vegan ice cream

Ok I have two recipes that I am going to try. Now that I have no job I am going to use my time doing the things I love which is make sweat delights and eat them too.

Equipment:
- Blender or food processor
- Ice cream machine (the kind with the tub you chill in the freezer works fine, and they cost less than $50)

Ingredients
1 tetra box firm silken tofu (like Mori-Nu) -or- 8 ounces soy yogurt
Between 3/4 to 1 cup plain soy milk
1/3 cup maple syrup or brown rice syrup (or a combination)
2 tsp vanilla
I would also add 2 T arrowroot powder but the recipe didn't call for it.

Directions
Combine all 4 main ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until thoroughly combined and smooth. Blend in any desired flavoring ingredients (see below). Pour into your ice cream machine, and freeze following the manufacturer's instructions.

Add-ins:
For various flavors, add to the food processor:

For Banana Soy Ice Cream, blend in 2 ripe bananas

For Strawberry Soy Ice Cream, blend in 12-16 frozen and partially thawed strawberries.

For Pineapple Soy Ice Cream, blend in 1 can or 1 cup of pineapple (well drained). You may want more sweetener.

For Ginger Soy Ice Cream, add either 1/4 cup preserved ginger or 1 to 2 inches grated fresh ginger (for preserved ginger, add to food processor so it gets ground up).

Use your imagination to come up with new flavors!

Flavored liquers or syrups are a great way to add punch. Try creme de menthe and chocolate chips, or coffee liqueur, or instant coffee powder...

I also like cinnamon, which now that I have REAL Ceylon cinnamon from Costa Rica, I may add that.

The second recipe has a slight variation.

Lazy Vanilla

2 c. soy creamer (or any non-dairy milk)
2 c. soy milk (or any non-dairy milk)
¾ c. sugar
2 T. arrowroot
2 t. vanilla extract (choose a high-quality brand; none of that imitation stuff either!)

Mix ¼ cup of soy milk with the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and set aside.

Mix the soy creamer, soy milk, and sugar together in a saucepan. When the mixture has just started to boil, take off the heat and stir in the arrowroot slurry. This should immediately cause the liquid to thicken (not a lot, but a noticeable amount; it will be thicker when it cools).

Stir in vanilla extract.

Set the ice cream mixture aside to cool. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

There is also a recipe for using the Vanilla bean but I don't think I'm going to waste my Costa Rican Vanilla bean on Vegan ice cream, sorry.

I think I've given up on the Costa Rica trip photos. They are a pain to load, and I have so many more but ohwell.
I just finished making Japanese cocoa Mochi except I used cacao and organic sugar and I totally wasted it all because those things are weird and sorta nasty.

OK night

hard to update

My little buddy.

I literally only have patience to load like 3 pictures because it takes about a half hour to do so.

I was really excited after dinner that I had 1000 colones that couldn't afford to buy me anything in the gift shop at Baldi. :(

These are the little guys that were on our bed after we checked into the hotel at Baldi. There were also Britt chocolates on the pillows. I was so excited to see him on our bed that I stole David's parents piggy too. I think it's a pig.

Some flowers I stole from the gardens at Baldi.

So these are all photos from Arenal the volcano.
There was a little German/Swiss Village. This was the Swiss part, very cute with a little church also. And then the bottom is the view from the Swiss hotel of Lake Arenal.

Lake Arenal from the bridge/dam

This is the view of the volcano from the bridge at the lake. Probably the clearest view we got the whole time.

Back at the hotel this was the view from our balcony of the volcano. You can see the lava flow.


And then we also got another visitor. :)

Ok, I'm done for tonight. I will try to post some tomorrow until I get these photos done with.

I'm going to try to be patient

David makes such a great tourist. :)

I will once again attempt to be patient through these photo uploads. There is still so much to post from my trip since I was unable to or too tired too do so in CR.

So I bore you with more of my wonderful adventures. Deal with it. :)

As a continuation to the previous blog, these are more photos from Zarcero on the way to Arenal.

Jesus shrine

Dinoland yeay! No really this was at the church in Zarcero with all thee crazy hedges.

Arenal Volcano covered by clouds....the entire time we were there. It was still beautiful.


The inside of the lobby at Baldi, one of the main wet bars. That's a spring running through there and the ceiling was all bamboo.

Garden pineapple. How cute!
OK I just finished showing my mom all the photos of Costa Rica and I didn't upload anymore in the process, so this Arenal trip is going to take a few more posts because it's bedtime.

Nighty night.

More More More

Everyday the view from our bedroom was beautiful in unique ways. The sky always looked different, some days were sunnier than others or clearer than others. It was just constantly breath taking.

WOW I'm not sure how many more updates I will do, it takes sooooooooo long to upload photos on my computer.

These are photos on the way to Arenal and La Fortuna

This is for Lee. Some kind of skink that I still haven't identified.

caballero

We were so high in the mountains that we were in the clouds, and it was much cooler than in the valley. It was wonderful!

So I can only upload 2 photos at a time, that is the max capacity of time I am willing to wait for this slow computer to upload.
UGH this is really aggravating, I don't have that much patience for this.
I like to take pictures of animals. And there was no shortage of roadside attractions throughout Costa Rica.

Clearer skies going down the mountain.

These photos really did no justice to the actual beauty of the green hillsides, little towns and villages, and the lush farmlands and wildlife.

As I wait for these four photos to upload I've had the chance to brew some Cafe Milagro Costa Rican coffee, light roast, in my french press. It taste's delicious.

UGGGHH, the upload got interrupted!!! OMG I don't know if I can continue to do this.
I am going back to loading 2.

Driving to Zarcero on the way to La Fortuna.

a church in Zarcero (Iglesia de Zarcero)with crazy shaped bushes.

David and I saw an Anteater one night right before coming back home. I had to add this photo. OK, work time! blah!

I'm BAACK!

Wow I have so many more photos to load. We lost internet connection for the last like 2 days we were in Costa Rica. Not to mention when we would get home some days I would be so tired I didn't want to even look at the computer.

So I am going to upload the photos from the canopy tour with Sr. since that's all I have with me on my camera.

And in fact I'm going to load more photos later of that tour because we have a CD we bought with the guide's "hi-res" photos. I couldn't take photos while I was actually zipping through the rainforest so I'll load more of those later.

Costa Rican Traffic

Little bridges that don't look safe at all.

Rice fields.

Green and Black poison dart frog

Don't look down


Gotta go to work!

Photo Delays

Tuna distributor/factory.


These are some old photos that were on David's camera that we never loaded because of the mission we have to go through.
Eating some "casados" at the mercado in Quepos.

Down by Manuel Antonio Park beach.

This is the view from our BED!

Ok so I have delayed a little for posting photos. It was a mission uploading these, they are from David's camera and it wasn't as easy to get them where I wanted. So Here are some photos from like that past 4 days. lol

SO it's like 7:30 in the morning right now and I need to upload these before I go to the Vanilla Plantation and take more photos and then I'll have way too many to load.

This is how I take pictures of monkeys. Partially clothed.
I don't think I'm going to have time to load too many. We are going to get picked up soon to go to the plantation.

On the way to Arenal.

This bus has to go on this tiny one way bridge.
This is where they process the African Oil Palm seed thingys and produce oil.




Ok I'm going to stop here, because I think we are leaving soon.
I'll load more later.

Elapsed Time

Ok, I haven't posted in a little because I was really tired on Monday night after doing the canopy tour and everything, plus Internet is really slow. Right now it's 4am and I can't sleep. I'm having a health issue that I need to try and remedy tomorrow. So I can't sleep right now. I didn't get a chance to post the photos from the canopy tour but I guess I will just write a little about it here so that it's easier to load the pictures later.


Sr. and I went on the canopy tour, no one else wanted to do it so David and Laura stayed home and vegged out reading. I actually had a lot of fun, it's really cool to slide along a wire through the jungle at that height. It gives the forests a whole new perspective. We had the pleasure of seeing my first (wild) poison dart frog. Pictures to be posted soon. But then the day after we drove to the town La Fortuna which is up in the Northern area near Nicaragua at the Arenal Volcano. We stayed at this BEAUTIFUL resort and hot spring called Baldi. We had the view of the volcano from our rooms, unfortunately the rainy season brings many clouds so we never got to see the top. Either way it was pretty, we took some nice drives through the mountains through the clouds and stuff.

We stayed there and soaked in the hot springs for two nights so I had no way of putting up photos since David left his computer (less luggage). So we got back today and I have a ton of traveling photos, plus a Sloth we saw trying to cross the road. We stopped to see if it needed help and there were some locals that grabbed a stick and helped it cross. I asked them if it fell or what and they told me that sloths will try to cross the street to find more food on the other side. Thank God someone was there to help it or it would have been crushed! I got up close and personal with the dirty critter, I took some pictures but the AC was on in the car and when I went outside into the humidity the camera lens kept fogging up so some of the pictures look like I'm either in the clouds or a dream sequence. lol The sloth was pretty neat though, you could see all the gnarly bugs and critters that live in its fur crawling around on it's body, it was pretty weird. But their faces are so precious, they look like they are smiling all the time. I guess I had good reason for the ugly things being my favorite animal as a child. Strange.

It was Laura's Birthday I guess it would be yesterday, it's still 4am here. When we got back from the Volcano we relaxed for a little and then went out for her Birthday dinner at this cute place called "Barba Roja". It's walking distance from our house except up a really steep rocky road so we drove, not realizing how close it was. Had a nice dinner with the "best sunset view in town" and the sky really was beautiful. We missed the sunset but the water was so dark and the sky a deep blue, the rain was coming in so the sky looked really neat. After dinner we came home and went to bed.

We did see 3 sloths in the tree though. i was trying to find the one that we normally have and he/she never disappoints. I found one and then two more! I was so excited. As I was taking pictures from inside the pool there pops a Howler Monkey in my view. So I had 3 sloths and a howler monkey all in the same tree. It was pretty cool. I took a bunch of video of the howler trying to get to me and grunting at me from the branches. I feel like I had a very intimate encounter with him. haha It was cool to be so close to him.

Right now it's thundering and lightning. The rain has subsided but it was pouring a second ago.
It's much warmer and more humid here in Manuel Antonio than it is in the mountains at Arenal.
OK, well I am going to try to get some rest. Tomorrow David and Sr. are going white water rafting and Laura and I are taking a tour of the spice farm.

Pictures will be posted tomororw.
Sorry for any mispellings, I profread and did spell check but I'm typing in the dark here.
Nighty Night