Choco-nut nice cream

“Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.” Elizabeth Berg, American novelist

Plans are good, but life’s “mistakes” can be even better.

Call it serendipity, call it a blessing — but messing up one of my own recipes led to something delightful this weekend. What I intended to be a double portion of World’s Best Smoothie (found in my recipe archives) turned into a soft-serve nice cream that looked and tasted remarkably like a Wendy’s Frosty.

A vegan ooh la la! A non-dairy whoop-de-do.

“I feel like I should be feeling guilty about this,” one daughter said. We were sprawled out on the deck floor, enjoying a sudden burst of sun and spring-like temperatures and eating decadently tall glasses of the stuff.

I could laugh in response because I knew what had happened in the kitchen. No sugar except from fruit. No dairy. No fat except for nut butter. No need for guilt.

You might want to try this at home…

Choco-nut Nice Cream

(This soft-serve recipe depends on frozen bananas. There is a market in our city that sells bananas in slightly blackened peels 10 for $1. This is the degree of ripeness that you want. Stock up, peel them, toss them in a zip-locking bag and freeze them until ready to use. They oxidize a bit, but will remain tasty for 2-3 months. These are also great eaten frozen-treat style with a paper-towel wrapper or thawed and made into banana bread.)

Back to the nice cream. In a quality blender, mix 2-3 frozen bananas broken into chunks, 2 teaspoons cocoa powder, 2 Tablespoons natural nut butter (I used a peanut butter that contains only peanuts) and enough nut milk (I used cashew-almond blend) for the liquid to meet the 2 cup mark. (Experiment. The more frozen bananas, the more spoonworthy the nice cream.)

Blend on the chop setting until bananas are broken into small pieces. Crank it up to high speed and mix thoroughly. Eat immediately. Makes 2 servings.