Wild Blackberry and Coconut Ice Milk

Key Ingredient is hosting July’s KICK recipe contest and the key ingredient is berries.

Since blackberries are abundant around my home right now I came up with a Blackberry / Coconut Ice Milk.

Lower in calories than ice cream, I also used Splenda. It was better eaten immediately, as storing for later tended to make it crystallize.

I used Thai Kitchen Lite coconut milk, along with skim milk.

Wild Blackberry and Coconut Ice Milk

14 ounces coconut milk — lite
1 cup skim milk
3/4 cup splenda
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon rum extract
1 cup blackberries — wild, washed and drained

Heat all ingredients on stove top until about 170 degrees or just about to boil. Don’t allow to boil. Press down on the berries to extract juice into the milk and then cool in the refrigerator about 1 hour or more.

Strain out seeds and place milk into an ice cream maker. Follow manufacturers directions. Better if eaten immediately rather than trying to store it for later.

Roasted Nectarine and Crabapple Ice Cream – WHB

Kalyn is host of Weekend Herb Blogging this week. I wanted to post this then because I am not sure it abides with the rules.

Here is what I wonder.

Entries can be recipes and/or informative posts featuring any herb, plant, vegetable, or flower. When possible, bloggers are encouraged to add details from other sources so others can learn about the featured plant or ingredient.

My entry has to do with nectarines. Nectarines are considered fruit, but the tree that bears them would seem to me to be a “plant”, and the flower that turns to fruit would seem to meet the “flower”. Of course tomatoes are really fruit also, but just seem different in my mind.

Here is a bit of information on nectarines taken from another link. Nectarine facts

Nectarines are essentially the same fruit as Peaches, the primary difference is that nectarines are smooth-skinned and peaches are fuzzy. The smooth-skin characteristic that distinguishes nectarines is a minor genetic variation, like red hair among people; it is even possible that a peach tree may suddenly produce a branch that bears nectarines, and vice versa. Most recommended varieties have red-and-yellow skins with yellow or white flesh.

If this entry doesn’t meet requirements, I understand if it isn’t included. I wanted WHB founder, Kalyn, to determine that and not a host who may not know what to do.

Anyway on with my post.

I had nectarines that needed to be used along with my home canned crab apple jelly I am working so despairingly to use up. I also had some cream that would soon bite the dust so I wanted my favorite summer dessert, ice cream.

Searching the net for an awesome recipe, since my last ice cream endeavor did not fair so well, I found this adapted version from Alton Brown at Sticky,Gooey,Creamy, Chewy. ( lol what a great name huh?)

Using my grandmothers ice cream maker that I ended up with, I then adapted that to include what I had on hand.

Do you know that in spite of all my quirky adaptations, this is the best ice cream I can ever remember eating?

Link to the original adaptation – Link .

Make sure you visit Kalyn’s Kitchen for the WHB roundup around next Monday.

I hope you enjoy this ice cream as much as we have here in Virginia.

Roasted Nectarine and Crab Apple Ice Cream
Adapted from an adaptation from Alton Brown
…
2 cups skim milk (that is what I had)
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup Splenda (that is what I used to try and make it more diet friendly)
1/2 cup crab apple jelly (there goes some more of my canned jelly! rah!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I didn’t have vanilla beans)
Pinch kosher salt
4-6 medium roasted nectarines (again what I had on hand )
.To roast the nectarines, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Pit and halve the fruit, and toss them in some white or brown sugar. Then, place them on a baking sheet, cut side down. Roast them for about thirty to forty minutes, ( this would have been too long for my nectarines and 20 minutes sufficed) until they are really soft and the skins are brown.
Peel and chop.
..
Next
Combine all ingredients, except the fruit, in a saucepan and place over medium heat. Attach a candy thermometer to inside of pan. Stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and strain into a lidded container. If you do not have a thermometer, bring the mixture just barely to a simmer. As soon as you see a bubble on the surface, remove it from the heat.
Cool the mixture, then refrigerate it until cooled. ( I didn’t cool it all night)
Freeze mixture in an ice cream machine according to unit’s instructions. ( I added the fruit to the mixture and just socked it to it and omitted the following. ) Once the volume has increased by 1/2 and reached a soft serve consistency, add the fruit and continue turning to incorporate.
Spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer at least 1 hour before serving.
..
Makes 1 quart