My Ginger Love Affair: The Ice Cream Episode

As you might have noticed in one of my earliest recipe posts for my Ginger Three Ways Cookies, my undying love for ginger is quite profound. I stick ginger in everything from my green smoothies, my salads through a ginger-almond-miso dressing, to my cookies, and now I give to you on my favourites: raw Ginger Ice Cream! It's a really no-nonsense recipe that requires little more than 'stick everything in blender and turn the on button'. I made it again today because I thought the flavor would go beautifully with the fruitcake I mentioned I made off of Raw Goddess Heathy's blog yesterday... and I was right! Here's what you'll need:

Raw Ginger Ice Cream

2 C cashews, soaked overnight

1 C filtered water

1 tbsp non-acoholic vanilla (or 1 whole vanilla bean)

2/3 C maple syrup or agave nectar (you can tweak this a bit for sweetness)

1 tsp salt

1 inch piece of ginger (diced)

1/2-3/4 C crystallized ginger (I kept half of it and diced it to add back into the ice cream later so it had pieces of ginger in it)

1) Blend everything in a food processor or Vitamix until completely smooth. (I pre-blended 1/2 the crystallized ginger in a coffee grinder to make a paste)

2) Place mixture in your ice cream machine and follow directions! Once it begins to solidify, mix in the other half of the crystallized ginger if you chose that option.

3) You can also add a chocolate swirl, chocolate chips or whatever else you like!

4) Eat away!

Workout of the day: (I've been neglecting to post this and will do this more comprehensively from now on!)

5 minutes of cardio warm-up on the stairclimber

4 x 12 leg raises (target area: lower abs)

4 x 12 'normal' crunches (target area: rectus abdominis)

3 x 12 lying chest flyes (target area: chest)

3 x 12 side raises (target area: shoulders)

3 x 12 lateral pulldown (target area: back)

4 x 12 torso rotation machine (target area: obliques)

90 second plank (target area: core)

3 x 12 adductor machine (target area: adductors)

3 x 12 calf machine (target area: calves)

1 minute of chair against the wall (target area: quads)

10 minutes of stretching

Recipe Fun of the day: Raw Banana Cream Pie with Sweet Walnut Crust whose recipe you can find here, which we had for dessert with a scoop of my raw chocolate cocoa nib ice cream