Homemade Vegan Ice Cream and Sorbet

I <3 ice cream.  My apartment is 1/2 mile from the vegan ice cream shop in Allston and that makes me very happy (yes, I've mapped out the distance).  Admittedly, however, vegan ice cream can be pricey.  A pint of soy ice cream typically costs at least $5, unless you buy Soy Dreamy at Trader Joe's, which is the best store bought vegan ice cream anyway.  I recently became interested in making my own ice cream after spotting some recipes in Chef Chloe's dessert book and Vegetarian Times magazine.  Therefore, for the past week I have been experimenting with a bunch of different combinations.  Once you acquire an ice cream maker, concocting your own ice cream and sorbet is simple and cheap. 

For one thing, if you puree enough fruit to fill your blender, that's pretty much all you need to make sorbet.  Next boil 3/4 cup water and 3/4 sugar, stirring until the water has cooled.  Combine the pureed fruit with the water/sugar solution and refrigerate for at least an hour, until it has cooled throughout.  The final step is to add this to your ice cream maker and follow the directions for your particular machine.  Most of them require freezing the mixing bowl overnight.  Being an impatient person, I only froze mine for six hours, so my first batch didn't turn out all that well.  So far I have tried this with fresh cantaloupe and watermelon.  The watermelon sorbet was particularly delicious and refreshing... and cheap.  You can use fresh or frozen fruit, in whatever combinations you like.  There are some more creative recipes here, here, and here in the Vegetarian Times this month- the avocado recipe looks pretty tasty.

Things I want to try: raspberry-lemon sorbet, substituting agave for sugar, and making ice cream using coconut milk and agave- specifically, mint-chocolate chip ice cream.  More to come on that soon.

(Pictures Coming Soon)

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