Double Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Ann planned a surprise party for our friend M., whose birthday was today. She enlisted my help--we had it at my house, and I made a few things for it--including a vegan ice cream made with coconut milk and LOTS of chocolate. It utilized a dark chocolate base with semisweet chocolate chunks in it.

Ann was the only vegan at the gathering, but overall the milk-free chocolate ice cream was a bigger hit than the "regular" vanilla ice cream I'd also made! The ladies loved the rich chocolate, and I think the coconut milk adds an extra zing of flavor too.

So, here's the recipe. (I drew heavily on the "Simple Chocolate Ice Cream" recipe in the booklet that came with my Cuisinart ice cream maker.)

Oh, and I didn't plan to blog this, so I don't have any pictures. You'll have to use your imagination.

Double Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream (Vegan)
Yield: Approx. 1 1/2 quarts (Adjust recipe if your ice cream maker is a smaller capacity)

Ingredients
2/3 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder, sifted (or run through a blender or food processor--however you prefer to get the lumps out). You can use regular cocoa powder, but it won't be as rich of a chocolate flavor.
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/3 c packed dark brown sugar
pinch salt
Two cans of coconut milk (approx. 25-28 oz, or 750-800 mL)--You may find this in the Asian food aisle
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (I use Mexican vanilla)
4 oz. vegan chocolate (I use 4 squares Baker's semisweet baking chocolate, which is vegan)

Instructions:
1. If you plan ahead far enough, pre-refrigerate the coconut milk.
2. Whisk together the cocoa powder, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and salt.
3. Whisk in the coconut milk and vanilla until the solids are as dissolved as you can get them. Mine wasn't that smooth, but that was okay.
4. Place the mixture in the fridge for at least an hour before freezing/churning it. If you pre-refrigerated the coconut milk, this step is optional.
5. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions to churn/freeze the mixture.
6. While it's churning, cut the chocolate into chunks. Add to the ice cream during the last 3 minutes or so of churning.
6. Eat immediately (soft-serve consistency) or move to another container and freeze. You'll want to remove it from the freezer approximately 15-20 minutes before serving--it gets very hard in the freezer.

The beauty of recipes like this is that you can easily alter them to fit your taste. I noticed the other day that Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies are vegan. So you could chop up some of those and thrown them in, in lieu of the chocolate chunks. Or maybe strawberries, or cherries, or marshmallows and peanuts...? Use your imagination, and enjoy!

And happy birthday, M.!

Book Review: The Weird Sisters

Thanks to their scholarly father, the three sisters featured in Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters are all named after Shakespearean heroines. And (like so many Shakespearean characters) they all have some pretty big problems. It just goes to show, you don't have to be a druggie or an abuser to end up with kids who have issues. Dreamers and professors--with high IQs, lofty ideals, and healthy marriages--can have messed up progeny too.

Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia (known to most as Rose, Bean, and Cordy) are all grown, single women, and they all end up back at home when their mother has cancer. But they're all hiding pain, and they all need healing as badly as their mother does. However, when I say they're "messed up," I mean "messed up" in ways many of us can relate to. None of us exits childhood unscathed and perfectly prepared to take on the world, do we?

In a family where each member finds it easier to get lost in a book than to disclose personal feelings, there is an undercurrent of tension when suddenly the whole family is reunited. As the story progresses, though, the women begin to share their secrets with each other--and sometimes even with their parents. They learn to relate to each other as adults.

I appreciated the lack of perfection in each member of the Andreas family. While the parents are respected in the community, they haven't always done a great job building close relationships with their daughters. And each of those daughters has had difficulty adjusting to adulthood. Even Rose, the one who seems to have it all together, needs just as much of a shift in focus as her sisters do.

But beyond "appreciating" the merits of The Weird Sisters, I just plain enjoyed it. It's a book that, had I picked it up and started reading it on my own, would have still captured my attention. I was rooting for all three sisters, wanting them to each "find their way." I found the ending satisfying. There's no sequel necessary...though I wouldn't mind finding out what happens to the next generation of imperfect children, born to these three unique women.

Disclosure: I was sent a free book, and will be paid a small stipend for writing this honest review and for participating in BlogHer's online book club, which you can visit here.

Your questions, answered!

I put out a call on Twitter recently, asking for questions to answer on my blog. (I unashamedly stole this idea from Call Me Cate.) Out of the dozens of questions submitted, I have chosen three to answer.

(Or maybe three people submitted questions.... Yeah, I think that was it.)

First, from the aforementioned Call Me Cate (Click her name to access her Twitter page):

Is there any culture or maybe a foreign city that fascinates you and why?

I've always wanted to visit Germany. My dad and brother both studied a little German, and I followed in their footsteps for a year in high school. (Which gives me very little knowledge of the language!) I'm not even sure what all I'd like to see there, but it's always been on my "to visit" list.

Also, Call Me Cate (who is really being prominently featured in this post, isn't she?) went to Barcelona, Spain a couple of years back, and she sent me the most awesome picture. There's a store there that is named after my kids! Well, not actually named after them, but it just so happens to be named "Zoodle & Chickie" (except that it uses their real names.) Another friend of mine visited Barcelona a few months back and confirmed that the little store (a souvenir shop) is still there. So I really want to go to Barcelona with my kids (and hubs!) and take their pictures in front of that shop. It's also supposed to be just a great city to visit.

On to Question 2! This one is from religionbites.

How are you explaining to the kids that the baby won't stay with you after it's born?

(For anyone just coming across this--I'm 18 weeks pregnant with a baby that belongs to my best friend Ann and her husband. I'm their gestational carrier.)

Because Ann & her kids are great friends with me and my kids, this one wasn't too tough, especially for Chickie. She was already aware that Ann and her husband's daughter ("Peanut") grew in someone else's tummy. So it wasn't too hard to explain.

I've just continued to reinforce over and over whose baby this is, and both of the kids have really caught on. In fact, Zoodle told some friends of ours, "Mommy has a baby in her tummy, but it's not our baby; it's Coqui (Ann and her husband's son) and Peanut's baby. Miss Ann doesn't have a uterus because her uterus got sick." Clearly my 3-year-old had been listening to me explaining details to my anatomy-obsessed 5-year-old!

And Question 3! This is from MrE187.

How is it going to feel to give birth and not have the baby around all the time?

Good question! I'm not sure since I just don't really have a frame of reference for this situation.

That being said, I feel like it's going to be easier than most people think it will be. I've heard so many comments about how hard it would be to "give up" a baby. But that's just not my mindset! From the very beginning, I've been 100% aware of the fact that this is not my baby! That makes it completely different than, say, giving up a baby for adoption. The baby will just be returning to its real family...to the mother and father whose egg & sperm started this whole process!

So the transition might not always be easy, but I don't think I'll be overwhelmed with grief and loss. How can I lose something that wasn't mine to begin with? This has always been a temporary situation in my mind, and I'm enjoying it from that perspective. It feels totally different than my own pregnancies felt.

Thanks for the questions! If you have more, you can leave them in the comments section.