Even since I had an amazingly delicious coconut ice cream in Paris, I’ve wanted to make up a batch of it at home. That ice cream was amazing, creamy and full of shredded coconut. There are lots of coconut ice cream recipes out there to choose from, but since I wanted to maximize the coconut flavor in mine, I wanted to choose a recipe that used coconut milk, either in addition to cream or instead of it. I ended up trying the coconut ice cream from The Vegan Scoop. The cookbook is all vegan/nondairy ice creams and their coconut caught my eye because it only used coconut milk (not soy milk and, being a vegan book, obviously not any cream), as well as shredded coconut.

The ice cream was easy to make and turned out to be delicious. It was creamy and smooth, and seemed to taste a little lighter and more refreshing than some other coconut ice creams I’ve tried. It froze and softened up again (for seconds) nicely, without getting icy or turning into a sorbet-like consistency. The ice cream uses arrowroot starch as a thickener, not eggs. You could get away with using cornstarch as a thickener in its place if you don’t want to buy a batch just to try this recipe. That said, if you’re planning to try others from the book - they all look good - it might be worth picking up a small bag, since all the recipes call for this thickener.

I made a few small changes to the recipe as it was written. I used 800 ml coconut milk instead of the 825 ml called for in the original recipe because my cans of coconut milk each hold 400 ml, and I didn’t want to open another can just for a few tablespoons of liquid. I didn’t add coconut extract, as was suggested to boost the coconut flavor, to see how the natural flavor stood out on its own. I also doubled the amount of shredded coconut that I mixed into the ice cream. I love the chewiness that the coconut adds and you can’t beat the flavor. Unsweetened and sweetened coconut will both work in this recipe. It’s not particularly sweet on its own, and sweetened coconut will not make it too sweet if you choose to use it.
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Even though there are tons of ice creams stocked on grocers shelves, few summertime activities are as satisfying as making a batch of homemade ice cream and eating it fresh out of the ice cream maker. This can be a challenge for some home cooks who prefer not to eat eggs and dairy, but still want the satisfaction of being able to make indulgent, refreshing summer treats at home. Enter The Vegan Scoop, a cookbook full of dairy and egg free ice cream recipes. It’s perfect for vegans, vegetarians, those with dietary restrictions and non-vegans looking for a little more variety in the kitchen.

The book has 150 recipes that run the gamut from classic - Vanilla, Chocolate, Rocky Road, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough - to crazy - Peanut Butter and Jelly, Chocolate Pretzel, Thai Chili, Wasabi - and everything sweet and fruity in between. They are all quite easy to make and use similar techniques that you’d find in other ice creams. The primary difference, of course, is that these recipes use a variety of non-dairy milks, including almond milk, coconut milk and soy milk. They also call for the use of soy creamer, which adds creaminess to the finished dishes. Most use bold flavors and are generous with them, so you won’t end up with an ice cream that “sort-of” tastes like the flavor the name promises.

Some of the selling points to those cooks who normally reach for “regular” ice creams include the fact that most of these recipes have about 1/3 fewer calories than their dairy-based cousins and also contain more “healthy” ingredients, such as flaxseed and lots of fresh fruit. The book actually has lots of little tips throughout that discuss the health aspects of some of the ingredients, as well as their origins. It also has a fairly comprehensive introduction that discusses many of the ingredients (including the various types of milk) used in the book and techniques for making ice creams in general, as well as a chapter at the end with recipes for accompaniments - vegan, of course - to the ice creams.

Sometimes, when a recipe does not include eggs, it will call for “egg replacer” instead. This is most often found in vegan recipes, since vegan recipes don’t include animal products and never use eggs, although a search for egg-free bloggers will find you plenty of people who also don’t want to include eggs in their cooking. Egg replacer is a packaged product that is a dry mixture of starches and/or binding ingredients that is meant to replace some of the function of an egg in a recipe. They include ingredients like cornstarch, potato starch, soy powder and flax seed, just to name a few. Some mixtures will contain a small amount of leavening or xanthan gum, as a binder.

Egg replacer doesn’t replace eggs in all circumstances, so you wouldn’t want to make an omelette out of it, but the replacers do work well in baked goods. In baked goods, eggs usually add some moisture and some thickening and binding power to a recipe, particularly in recipes were only one or two eggs is called for. Egg replacers that are a combination of starch and water - starch for thickening and water for moisture - can mimic the function well enough that your chocolate chip cookies will still taste very good when they come out of the oven.

Some do-it-yourself egg replacer recipes, for one egg, include:

• 2 tbsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water (what I generally use)
• 2 tbsp potato starch + 1 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp ground flaxseed + 1 tbsp water

I’ve seen suggestions to use 1/4 cup applesauce, mashed banana or other fruit purees, but these don’t have the same effect as the starch and flaxseed mixtures and can potentially make your batter a little bit too thick or heavy.

• Urth Cafe is a well-known Los Angeles cafe that is famous for organic coffee and its variety of healthy-conscious vegan and vegetarian foods and baked goods. Their baked goods can be surprisingly good, as Cookie Madness found out when she tried their “wheat free, dairy free, egg free, guilt free!” chocolate chip cookies. She was so inspired that she came up with a recipe for Giant Wheat Free, Vegan, Chocolate Chip Cookies (like Urth’s). The cookies use barley flour, egg replacer and vegan margarine. If you’re not vegan, you could probably get away with using regular margarine/butter and still get a great result.
• If you want to infuse a little bit of international flavor into your kitchen, think about giving the Skoleboller, or Norwegian Cardamom and Custard Buns, from Leftover Queen a try. The sweet buns start with a soft, cardamom-flavored dough and are filled with custard and topped with coconut. The custard goes on top of the dough, not as a filling inside, making these similar in appearance to Danishes and very portable, since the custard gets baked in the oven and firms up a little bit.
• Probably the polar opposite of the above vegan cookies is The Traveler’s Lunchbox’s Browned Butter Ice Cream. The ice cream is exactly what it sounds like: a rich ice cream that has loads of browned butter in it. It’s incredibly creamy and has that unique toasted flavor that makes browned butter so amazing on its own. The ice cream base must be made into an emulsion, much like making a mayonnaise, so that its elements don’t separate during freezing. If you’re not watching your diet (and probably even if you are) this is one to try for the summer.
• Rocky Road is a great combination of flavors and textures, with marshmallows, nuts (usually walnuts) and rich chocolate. But it never hurts to play with a classic, which is exactly what Taste and Tell’s Toffee-Coconut Rocky Road Bars do. These bars have a graham cracker crust that is filled with a brownie-like mixture that is stuffed with pecans, then topped with chunks of toffee, shreds of coconut and finished off with toasted mini marshmallows. These keep pretty well, making these bars excellent summertime treats to take to picnics and other excursions, like hikes, camping trips, etc.
• The Cooking Photographer’s Purple Pizza with Asparagus and Fontina is a very dramatic looking pie. I expected it to have purple asparagus on top, but what it actually has is a purple pizza crust. It is made by incorporating some pureed beets into the dough. They add some softness to the pizza dough and a lot of color. You could use any topping for this dough, too, and it will definitely be the centerpiece at any dinner in which you decide to serve it.

A curd is a thick, sweet-tart type of sauce that is typically made with citrus juice, eggs and butter. It is known for being rich in flavor, with a very silky texture. I call it a sauce for lack of a better category, as curds are much thicker than most sauces (rather pudding-like).

This version of a curd almost doesn’t fit the description above at all. It uses no eggs, no butter and only a minimal amount of citrus. My curd is strawberry-based and is a great way to use up a lot of end-of-season fruits in an interesting way. It has the thick, smooth texture of a regular curd and it’s vegan. I was inspired after seeing the vegan mango curd at Buttermilk and Pinecones. Curds that are based with a fruit other than citrus are uncommon (and I love mango), but since I’ve made curd-like puddings that happen to be vegan before myself, it didn’t surprise me too much that the idea would work so beautifully.

This recipe is quite easy and requires very few ingredients. It starts with fresh strawberries which are pureed with sugar, then added to a lime juice (lemon can be used) and cornstarch mixture. The cornstarch is the thickening element of this curd, while eggs are the thickening element of a traditional curd. This isn’t really all that surprising a substitution, since cornstarch is frequently used as an egg replacer (or partial egg replacer) in other vegan recipes. It actually works out especially well, since there is no additional flavor (the egg) to detract from the strawberries. The taste of fresh berries is definitely the star here and the lime juice just adds a nice accent to brighten it up.

The texture is perhaps a tiny bit less smooth than that of a curd which uses juice, as opposed to a fruit puree. I strained my curd twice -once going into the saucepan and once coming out - to try and get as smooth a texture as possible. I know someone will ask if this can be made with frozen strawberries, but I must admit that I think it will turn out best with fresh berries. They’ll have a more vibrant color and probably a better flavor. If you try to use frozen berries, be sure to defrost them completely before working with them.

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Pasta salad is a staple food in the summer. This type of dish is easy to make, can always be made ahead and there are an almost infinite number of variations out there for it. It’s great to take to a barbecue or picnic, but because they keep for a couple of days are served cold, they’re also something that you can keep in the fridge at home and have for lunch without much additional fuss.

The salads always start with cooked pasta, to which a variety of veggies and sometimes meats are added. The whole mixture is tossed in a usually mayonnaise-based sauce and chilled before serving. I didn’t want to go with this traditional route for a pasta salad this summer and took inspiration from a pack of Thai rice stick noodles - the same type of noodles used in dishes like pad thai - and made a lovely dressing using some of my favorite asian/Thai flavors.

The dressing for this salad is mostly made with soy sauce and peanut butter, with some honey thrown in to sweeten things up and take a bit of the edge off of all that salt. Creamy and chunky peanut butter both work really well here, although using crunchy will guarantee you a bit of extra texture from chopped peanuts. Supporting flavors are sesame oil, ginger and garlic. I used all kinds of vegetables in here and have also made the salad non-vegetarian by including thin slices of cooked tri-tip steal; the base recipe is vegan. From start to finish, it only took me the time that I needed to boil water and cook the noodles!
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