How is everyone’s summer going? I am having a great summer, especially the 3 weeks I was off of work before summer school started. This past week was my first week back at summer school and it wasn’t too bad. It goes by relatively quickly and I still have a whole day ahead of me to get errands done, dabble in the kitchen and have fun in the sun!
Speaking of sun — let’s get out some relief from the heat with some yummy frozen treats! I am always finding myself trying to use up food before it goes bad! I bought strawberries and thought we’d have them polished off in a day or 2 but there they sat and I finally decided to plop them intomy blender to make a smoothie or something. Then I kept envisioning other ideas as I progressed with the “smoothie”. And that’s how this whole frozen treat evolved!
I use Vital Proteins to take the nutrition up a notch and I feel like it lends a bit of a creamier consistency and getting gelatin into your system is always a win, especially when there’s no flavor change when adding in these supplements. Using their collagen and gelatin has helped sooooo much with my joint pain. I started feeling my arthritis a few months back after ‘sloughing off’ from using collagen in my daily coffee and when I reintroduced it again, the pain disappeared! Not only has the pain subsided but my hair has grown so much ….and become softer, along with my skin feeling so soft and supple! If you’d like to check out more of the benefits and other Vital Proteins products, click here to learn more.
But onto the recipe! I have always wanted to make a crust that would be paleo friendly and easy – and what easier way to make a crust but to crush up some paleo cookies, add a little melted ghee or butter and voilà! Crust in just a couple of minutes! I used Simple Mills for this recipe but use whatever you prefer and/or make your own. I have a recipe for my ‘Paleo Graham Crackers‘ that would work but be sure to make this up ahead of time so they are ready to go for this treat.
Chocolate definitely go hand in hand with chocolate so I drizzled a little on top of a few that turned into a hard shell, if you will and it was like eating a chocolate covered frozen strawberry! Mmm….mmm….good! Now go have at it and cool yourself off with a delicious-nutritious and refreshing treat!
- 1 can full fat coconut milk (top layer of hardened milk - refrigerate 6+ hours to make this happen)
- 2 tsp gelatin (+ 2 tbsp water)*
- 2 1/2 cups fresh strawberries
- 2 heaping tbsp honey
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- *Dissolve 2 tsp gelatin (I use Vital Proteins) in 2 tbsp water. If it starts to gel or thicken while making the strawberry mixture - set your small bowl of gelatin into a larger bowl containing warm water.
- Place strawberries, full fat coconut milk solids (carefully spoon out the solids that separated from the liquid), honey and vanilla in blender. Blend until creamy. Add the gelatin in, while keeping the blender whirling on slow speed (use the top hole on lid to drizzle in).
- Crush the cookies with rolling pin, mallet or use a coffee grinder to get cookies to a finely crumbled state. Add to a bowl of room temp butter or ghee and combine.
- Using a muffin tin, line 9-10 tins with parchment muffin liners. Use 1/2 tbsp to measure the cookie/butter crumble and add to each liner. Use fingers or something small and flat to cover bottom of the liner. If you have extra crumble, just distribute evenly.
- Whiz the strawberry mix a few seconds to get anything that may have settled and pour into muffin cups about 3/4 way up....then continue to distribute evenly with any remaining mixture. They were nearly full when all was used up.
- Freeze for 3 hours. Set out for 5 minutes before eating or place into refrigerator 20 min before eating. They will begin to melt so be sure and take out just before wanting to eat them. Keep stored in freezer.
- *Melt 1/4 cup favorite dark chocolate with 1 tsp coconut oil and drizzle on top of your frozen treats. You can also whip up some full fat coconut milk (using solids using method from above) with a handheld mixer, adding in a bit of sweetener (I use a few drops of vanilla stevia) for a delicious whipped "cream"!
- **Enjoy these treats with a fork/spoon OR just hold onto them & eat like an ice cream sandwich!
