I love ice cream!! Don’t hate, appreciate. I am sure you can even relate!!I was never really a sweets or ice cream person, but I have always had a love for ice cream. It was either strawberry or peanut butter flavors, that I would get st the shop. Actually, side story, this local place in my hometown would rotate flavors and I’d call each week to ask if strawberry was in the mix, of so, I’d be there! True story! I have always loved fresh fruit and the sugar from fruit. I grew up in a household where we didn’t really get a lot of sugary or artificially sweetened foods. I am so thankful now that I was taught at an early age to stay away from artificial ingredients. Though I’m sure you can imagine, I wasn’t too stoked back then about not having all the sugary sweets.
After graduating college I traveled to Europe on a solo backpacking trip. Yep, SOLO! I’m crazy…. or cool, however you wanna look at it, and as you get to know me I’m sure you’ll understand. On this Euro trip, I had vegan gelato at some small cafe and it was pistachio flavor. My world was changed forever! FOREVERRRR. I now had a want and need for pistachio gelato in my life, though as some of you may know, gelato is definitely not vegan. After that if I ever got the chance to find a vegan pistachio gelato or ice cream, you bet your buns I got it!
Fast forward to now, well, I have been craving pistachio ice cream for a while now and have been meaning to make it. I finally had time and this is what I came up with. I have been making “nice cream,” as a healthy and non guilty treat, with bananas for a while now. It’s great! But this time, especially because I wanted the ice cream to be as green looking as possible, I decided to use avocado. Avocado has healthy fats, potassium, and other really great nutrients, so why not try it in an ice cream? It worked! It was fantastic and I can’t wait to make it again! I used setton farms pistachios and then chopped up one of their really yummy chewy bites and topped the ice cream with that for a little added sweetness and flavor.
I hope you enjoy the ice cream as much as I did. It’s pretty easy to make. The hardest part about this dang recipe is that you potentially have to wait over night for it. I know, so sad… OOOORR if you’re like me, you place it in the freezer for four hours and hope it’s mostly frozen and then dig in, haha. It’s your creation, you get to do whatever you want!
Yummy Pistachio Ice Cream
- 2 1/2 Cups Oat milk (or any other non dairy milk)
- 1 large Avocado (or 2 small Avocados)
- 1 Cup pistachios – I used Setton Farms pistachios (get ready to peel them, or you can go find shelled ones too…)
- 1 Cup soft medjool dates
- Optional for color and added nutrients: 1/4 teaspoon spirulina (highly recommended for color), and or a handful of spinach. You can also use 1/2 teaspoon matcha powder from navitas for more color and added nutrients.
*** As a sweet and yummy topping, I used Setton Farms Pistachio bites, which I chopped up and threw on top. Ok, Yum.
Method:
-First grind the pistachios into a powder, then set aside in a bowl.
-Then pour the milk into a blender and if your add any of the powders or spinach blend that together first. Then add the pitted dates and blend until they are all the way blended. It should be a very thick milky mixture now.
-Then blend in the avocado and once it’s become smooth, add in the pistachio powder.
-Pour the mixture in a container to place in the freezer for st least 6 hours, but preferably overnight.
-Take the ice cream out of the fridge and let it thaw for about 15-20 minutes. Then use and ice cream scoop to make perfect scoops. It will be slightly icy and may not scoop in all in one piece. That’s ok, I had to scratch the ice with my scoop a good few times and then pack it into the scoop to really get a nice ball formed, then repeat with as many scoops as you’d like. This makes enough for 3-4 people to have two scoops.
enjoy my loves!!
XoXo, Stephie
