The other day I came across this REAL quick and easy ice cream. A ONE ingredient ice cream. Frozen banana’s, that’s it.

You can find that recipe here:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-creamy-ice-cream-w-93414
And if you google banana ice cream, you’ll find MANY more posts about it all over the net. Yum!

It sounds VERY tasty, and definitely easy, however, I was after something just a little bit ‘more’.

Years ago, I had made a very simple banana ice cream that was TO DIE FOR. However, I made it that one time, and then some how lost the recipe. We’re talking like 14 years ago. Since that time I have been on the hunt for this same banana ice cream recipe!

Why?
Because it was made without an ice cream maker! I often get tempted by the thought of purchasing an ice cream maker, especially since some will also make yogurt, but I have so many kitchen gadgets that I feel are necessities that really, how on earth does one make space in a kitchen for even MORE appliances?!

So I’ve held off on buying an ice cream maker and continued my search for this banana ice cream recipe I once made.

To no avail. I’ve never found it again. I asked dh if he remembered it, and he’s sure it was from a foreign recipe book. At one time I would cook foreign dinners every Friday night, from a different country each week, as part of our homeschooling. He’s sure it was during one of those foreign weeks that I found that recipe. Now I REALLY have no idea if I’ll ever find that recipe again!

Then this week I found the easy banana recipe and I got to thinking…

The other recipe called for banana’s, but I’m sure it was pretty simple beyond that. Maybe if I began with frozen banana’s, I could figure out the rest pretty easily??

So today I decided to give it a try! And went a step further, to
Strawberry Banana Ice Cream.

Here’s what I used, approximately. I basically just threw things together, so this is an ‘approximate’ recipe. You’ll have to use your own judgement where needed, I’ll share what I know and you can go from there.

6 large frozen bananas
5 large frozen strawberries
1/2 cup whipping cream (the cream kind, not the fake kind!)
1/4 cup sugar
1-2 tsp vanilla

And this is the end result!

And here’s how I made it:

-I cut up the 6 frozen bananas.

-put them into the food processor with my regular blade, and put it on medium until the banana’s wouldn’t really ‘blend’ anymore.

-added the cream, a bit at a time, until I felt I had the consistency I wanted.

-added the sugar next, and the vanilla.

-blended some more until it was just like ice cream!

Then we all tasted it! It was YUMMY! I asked the kids if we should go even further, and add in some frozen strawberries, and they all agreed that strawberry banana ice cream sounded even better! So that’s what we did!

I added some cut up frozen strawberries and give it another whirl until it was back to ice cream consistency!

Incredible!

How easy, and fun! I’m sure we’ll do this again and try more variations! I was very surprised that it stayed firm for so long. Then we put it in a sealed glass bowl until after dinner and it stayed nice. I’m not sure how well it would remain for too long, as I know we’ve tried freezing our smoothies before and they have become too ‘icy’, so I’d recommend making this either after dinner, or right before.

Even Bentley wanted to try it.

I loved this shot but was sad that it’s not real sharp so I played with it instead.

Now it reminds me of Normal Rockwell!

Let me know if you try either of the recipes! Feel free to share a photo on the facebook page too!

*If anyone just happens to know of the old recipe I tried years ago for easy banana ice cream, let me know! It was one that called for putting the ice cream into ice cube trays and then freezing it that way. It was SUPER rich. One cube was enough! I’d love to find it again.