My life has shifted with having two young adult sons moving back home recently. Suddenly I have more hands to help fix food and I am asking more people to choose menu items and fix them. So now each of the four children has a dinner night to fix dinner, my husband does Saturday, and I’m on Sundays. That just leaves Friday where we have our standard popcorn and smoothie for a quick supper amidst busy Friday night activities. (As a ketovore, I abstain from the popcorn and smoothie. I usually abstain from eating at every dinner but still sit with them. I ask questions using my conversation starter questions, trivia, and quiz cards that I have mostly collected while thrifting to spark conversation. It takes my mind off of not eating and allows us to connect over the meal.)

For Sundays I love to serve homemade ice cream after our dinner. I especially love it when the grandsons are here. To see them happily dig into my ice cream gives me so much joy! We’ve been having fun trying out different flavors. I recently found this book below while thrifting. I’m excited to learn from the experts Ben and Jerry so I can up my ice-cream making game. (As a ketovore I usually abstain from eating it and eat my homemade Greek yogurt with stevia instead. But soon I will be making blackberries using berries I got from my neighbor’s patch ice cream and won’t abstain from that!)

One of my adult sons picked pistachio ice cream recently when I asked him what flavor he wanted. It turned out super yummy. I confess I had a small portion even though I am usually keto. Next time I might make a keto version for me using allulose. This homemade version is not as pretty as store bought with the bright green color, but it tastes better and isn’t full of the artificial colors and flavors, not to mention antifreeze, which is in all commercial ice cream, according to Sarah Pope of the healthyhomeeconomist.com. Next time I make this maybe I’ll try adding a little bit of pureed spinach to make it green, like I learned how Serene and Pearl, of Trim Healthy Mama fame, do for their sugar-free key lime pie. I tried that with avocado too, for a Mint Chocolate Ice Cream, you can get the recipe here.

OK enough of my chitchat, here is the recipe:

-4 cups cream or any combination of raw milk and cream, the more cream you use, the creamier it will be

-1 c maple syrup, or 1 1/4 c if you want a bit sweeter

-1/4 tsp sea salt

-1 tsp vanilla

-1/4 c to 1 c crushed pistachio nuts depending on how nutty you want it

Mix everything together at the beginning except the nuts. Taste test to make sure it’s sweet enough for you. Freeze and stir according to the ice cream maker’s directions. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, check out the alternatives here. Add the nuts towards the end. After it’s mixed and frozen, serve if you enjoy the soft-serve texture. If you don’t eat it right away and want a harder texture, put ice cream into a clean empty container and freeze longer in your kitchen freezer. Enjoy! I love the combination of saltiness, crunch and fattiness of the nuts with the sweetness of the maple syrup and the fattiness of the cream. Pure bliss!