Christmas morning and I’m the first up to make breakfast – no changes here! Banana icecream with decadent toppings varied every morning being a regular breakfast for me (I’m clearly all against restriction) there wasn’t much else to do other than the usual blitzing to make the festive feasting special. So I decided to be extra greedy and have chocolate AND vanilla flavour together this time! Will be making a habit of this I fear. I like to eat like it’s Christmas day every day. When you’re high carb and vegan, you totally can!
I post my banana icecream creations daily on instagram, along with the hoards of other smart intelligent souls who know the magic endowed to this frozen fruit. People ask me how to make it all the time, and it really is as simple as chopping up a few bananas and freezing them in a container, before blitzing in a food processor (I wouldn’t recommend a smoothie maker, I have broken 3 doing this). Keep at it as it takes a few minutes to form! Don’t be disappointed by the uneventful looking mass of crumbs which forms before the swift mounds of icecream smoother the blades in folds with smooth, plantiful delight.
I no longer count or agonise over the actual number or size of bananas I use – now I tend to just freeze the ripest lot and fill my blender to the brim until I wouldn’t be able to close it if I added another piece. So I’m estimating around 7-8 bananas are sufficient to satisfy. Here’s how I went about things on Christmas morning!
Vanilla layer
~4 bananas (frozen)
~1 tsp maca powder
~cinnamon powder
Chocolate layer
~3/4 bananas (frozen)
~1 tbsp raw cacao powder
~1 tsp slippery elm powder
Toppings
~blueberries
~raw sprouted buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa and sunflower seeds
~mulberries
~1 tbsp black-strap molasses
I made the vanilla layer first and then just added in the cacao powder with another batch of bananas, meaning I didn’t have to clean the blender in between (else the vanilla would have completely melted, devastating). I used to prefer my icecream quite thick and solid, but now I think the flavours are much more enhanced when it melts slightly, especially around the edges of the bowl. That’s the method to my munchin.’
Well what else does a vegan eat on Christmas then? While the family preps two large poultry corpses with a ton a olive oil and salt? For lunch I helped myself to another (smaller) bowl of icecream, made with barleygrass powder, slippery elm, and ginger, topped with a nakd cacao and orange raw bar and the rest of the blueberries. For dinner, I simply wrapped butternut squash, organic sweet potato, parsnip and red onion in tin foil, and chucked in the oven for an hour. No oil/salt/seasoning needed at all, as these guys came out steaming and oozing their own natural sweet juices! I drizzled the sweet potatos with a homemade dressing of tahini, garlic, ginger, lemon juice and water, and topped the butternut squash with hummus which I made by mashing some chickpeas with tumeric, cayenne, cumin, pepper and lemon juice. Of course I didn’t miss out on the steamed greens of sprouts and brocolli!
Dessert was last minute inspiration. Ya see, I love mince pies, they just EPITOMIZE Christmas. Last year I used my Mam’s homemade vegetarian mince, with vegan pastry made from soya butter, flour, sugar, etc. But as I really amn’t into those kind of ingredients anymore (but it’s totally okay if you’re vegan and do like these substitutes, they’re always the better alternative for the planet!) I decided to experiment (with as little effort as possible required). For a yummy pastry or cookie batter, blitz 1 cup of raw buckwheat groats to a fine consistency, and add 1 cup of pitted squidgy dates, blitzing again until it forms into a dough. I pressed them into moulds, added a tbsp of mince in each, and topped with more of the buckwheat mixture! Popping them into the oven on a low heat I had no idea how these were going to turn out…30 minutes later and I was devouring 2 of them in one go. Yes I may have gone for a third later in the evening before bed. There was some mixture left which I rolled into a small ball and baked also, which made a deliciously chewy cookie snack.
Now that doesn’t sound like a deprived, restricted feast day to me. All natural stuff, guys, plain and simple yet exciting and creative, fun and healthy, CRUTELTY-SUFFERING FREE and nourishingly delish! I even tried out a few new things myself with dinner; it was my first time trying the tahini dressing and this was definitely the highlight of the meal, plus the discovery of the buckwheat-date cookie dough will be revisited pronto! The other half of the butternut squash and the remaining sweet potatos are waiting!
Aoibheann Schwartz Photography 