Healthy Treats

Chocolate Banana Ice Cream – Nutribullet style

chocolate banana ice cream NutribulletI’m still head over heels in love with my Nutribullet, which is just as bloody well, as I dithered for ages trying to decide: a) Should I get one?  Then, b) Once I’d decided yes to a), which model should I get? Much research on this followed and in the end, I got so overwhelmed, when we were in Briscoes, and I was about to have a melt down, my nine year old said “Mum, for an extra $30 you might as well get the McDaddy powerful one”. He’s so wise. I listened.  Incidentally, do you ever find that, sometimes big decisions are easy – and the little ones see you scratching your head and pondering until the cows come home? My Mum will, at this point, recall that it took me 18 months to decide what dining room table I wanted to buy (after deciding to list mine on Trade Me, spontaneously, to “see if it would sell”. It did). 

Anyhoo, one of the tasty treats I’m really enjoying whipping up in my Nutribullet is ice cream.   I’ve always got a stash of frozen bananas in the freezer as my local greengrocer gives them away once they’ve started to “turn a bit manky” and I snap ’em up. What can I say? I’m an opportunist. Frozen bananas are amazeballs as these lend themselves superbly to be whipped to smithereens for smoothies and now, I’ve discovered, – ice cream.  I’ve played around with a few flavours and my favourite, hands down, is chocolate banana.  It’s such a simple dessert and that it’s guilt free on the account of no refined sugar (yeah, I’m still on my reduced sugar soap box). Dairy free peeps will be ALL OVER THIS too. Frankly, what’s not to love? (more…)

Chocolate Orange Bliss Ball Recipe

 

bliss ball recipeSince my bestie Rhonda introduced me to Froozeballs  I’ve been pondering making my own version.

Problem #1: My food processor has been dead all year (it died when I made  boozy hazelnut truffles on Christmas Eve – FYI Ten minutes later I smashed my iPhone…That was a bad day). Needless to say making my own balls hasn’t been an option.

After seven months of dithering over which food processor to purchase I finally got a new blitzer gadget recently and bliss balls were high on my ‘gotta get cooking list’.    I came up with this recipe simply as my orange tree is groaning  with fruit and screaming “eat me”, I was desperate to use my Equagold Premium Dutch Cocoa and after an over-indulgent shopping spree in Vetro, that just about required a second mortgage, I had lots of dates and nuts on hand. Et voila, Choc Orange Bliss Balls were born.

These are the ultimate moorish treat that can’t really do any damage and, I have it on good authority from my nutritionally-savvy buddy Tania that these tick the Paleo box. They are entirely natural, contain no sugar, just raw and wholefood goodness that’s pretty darn decadent (absolute foodie purists might want to sub the cocoa powder for cacao). I’ve got my creative on now: I’m already thinking what I’ll put in my next batch! (more…)