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.

updated: about us

I recently realized that my "about us" page hadn't been updated for almost a year. I made a few changes and of course added information about Desmond.

Desmond: 3 months

As Ben put it, Desmond is a quarter of a year old today. After that statement I told him to never talk to me again. It really put it into perspective for me how soon my baby's first year will come to an end. It's exhilarating and heartbreaking all at the same time. I love having a baby and a toddler, even in the moments that are difficult. In the last 3 months I have experienced some of the most challenging moments of my entire life, but I've had many more joyous moments. God knows just how to balance the hurts with a precious belly laugh from Des or a rare snuggle from Kai. Parenthood is definitely a rollercoaster.

At 3 months Desmond is still growing quickly as ever. At his 2 month appointment he weighed 14lbs 15oz., so basically 15lbs. and I'm sure he's closer to 17 by now. Everyone marvels at how heavy he is, especially when lifting his car seat.

He still won't take a bottle although we recently had a nearly successful attempt in which he drank 1/2 an ounce. We've tried all the tricks and so we just keep making attempts and trying different bottles and pray that he'll take one so I can leave him with daddy or his grandparents for longer than an hour on occasion. It's not the end of the world, but Sunday mornings can get quite stressful when I'm toting him around and trying to do my job at the same time.

Des recently took to snuggling a "lovie", this sweet little teddybear/blanket that is soft and cuddly and just the right size. Watching him play + nap with it is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

He also has a pretty good routine down, which is all his doing as I just let him lead the way and respond in kind. He wakes in the morning between 7 and 8am, happy as a clam. This is his most smiley part of the day. He's alert and content and loves to play with me or watch Malakai for about an hour or two before nursing and conking back out for a nap, which is usually in his bouncy chair and only 20-30 minutes.

He's up for some tummy time and he loves to watch his big brother play. While I make Kai's lunch he's pretty happy to wiggle on a playmat or in the bouncy chair. While Kai eats I usually nurse Des and get him down for his afternoon nap, around 12:30 or 1pm. He wakes around 2pm to nurse and then sometimes sleeps for an hour or two more.

In the late afternoon he's up to see daddy return from work and then takes a bit of power nap around the time that we eat dinner. He's up for another couple hours before bath and bedtime. He's a pretty good sleeper at night, but getting him to bed can be difficult at times. He had some colic for a while but it seems to be pretty much gone. Once he's down for the night he'll sleep for 2-6 hours before stirring to nurse. He sleeps in a co-sleeper next to me so once I hear him sucking on his hands or turning his head side to side I can nurse him before he really wakes up and then we all go back to sleep again. It's a pretty good system, except when he breaks out of his swaddle and I have to get up and try to fix it or have Ben help me because then I have a hard time falling back to sleep.

When he's active he loves to kick + pedal his feet while grunting and cooing. He laughs and smiles easily and his dimples are to die for. Des loves to be held standing up and has been bearing weight on his legs since around 4 weeks old. He actually loves tummy time and sometimes rolls from tummy to back. When he nurses he'll eat for a short time and then search for the binkie when he's done, unlike his brother who would comfort nurse for a very long time and rejected the binkie completely. He's been sprouting more and more dark hair, has a button nose, and a really long torso. While he's starting to resemble his brother at the same age more than before, he still looks an awful lot like his mama.

It's such a joy to watch Desmond grow and see his personality develop each day.

taking more photos

Ironically, there are no photos in this post. I just wanted to let you all know that I've started another blog for  project 365- a challenge to take and share a photo every day for a year (although I realize that it's a leap year so there are 366 days).

I tried to add it as a tab here at Breaking New Ground, but unfortunately blogger doesn't work that way. So I started a new page with a photo link to the left (that sweet pic of Malakai). Follow along with me and share your photo blogs here as well, I'd love to see what you are taking photos of this year! Thus far all of mine are of my boys!

Christmas Recap

We had a lot of Christmas gatherings over the holiday weekend, in fact we still have one left that got pushed back because of my having the stomach flu.

I've been really bad about updating with all the busyness and I don't want to overlook sharing about Desmond's first Christmas!

On the 24th we spent the entire day at my in-laws, except nap time. The morning was pretty casual and then after nap we met up for the Christmas Eve service at our church. Afterwards we gathered at their house again for the traditional homemade chicken noodle soup + crescent rolls for dinner and a Christmas devotional.

We also got to ooh and ahh over my sister-in-law Kristi's ring, she got engaged the week before and will most likely get married some time this year.

After dinner we gathered to do gifts. Malakai had been extra patient and REALLY good about not opening gifts before hand while they were under the tree. Pretty good for 2 1/2! Once it was time he was very excited and moved from one gift to the next in a bit of a blur. He even helped me open mine and Desmond's gifts.

{he especially loved the boxes}

{Ben was excited to get an AppleTV}

This year we gave almost all handmade gifts, had we not done this to save money we probably wouldn't have been able to participate in gift exchanges with anyone this year. It took a lot of coordination on my part to get them done, but I really enjoyed it.

A tradition my parents had when I was growing up was to give us kids new jammies on Christmas Eve and we'd wear them that night. Ben + I have made this a tradition, staring with each other when we were first married and now getting pj's for our kids. It got kind of late so we gave the boys their jammies at Grandma + Grandpa's house instead of when we got home.

{their first matching outfits}

Ben read The Night Before Christmas to Malakai before bed and once he was asleep we prepared gifts and got to bed ourselves. 

Christmas morning we took things a bit slow, had the traditional lefse for breakfast and watched a little tv with Kai. When we got around to exchanging gifts Malakai wanted to play with them as he opened them so we let him while Ben + I opened gifts from each other. 

I gave Ben Nike+ accessories for his iPhone for him to track his running progress. He gave me a stick vacuum that I've been wanting. We also did a few stocking stuffers. We gave the boys some things we had collected for them over the year as sales came up. Malakai's favorites were the letters and the wooden Melissa & Doug tool set (with the hammer reserved for a more mature time).

{Desmond even played with his gifts}

That afternoon we gathered with my mom's side of the family for dinner and gifts. We do gifts for all the kids high school age and younger and then a white elephant exchange among all the adults. Kai refused to sit down for dinner so Ben + I ate in shifts, which was a bit disappointing, but unavoidable. The boys got a lot of wonderful + generous gifts and Desmond pretty much slept through the whole thing. Afterward we stopped by my dad's brother's for dessert + gifts with him and his wife. They have a new dog that Malakai just adored. 

The morning of the 26th we went to my parents' place and had breakfast and exchanged gifts. Just before we left I started to feel sick and that afternoon I had come down with the stomach flu. I'm just thankful it didn't hit me during any of our gatherings!

{my all-time favorite Christmas photo}

It was so fun to watch Malakai really get the concept of gifts this year. He understood that some were his and some were for others. We also enjoyed explaining the birth of Jesus to him and seeing the wheels turning as he begins to understand. 

So that was our Christmas 2011!