dairy-free peanut butter ice cream

It's been a while since I've posted recipes around here. Lately I've been trying new ones left and right. About a week ago Ben started a temporary diet, by his doctor's orders. For a month he's to have no dairy, eggs, wheat, tomatoes, or chocolate. I've been doing a lot of research and we've learned that wheat, milk, and eggs are in just about everything! Soy sauce- wheat. Ranch dressing- milk and eggs. Taco seasoning- wheat again! When I went shopping Ben called it a treasure hunt, and he  was right! I spent a lot of time reading labels and searching for ingredients and meal options to make sure he wouldn't miss the things he couldn't have too much.

Something that he's missed is an occasional bowl of ice cream with me in front of the tv when the kids bless us by sleeping at the same time early enough for us to have the energy to stay up and hang out before we go to bed too. First, I tried a "one ingredient" ice cream recipe that I found through Pinterest. It's made by pureeing frozen banana, and adding any flavor you want. Apparently a frozen banana is supposed to blend up into a nice soft serve. However, I have a really old food processor and it was much more work than it was worth to finally obtain the desired consistency.

I kept looking all over the web for a good recipe free of dairy and chocolate. I didn't find much that would be appealing to him so I decided to try on my own. We had some vanilla soy milk that he found too sweet to drink on it's own, so I started there and loosely followed a couple recipes that came with my Cuisinart Ice Cream maker (that I won a while back). So here it is...

Dairy-Free Peanut Butter Ice Cream

3 cups soy/almond/rice milk (I used a little of each)
1/2 cup non-dairy creamer
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
1 1/8 cups creamy peanut butter ("high quality", but not natural)

Blend peanut butter and sugar on low until creamy (Cuisinart's instructions called for a hand mixer I used my Kitchen Aid mixer).

Add milk + "cream" and mix on low until sugar is dissolved, 1-2 minutes. Add vanilla. I had to scrape the bottom of the bowl to mix in the peanut butter that stuck. Then add the mixture to ice cream maker for 25-30 minutes or per the instructions for your particular ice cream maker.

I fully expected the ice cream to be too icy because of how little "cream" I had to put in it. Once when I tried frozen yogurt it turned out too thin because I had used low fat yogurt. It was impossible to scoop once fully frozen. However, I think the peanut butter helped thicken this recipe up. I took a small taste and it is awesome! I'd eat this creamy dessert even if we didn't have limitations to worry about. If I were to make a different flavor I would adjust the milk to creamer ratio to use more creamer.

Let me know if you try it or if you have any recipes to share! My biggest challenge has been finding bread, so any help there would be appreciated as well. I plan on heading to Market of Choice this weekend to see what kind of options there are.