My ice cream maker is god. I swear. Strawberry ice cream has always been one of my favourite flavours.. but I have a problem with the store bought kind (aside from the lactose). You see, I hate fruit chunks in store bought things. The berries in yogurt and ice cream are always gooey and soggy and stringy… gross!! It just really bothers me. For the longest time I wanted to chalk it up to frozen fruit that they’re using… but when I make smoothies and homemade ice cream using that, mine are okay. The chunks stay solid. So needless to say the strawberry ice cream that is in grocery stores I hate. It’s a real pain to find a nice ice creamery every time you want some strawberry ice cream if you’re a weirdo and hate chunks like me!

So I made up this lovely recipe! And since summer is around the corner and it’s starting to get really warm, I thought now would be a good time to share it with you guys. So here it is,  strawberries & cream ice cream, with crushed walnuts!

Strawberry Ice Cream

3 cups (lactose free) milk
1 cup + 2 tbsp (lactose free) cream
1 cup sugar
2 heaping tbsp plain greek yogurt
3/4 cup strawberry puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey

Combine the milk, cream and sugar together in a large pitcher and mix together. Add the yogurt next while continuing to stir, make sure the yogurt gets mixed in as thoroughly as possible. Set aside and create your strawberry puree in a blender. (I like to throw in a little more than a cup of strawberries – frozen or fresh, with a splash of water and blend for about a minute.) Add in the purre, vanilla, sugar and honey and mix again.

Following your ice cream maker manual’s directions, pour the mixture into the machine. While the machine is doing it’s thing, cut up some strawberries in to small bite sized chunks – I used already frozen ones for this because I ran out of fresh ones. Add them to the ice cream about 5 minutes before its done. My machine takes about 25-30 minutes, so I add them around the 20-25 minute mark. At this point you can also add the crushed walnuts, or you can set them aside and just garnish your ice cream with them when you’re ready to enjoy some!

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, here’s a good website with a few different options of how to make ice cream without one.

Also just to let you guys know I decided to go ahead and make a facebook page for the blog! I’d love it if you’d like it (that sounds really weird to me) you can do so here.

Posted in Desert, Food, ice cream • 2 Comments

Avocado’s are one of my favourite things on earth. Bagel’s have always been my weakness. Ever tried a gluten free bagel? Yeah they suck. Until I met Udi’s. It’s really nice to finally be able to enjoy a good bagel again. Their breads and pizza crust are pretty good too! (Homemade bread is of course better.. but I’m lazy and don’t have a bread maker.) I’ve recently started playing around with avocados a little more. I just loveeee them.

This sandwich though is easily one of my new favourites. It’s nice and easy and so yummy. Toasted bagel, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes and cream cheese. Bam. Party in your mouth.

I’m also finding myself strangely addicted to almond milk lately. So. Good.

Today I went to a little event in Toronto called the Gluten Free Garage. It was my first year going, (I had to work last year boo) and it was a lot of fun. There is a ton of different vendors with samples and it’s a great way to find new products for yourself. It’s also pretty educational too!

One thing though that really caught my eye though was a company called Nutrilish who is going to be coming out with a monthly box subscription of gluten free products. (So it’s kinda like glymm box, birchbox, juelp box etc. but with gluten free food!) I’m so excited for it to launch. One of the hardest things about going gluten free is there is a lot of products out there that aren’t too great, and its a continuos struggle for me to find new GOOD gluten free products.

Also remember how in my last post I was so excited that it was getting warmer? Well two days after I posted that it snowed haha. Silly Canada. But it was 20C today and it was wonnnnnderful. Hopefully it stays around this time.

Oh and one more thing! Something really cool about the feedly app for google chrome – it adds this little icon to the bottom right hand corner of your browser so you can easily add blogs/rss feeds to your feedly list! (read more about feedly here)

Posted in Food, Gluten Free • 2 Comments

I really wanted to make something a little different for easter desert. I hadn’t made ice cream in a while, so I thought mini egg ice cream. But then I thought that was too expected. I sat down with one of my favourite  (sadly retired) spring tea’s, Jolly Jellybean by DAVIDsTea… Jellybeans. Jellybeans!!!!

I was really worried it was going to be too sweet, or just plain weird, but it turned out to be ammaaazing. I’m so glad I went with my gut and took a chance. As always, if you’re lactose intolerant like I am, just use lactose free milk & cream! Easy peasy and super tasty!

♥ 3 cups milk
♥ 1 cup + 2 tbsp cream
♥ 1 cup sugar
♥ 2 heaping tbsp plain greek yogurt
♥ 2-3 tsp agave nectar
♥ 1 tsp vanilla
♥ chopped and whole jellybeans

Follow the instructions for your ice cream maker, mine requires adding solid ingredients (ie the jellybeans) at the 20 minute mark/just before the ice cream is done. It’s amazing how the cream actually soaked up the flavour of the jellybeans too. My ice cream maker creates ice cream similar to soft serve, so I like to pop it in my freezer safe container and freeze it for a bit before serving.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Posted in Desert, Food, ice cream • 3 Comments

Before going gluten free I rarely ate foods like sandwiches, burgers, cereal, pizza and other normal bread products. Now I find myself craving them all the freaking time. I have never really found or made a gluten free pizza crust that I’ve liked until recently. I’d still like to figure out how to make one for myself, but for now Udi’s will do.

This doesn’t take long at all to prepare or cook, especially when you’re working with a pre made crust like I usually am. Not to mention its one of the best pizza flavors I’ve had in a while. It’s especially god with a creamy garlic dipping sauce.

Chicken Club Pizza
♥ pesto sauce
♥ mozzarella, feta and goat cheese
♥ 1 cup spinach
♥ red onion
♥ bacon strips, cooked
♥ 1 boneless chicken breast, cooked

Cook your chicken and bacon first. (We cooked our chicken just in a pan, covered with tin foil and in a little bit of water at 400F in the oven.) Wash and chop up all your veggies and set aside. Drain some of the oil from the pesto sauce then spread the pesto all over your crust as thick as you’d like. Add the mozzarella next, it will be your base cheese. Layer on the veggies, feta and goat geese then the meat. Follow the instructions for the crust your using and bake. Udi’s only takes 9 minutes.

If anyone has tried any amazing gluten free pizza crust recipes I’d love for you to share them with me!

Posted in Food, Gluten Free • 7 Comments

These cookies are probably the best thing I’ve ever created. Honest. The first time I made them, (for the Santa Clause Parade hehe) they were gone by the end of the day. This recipe makes roughly 2-3 dozen. The second time I made them  I wanted to take them to work. They didn’t make it out my door. I eventually got a batch to work (two actually!), and had a friend who even paid me to make an entire batch for her. They’re actually pretty simple to make and don’t take too much time either.

So before I get into the recipe, you might have noticed that on my last recipe post and this one that I’ve included printable ‘recipe cards’. (See the last photo above.) Should I keep doing this? Or am I wasting my time with this little extra feature?! Let me know if you like them :)

Text-friendly copy:

♥ 2 1/4 cup gluten free, all purpose flour.
♥ 1 tsp baking powder
♥ 1 tsp baking soda
♥ 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
♥ 3/4 cup softened butter
♥ 1 cup sugar
♥ 2 large eggs
♥ 2 tsp vanilla extract
♥ 2-3 tsp peppermint extract
♥ 2 cups chocolate & white chocolate chips
♥ 4-6 large candy canes, crushed

preheat oven to 375F. bake for 9-12 minutes.

• Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Then add the butter and eggs, mix again. It’s easier to mix the dough with your hands at this point.

• Add the vanilla and peppermint extract and mix it really well using your hands. The dough is going to be thick and hard to work with. Add the crushed candy canes and chocolate chips and mix together one final time.

• Create small dough balls roughly around one inch. Place them on a baking sheet, lined with either parchment paper or tin foil (shiny side down, lightly greased). Spread the dough balls about 1-2 inches apart. Bake for 9-12 minutes.

Hope you all had a good weekend! :)

Posted in Desert, Food, Gluten Free • 1 Comment