Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

I have been wanting to share this recipe for a while but didn't get around to it. We bought an ice cream maker attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer a couple of months ago and this was our first attempt at making ice cream...and it was delicious.

The recipe is from The Vegan Scoop by Wheeler Del Toro:

Ingredients for Cookie Dough:

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated, non-dairy butter (Earth Balance is great)

3/4 cup agave nectar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips

1/4 cup to 6 tablespoons water

Ingredients for Ice Cream:

1 cup soymilk (or really any other non-flavored non-dairy milk)

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder

2 cups of soy creamer (we used coconut creamer)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

To make cookie dough: Blend butter and agave nectar in a large bowl until creamy. Stir in flour,salt, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips. Add water,1 tablespoon at a time, until you reach a cookie dough consistency.

Roll small pieces of cookie dough into balls and drop on a cookie sheet covered in waxed paper. Place cookie sheet in freezer until needed.

To make ice cream: In small bowl combine 1/4 cup of soymilk with arrowroot and set aside.

Mix soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup soymilk and sugar in  a saucepan and cook over low heat. Once mixture begins to boil, remove from heat and immediately add arrowroot cream. This will cause the liquid to thicken noticeably. Add vanilla extract.

Refrigerate mixture until chilled (3hours). After the chilling, put the mixture in your ice cream maker, churn it according to maker's instructions. In the last inute of churning, add the cookie dough balls.

You might want to eat some of the frozen cookie dough balls on their own. That's what we did because we had too many cookie dough balls to fit!

When the ice cream is done churning, pour in the freezer container, let sit in freezer at least a couple of hours, then serve!

It's so delicious. If you're wondering why our cookie dough balls are so dark, we used whole-wheat flour the first time because that's all we had lying around. It was good but a bit grainy so we would advise for the all-purpose flour they call for in the recipe.

Enjoy! And if you are around and need to borrow an ice cream maker, let us know.

SMILE

My Major Change

It's not often that I get on here and post an update, but one day that might change. Until it does, you all will have to be happy with the fact that once or twice a month (or year, ha ha), I (Chris) will post a line or two. This particular moment is to formally announce that I have changed my major. I won't ask you to guess what it is, because I have experience that tells me there are not many who guess it! I have had people say anything from art, to history, even to psychology! My new major, however, is not any of these; though some would say it is some twisted combination of all of them (if you count secret combinations as an art ;).

My new major is...drum-roll please...Government and Politics!

I know, pretty far away from Mechanical Engineering, but allow me to explain if you are still in your seat. I realized that while I love to build, design and fix things, especially cars, there is really only one job in engineering that would make me happy: project manager over an electric vehicle at Tesla Motors. Pretty specific, right? Well, along with that title comes the idea that to get to a position like that would take at least 20 years in the industry (I'm gifted, it's true, but some things can't be avoided when moving up). During those 20 years or so I would be checking out stress tests on parts that someone else designed, or checking to see if there was 1% more efficiency that could be squeezed from a moving part or battery. Don't get me wrong, I find all of this fascinating, and it's neat to see what people come up with the solve such problems...but I wouldn't want to be the one that bangs his head against a wall to figure it out. I realized that I love engineering and especially automobile engineering, but to make a career out of it would ultimately doom my passion to become the mundane or duty. So I decided, after much prayer and thought, that I would do international relations. I love people, and I love cultures, and I love new languages. Sure there are quite possibly many boring jobs in international relations, but the odds of me being able to live my loves of this field are much higher and come much sooner than 20 years in!

I'm sure there are some who think I'm crazy, others who already know I am, and otheres still that were undecided...until this point! lol. I changed my courses, and traded calculus III and physics III for government and political theory and microeconomics. So far I haven't looked back! I am happy, and that's what matters most. Graduation is not pushed back, but moved up by at least a year and a half, if not more. I don't know exactly where this new direction will take me, but I know it's moving in the right direction. I am so grateful for prayer, and also for the love and support of my dear wife, who has spent the last three years listening to my talk about becoming an engineer, and so lovingly supported me with patience and wisdom as we worked through this decision. I love you Sweetheart

PS. - vote for me...2020! lol