless you have a Vitamix or a Blentec high powered blender. The blade isn’t big enough to properly chop the bananas. That being said: My sister makes hers in her Magic Bullet adding some unfrozen banana or almond milk to get things moving along. 

Variations: You can switch up the flavour by adding another frozen fruit, just as long as at least half of the mixture is banana. Some great mixtures I have done are: 

Banana Strawberry
Banana Mango
Banana Cherry
Banana Pineapple and Dates
Banana Chocolate (carob/cacao powder) and Fresh Mint