Chocolate Nice Cream

I'm a believer in the 80/20 rule. 

80% of the time, I try to pretty healthy. 20% of the time, I eat whatever I want. 

Thus, I still whole heartedly believe in decadent chocolate desserts. 

This chocolate nice cream is the type of chocolate dessert you can eat during the 80% healthy eating time. 

"Nice Cream" became a huge sensation in on the internet world a couple years ago. I'm behind the times with this, as with most food trends. 

Initially, my thought was, why make ice cream from bananas, when you can have the real thing?  Also, I don't have a fancy high-powered blender, so I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull it off .  Finally, to be honest, sometimes I'm just lazy about getting out, using, and then cleaning, my blender/food processor. 

However, that all changed over the last month. Adam and I gave up dessert for lent, and there were several days when I was realllllly craving chocolate.

Adam has also been on a bit of a smoothie kick recently, which inspired me to break out the food processor.

Maybe it was because I hadn't had real ice cream for other a month, but when I first tried this chocolate nice cream, I was in heaven. Even if you're not a fan of bananas, give this a try.  When they're frozen and blended with cocoa powder, you really don't taste the banana flavor at all.

You don't have to have a fancy blender to make this. As you can see, my chocolate nice cream still has some rough pieces in it, but that's ok.  A regular food processor or blender should work, as long as you break up the banana in small enough pieces.

Also, I made a step-by-step video for how to make this chocolate nice cream over on snapchat-->
steworastory.

I'm not really cool enough for snapchat yet, but I'm going to post a few recipe videos there from time to time!

Chocolate Nice Cream

Ingredients:

1 large banana, frozen

2-4 tablespoons milk of choice

1 date

1 tablespoon peanut butter (or other nut butter of choice)

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Directions: 

Add frozen banana and 2 tablespoons milk to the food processor or high-powered blender. Begin processing, adding additional milk as needed until banana is smooth. 

Add the date, peanut butter, and cocoa powder, and process until smooth. 

Topping ideas:

chocolate chips

chia seeds

shredded coconut

strawberries 

Notes:

• In order for the nice cream to be more like ice cream and less like a smoothie, add less milk. You can also pop it back in the freezer for a few minutes after making it to allow it to solidify more. 
• The only ingredients you really need are frozen banana, milk, and cocoa powder. The date adds some extra sweetness, and the peanut butter adds healthy fat and protein. Also, I really love chocolate and peanut butter together!
• Depending on how good your blender/food processor is, the frozen banana may be difficult to break up. You can leave it out of the freezer for a few minutes to soften, or try breaking it up into small pieces.