Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Strawberry Ice Cream (GAPS-legal, primal)

We've been on quite an ice cream kick lately, especially for breakfast! (Matt Stone recommended that I try this as a way to get the most out of the RRARF program since I'm not really handling grains and starches very well yet).  This may sound surprising, but it is really helping with my energy problems.  And I am not feeling guilty about it since ice cream is a superfood and my body is clearly needing something like this right now.

Last week, since we were out of raw cream, I developed a strawberry ice cream recipe using sour cream instead.  Oh my, this is really good, and totally GAPS-legal. Everyone in the family really liked this recipe, so give it a whirl!

Strawberry Ice Cream
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 10 oz strawberries, preferably organic*
  • 1.5 tsp organic vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp organic almond extract
  • pinch of celtic sea salt
  • 3 raw egg yolks, preferably from pastured hens
  • 1/2 cup raw honey (use more or less depending on the sweetness of your berries)
  • Equipment needed: blender and optional ice cream maker
  1. Combine all ingredients in a blender.  
  2. Whir for several minutes, until well-combined.
  3. If you don't have an ice cream maker, you can follow these instructions to make ice cream without a machine.
  4. If you do have an ice cream maker, pour the strawberry goodness into your ice cream maker and follow the instructions for your maker.  I use the Kitchen-Aid ice cream maker attachment, and it works great! NOTE: if you use frozen strawberries, it will set up VERY quickly in just a few minutes.
  5. Transfer to the fridge to freeze solid for several hours. Enjoy!
*Except during our local strawberry season, I find that frozen strawberries have far superior flavor to the fresh ones sold in grocery stores.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday, Real Food Wednesday, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Fat Tuesday and Monday Mania!

22 comments:

Melanie said...

Oooooo! I'm so excited I can make this on GAPS!!! Did you make your own fermented sour cream or did use store-bought? It looks sooo good. Thanks for posting the recipe.

Sarah Smith said...

Store-bought sour cream isn't technically GAPS-legal. We made sure not to use it initially, but over time as our tolerance for dairy increased (and certainly by the time we were ready to have raw milk on GAPS), we found no problems with using store-bought sour cream (we make sure to buy the kind with no additives such as guar gum).

KMB said...

This looks yummy. I bet it would be great with creme fraiche as well!

Heather said...

This looks great! I have experienced low energy since switching to the WAPF lifestyle. I feel it is still a great decision, however I hear of more and more people on the WAPF and GAPS diets experiencing adrenal problems. It dawned on me that the thing we all most likely have in common is switching to sea salt. Might we all be experiencing iodine deficiency? I bought iodized sea salt to add to anything I bake. We'll see if it makes a difference.

Sarah Smith said...

Hi Heather,
I think that, for me, I should get plenty of iodine from egg yolks and grassfed butter. One way to see if you are iodine deficient is to paint a patch of skin with iodine before bed. If, in the morning, the iodine is gone, then you may want to supplement iodine. You can supplement by painting the skin (may want to use different locations or you may get satined), or by eating sea veggies such as kelp. My kids and I love eating the seaweed snacks they sell at the healthfood store (we buy the kind that only have seaweed, olive oil, and salt). I've heard some others try just adding a spoonful of dried kelp powder to their water in the morning.

I think my adrenl issues can be traced back to over ten years on the Pill. This really taxes the body and the hormones in particular. I wish I had known better. And then I went into pregnancy with an already-tired hormonal system, and pregnancy is a big drain as well.

I hope you find a solution that works for you!

Mary Voogt said...

Thanks for the idea of eating ice cream for breakfast!! I had some today. Yum. Never would have thought of that on my own. It was nice to eat a dish of ice cream and feel good about it. I seem to be doing ok with properly prepaired whole grains as I go off GAPS (like wheat, oats and buckwheat) but I can't do starchy things like potatoes, corn and rice. I've made sour cream ice cream before, but I thought the sour cream flavor was pretty strong. It wasn't bad, just wasn't quite as good as when using plain cream. I've also had good luck using half raw cream and half coconut milk. It gives the ice cream great texture.

I'm still reading through some of the 180 degree health stuff. So much information. It's hard to digest it all :P I hope you're doing well with RRARF.

Mary Voogt said...

What are your thoughts on sweeteners? Do you still only use honey? Do you ever use maple syrup? Reading through some of the 180DH stuff it says to use no sweeteners (honey or ms). But you said Matt recommended this to you? So much info...and I know it's largely individual. Just curious if you ever use ms and what your thoughts are about it. I often use it to make ice cream. I like the flavor better. I use honey for pretty much everything else.

Sarah Smith said...

Yeah, I definitely don't like using sour cream for vanilla ice cream because the flavor is too strong. But it tastes great in this strawberry ice cream.

I'm glad to hear you are having success with properly-prepared grains!

Sarah Smith said...

I still use only honey, mainly because my husband loves maple syrup and I don't want to tempt him while he is still doing GAPS. Before GAPS, I loved to use half honey and half maple syrup in ice cream as the two seemed to somehow cancel each other out and result in a neutral flavor.

I am actually pretty much back on GAPS right now, as some joint pain started coming back after eating starches for about a month. But now it is GAPS with lots of homemade ice cream :) It is making a huge difference for my energy (and my temps are coming up too).

I wrote to Matt about my results after one month on RRARF (good changes in my menstrual cycle, but I also gained 5 pounds and didn't see any change in my temps yet). He said that since I am nursing, it could take a bit longer than the 30 days he described in the book, and recommended ice cream for breakfast as a way to keep the weight gain down while really boosting the metabolism. Ice cream is a super food for boosting the metabolism. I was eating it for dessert after dinner, but switching to breakfast made a big difference (and I stopped gaining weight). It blows my mind how certain foods can be great at different stages of life and then at other times abstaining can be good. I'm happy to be at a point where ice cream is doing me some good!

The Voogts said...

That is fascinating! I too used to only eat ice cream in the evening. And I too am nursing (a 9 month old...about 6 or 7 times a day)...and have gained about 7 lbs. in the last 2 months of trying to eat a little more and eat more carbs/grains. I'll try ice cream for breakfast for a few days and see what happens. I hope your joint pain goes away quickly and you can successfully add some things back in soon.

The Voogts said...

Oops...my comment below was meant to be a reply to this.

Big Apple Mami said...

This is great! Definitely think I need to get that ice cream maker now! :)
http://fromnyccorporatetosuburbmamas.blogspot.com/

Jill@RealFoodForager.com said...

Thanks for linking your great post to FAT TUESDAY. This was very interesting! Hope to see you next week!

Be sure to visit RealFoodForager.com on Sunday for Sunday Snippets – your post from Fat Tuesday may be featured there!
http://realfoodforager.com/fat-tuesday-february-28-2012/

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I have been making the exact same thing (ok w/o almond extract) and, oh boy, how crazy delicious!!!!!! Same 10 oz bag of frozen strawberries too. :D Definitely a keeper post GAPS!!!

Wanted to thank you for your earlier post on energy problems on GAPS. I had hormonal and emotional probs too from too low carb. Everybody keeps telling you to just cut back on honey, nuts, fruits, and the infamous :D "sweet/orange veggies". The more I reduced carbs the worse and worse I got. So thanks for putting that out there! I don't know what it means though, maybe we are healthier or maybe we are sicker than the people who do well on very low carbs????? Or maybe we are just different!

D

Sarah Smith said...

I guess great minds think alike! :)

And I'm glad the energy post helped you. I've been have amazing energy by eating more ice cream, and it seems better for my digestion than trying to eat too many lentils and beans. I' guess that in early GAPS, maybe lots of ice cream isn't a great idea (since you're trying to starve out the bad bacteria), but this late in the GAPS journey it is sure helping. From what I can tell, it seems like most of the people who are praising low-carb are either men, postmenopausal, or have not been at it for longer than 6 months. But maybe I'm wrong.

Anonymous said...

Sarah,

I've experimented with lots of "creative" ways to make ice cream without sugar {because I don't eat real sugar} and most always find the ice cream to freeze really really hard without sugar ... if you have leftover ice cream is this super hard the next day or scoop'able due to the honey? I'm not really suppose to eat much honey either, but on a per serving basis in the ice cream, it shouldn't be too much, so I'd like to try this if it isn't rock hard. Thanks

Robin
happilyhomeafter.blogspot.com

Sarah Smith said...

Hi Robin,
I think that the hardness of the final ice cream really depends on your ice cream maker and how long you process the ice cream in the maker. If I take my ice cream out of the maker after a set time (like 25 minutes), then it will tend to be very hard. But if, instead of using a set time, I take the ice cream out when it has started to set up very well (and with my ice cream maker, it will start to make a clicking noise if I let it go to this stage), then the ice cream is very easily scoopable. This has to do with keeping the ice crystals nice and small; if it gets put into freezer too early, the ice crystals are able to grow much larger, which makes it impossible to scoop. That is just my experience, anyway.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the quick reply Sarah. I'm going to try the recipe but perhaps just scale it so I don't anticipate any leftovers ... I should always do that anyway, because mine is a commercial style "instant on, instant freeze" machine so it is super easy to make every day if I wanted. I guess I just have to get over my resistance to doing so ;) Thanks again, Robin

Seeking Summerland said...

We tried this and it was sooo good. My son doesn't like sour cream though, so I thought I would try it with kefir cream. Worked out just as well. I couldn't tell a difference, but he seemed to like it.

Nancy said...

All this GAPS gaining weight information is interesting. I've been on full GAPS for over a year, including doing an Intro that lasted for 6 months. I continued to get sicker and sicker and finally wound up on the commercial colitis medication that I had put off taking because I was going to get better on GAPS. Everything I ate caused problems to the point that by the time I took the medication I was eating just broth and boiled chicken. However, when I first started GAPS and just prior to the actual colitis diagnosis, I lost about 8 pounds and looked amazing. Then, when I went on intro a couple of months later, I lost about 4 more pounds and started looking skeletal. Somehow, I wound up not losing any additional weight even with eating just broth and chicken for several months. When I started to feel better on the medication and started to expand my GAPS diet to include vegetables (although still severely limited on honey and fruit), I gained back all the weight I lost plus some, and am still tired/low energy. At this point I don't know what to do. I weigh more now than what I weighed when I started GAPS, and am eating fats, eggs, meat, broth, vegetables, extremely limited or no sweet veggies and extremely limited honey and fruit. Oh, and no dairy. Not due to intolerance, but due to a potential folate absorbtion problem that is magnified by eating dairy (waiting for that lab to open for nearly a year now to find out if we definitively have that problem). I have been considering adding back the far fermented dairy though until the lab actually opens (if ever). I was initially eating dairy, including raw cheese back when I first started GAPS and didn't have the weight issue. Initially, I was having terrible PMS (my whole life) and that got better up until the point where I cut out dairy, which is also about the time I started the colitis meds. I know that Dr. Natasha has said lots of fats such as sour cream and yogurt, etc to help with PMS. And I'm thinking maybe my body truly needs dairy to help the weight and PMS regulation. When I first started GAPS, I was eating 2 scrambled eggs with GAPS legal cheese melted over them nearly every morning for breakfast. And eating lots of honey laden GAPS baked goods. I looked great, loved the weight I was at. I am very unhappy with my weight now. I had to pull pants that I had almost given away (but put into storage in the basement) back out. My pre-GAPS pants. And they are snug! I like the idea of eating frozen yogurt (or sour cream) "ice cream" for breakfast and maybe it helping to control weight!!!

Sarah Smith said...

Hi Nancy,
You might be interested in these follow-on articles about GAPS:
http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2013/01/gaps-diet-and-adrenal-problems_12.html
http://nourishedandnurtured.blogspot.com/2013/05/was-gaps-diet-worth-it_5.html

Anonymous said...

I know this comment section is very old now, but I wanted to add my experience of gaps and now keto on my energy levels. Gaps, helped but did not clear up my colitis and for many years I struggled with bloating etc and NO energy. What seems to have made the difference is going more or less keto and doing intermittent fasting. Even if at the end of a day I might have a bloated stomach as long as I don’t eat until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, it all settles down. I have LOADS of energy and even though life is pretty stressful, I’m not struggling like I used to. Maybe worth a try for those in a similar position.
Also, try the wim Hof method, cold showers and the breathing routines, and also try CBD oil as helps sleep and inflammation in general.
Hope this helps someone somewhere…