There's always room for raw ice "cream"

Can you see what I made last night? I told you I had an idea for a recipe using raw cookie dough, so here it is: "Raw Pomegranate Cookie Dough Soft Serve."

I know it sounds crazy, especially since my last few posts were about staying warm and raw soups. But, no matter how cold the weather gets, there's always room for a frozen dessert. Besides, this is the best time of year to enjoy a recipe using pomegranates, and I just happened to want to try them in this creamy delight.

I was inspired by the raw chocolate chip cookie dough recipe I've raved about from the Gone Raw site. Crisyn, who posted the recipe, mentioned she wanted to experiment with a raw cookie dough ice cream, and I agreed that would be an excellent idea. I really missed the real version and thought it would be great combined with my banana-based version of Purely Decadent's Pomegranate Chip nondairy frozen dessert.

The result exceeded my expectations, although my photography skills failed to do it justice. I quickly snapped a picture before it started to melt. Unfortunately, I did not realize how out of focus it was until I loaded it onto the computer and had already polished it off. Better luck next time.

The recipe was quite simple. Earlier in the day, I made some raw cookie dough, rolled it into little bite-sized morsels and allowed them to set in the freezer. I also removed the seeds from a pomegranate (check out Raw Food Right Now for directions on how to dissect this fruit), putting some aside for the recipe and snacking on the rest for quality control.

Later that evening, I put some frozen bananas, pomegranate seeds, almond butter, agave nectar, vanilla, sea salt and some water into my Blendtec; and blended all the ingredients until smooth. Since the mixture was already chilled, I poured it directly into my soft-serve machine (a glorified home ice cream maker, but any ice cream maker will do), and let it do its thing.

My husband is the sweetest; he got me this machine for our anniversary this summer. I already had a basic ice cream maker, but this one is more fun. Once you get the hang of it, you can get your frozen treats to flow out the bottom, almost like the ones at the ice cream parlors (I thought I'd never get to enjoy that again).

The quickest way to get the best consistency is to start out by making a smoothie to run through the machine. I've even used green and super smoothies in it. I don't want to mention what some of them looked like, but they still tasted good.

Now, back to my recipe. After the pomegranate soft serve poured out of the machine, I mixed in some of the raw cookie dough morsels and topped it all off with more pomegranates seeds. You've gotta try this one.

P.S. If you don't have an ice cream maker, you can always eliminate the water and make the frozen dessert in your high-powered blender or food processor. I just wanted to have some fun with my novel appliance.