Try This—Banana+Coconut+Cardamom Ice Cream

Banana, Coconut, Cardamom Ice Cream. A quick and simple banana based ice cream with a little bit of spice. This post first appeared last year and is still one of my favorite nice cream recipes!

I’m not sure if I could have told you what cardamom was good for if you had asked me a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of those spices that I have on the spice rack, but I never use. I spent a weekend at my bestie’s house and she spiked our morning coffee with a little bit of cardamom. I wasn’t really down with it, but I drank it anyway because coffee. To be fair, I’m not really that into flavored coffee (this iced coffee recipe is as close as I get), so it wasn’t the cardamom that threw me off. Maybe coffee and cardamom isn’t for me, but I could totally see myself combining it with something else. I started to think about recipes that might benefit from that distinct herbal, citrusy flavor. With Summer right around the corner, I decided to make some ice cream.

Dude. This may have been the best decision I’ve made in a while. Even though it was absolutely freezing in the city this weekend, this ice cream was so good that I turned the heat on, curled up with a chunky throw on the couch, watched some Netflix, and totally gorged myself on what was supposed to be enough ice cream for two servings. Don’t judge me, just try this!

Banana+Coconut+Cardamom Ice Cream

recipe from Chitra Agrawal’s Vibrant India

serves 2

Ingredients

  • 2 ripe bananas
  • 2 tablespoons dried unsweetened shredded coconut, plus more for garnish
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom powder
  • 1 tablespoon bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips (optional)
  • granulated brown sugar, for garnish
  • sliced almonds, for garnish

Directions

  • peel the bananas and cut them into 1/2-inch disks.  place in a glass bowl or freezer bag.  freeze the bananas for at least 2 hours or up to overnight.
  • using a food processor, pulse the frozen banana pieces.  they will first get crumbly, then gooey, then look like oatmeal pieces, and then start to bunch on one side of the bowl.  scrape down the sides and keep pulsing through these stages.  eventually, the banana will become smooth and creamy resembling soft-serve ice cream.  pulse the processor until the mixture aerates and becomes somewhat fluffy, then mix in the coconut, cardamom powder, and chocolate chips.
  • you can the ice cream immediately; it will be like soft-serve ice cream, or transfer it to an airtight container and freeze until solid, like traditional ice cream.
  • serve with an optional healthy sprinkling of jaggery (find it here), sliced almonds, and more grated coconut on top.

Source: Dolly and Oatmeal via Chitra Agrawal’s cookbook, Vibrant India.

Homemade Coconut Lime Sugar Scrub

The older I get, the more I realize how dependent my mood is on the changing seasons. Winter always leaves me feeling bummed out and run down. The smell of firewood, peppermint, cinnamon, and cloves always makes me feel strangely nostalgic and sleepy all at once. I’m not complaining exactly. I kinda like the fact that my spirit goes into hibernation mode during the Winter months. It tends to make Spring and Summer that much more energizing. The smell of roses, citrus, mown grass, and the salty breeze from the Atlantic, always perk me up and make me want to live!

Over the weekend I made this amazing coconut lime sugar scrub just in time for Spring and Cinco de Mayo! This stuff is the real deal. The fresh scent of lime is totally energizing and the coconut oil leaves your skin feeling super smooth. I use some variation of this sugar scrub every summer at least twice a week. This recipe makes a lot, so if you don’t need as much you can tweak the proportions to suit your needs. Happy Spring, you guys!

Homemade Coconut Lime Sugar Scrub

Ingredients

  • 1 c. coconut oil
  • 1.5 c. sugar
  • zest from one lime
  • lime essential oil

Directions

  • Combine coconut oil, sugar and lime zest. Mix until combined.
  • Add 7 drops of lime oil and stir. If the smell isn’t strong enough, add more oil, 2 drops at a time.
  • Store in an airtight glass jar (the jars pictured here are from Target).

Image and Recipe: Homemade Mood