Banjo Ice Cream

In our house we have a habit of calling a word another word, often based on the fact that it was illegible on a shopping list. Hence, the word banjo when you mean banana.

 

I have recently struck gold (and banjos are golden, well at least the peel is gold) with the hot weather because as soon as banjos begin to ripen they go from greenish yellow to lightly freckled to black over the course of a few days. Therefore every time I go to the friendly Greengrocer they kindly foist overripe banjos upon me. I recently got 26 for £1 (they sell spotty ones at a huge discount) and once after that they gave me 10 because it was near closing and they were going to have to throw them away. We had some that freckled up unexpectedly fast and so into the freezer they went as well. Currently every spare container we own is filled with banjos and occupying a rather larger space in our 2 freezers. So what to do? Make lots of banjo ice cream of course.

 

Frozen banjos are a thing of beauty. If you should find yourself with some unexpectedly ripe ones, peel them and break them into chunks and freeze. I used to try to freeze separately and then box up to prevent sticking together but with the amount we have I’ve just bunged them in plastic boxes and thrown them in the fridge. A few minutes defrosting on the counter and they are easy to pry apart.

 

We love ice cream--particularly in the hot weather--but we don’t like the suffering that goes into dairy ice cream. Folks, if you still eat dairy then you support the veal industry. It is as simple as that-- dairy cows are impregnated, begin to lactate, give birth and within hours have their babies stolen away (females to make more dairy cows, males to be trapped in small cages and forced to be anaemic to make veal) so that humans can drink their breast milk. Which I think is just weird. Why are we the only species that still drinks breast milk once we are weaned and why is it the breast milk of a different species? We also don’t particularly like non dairy ice creams as they are full of chemically stuff and high in fats and sugar (but so are cheap dairy ones as well) so what can you do when you  eat a healthy, compassionate diet but need a cold treat? Banjo ice cream is the way to go.

 

Banjo ice cream

 You need:

3 frozen bananas (about 15 chunks)

Vanilla essence (optional)

Food processor

Maybe a splash of plant based milk or yoghurt to help the blades move

 

That’s it! You can add stuff as I show later. But really, for the plain vanilla all you need is bananas. They are plenty sweet as they were overripe when you froze them so don’t need sweetening unless you want to. I find spotty ones to be the ideal sweetness for me.

 Just put all your banjos and splash of some liquid like plant based milk or a blop of yoghurt (yoghurt gives a bit of a tang) and blend until the consistency of soft serve ice cream. You will need to stop and scrape down the sides of the food processor occasionally. I am told that if you like it firmer and want to scoop it, you can put in the freezer in a container for a few hours after blending to firm up, but we can’t last that long. When we make it--we want it NOW.

This is plain vanilla with a chocolate sauce and some peanuts on top. To make the sauce:

2 TB unsweetened cocoa powder mixed with 4 TB agave syrup (or maple syrup)

This is chocolate peanut butter using leftover sauce from above and 2 TB peanut butter.

See how good that looks? I was so excited I couldn’t wait to take a “bowl shot” as all I wanted to do was shove it in my mouth and say “Mmmmmmm.” so I’m afraid all you get is a food processor shot.

This cherry vanilla made with 2.5 frozen bananas (about 12 chunks) and a 3/4 cup frozen cherries plus some vanilla essence. Another one I couldn't wait to eat.

 

I’ve also done some peach vanilla the same way with some frozen peaches, but alas they haven’t been on sale recently so we don’t have any pictures to show for that.

 

The lists are endless as to what you can make and it is not full of suffering or chemicals or high fructose corn syrup and artificial fillers and thickeners. Just fruit.

 

And sometimes peanut butter and chocolate. Yum.

 

Now go and make it yourself.