Here's how to turn red quinoa and amaranth into what looks like chocolate ice cream if you're looking for a vegan, nondairy frozen dessert. You know real ice cream is at least 16 percent butterfat and made with dairy products. Everything else is called frozen desserts.
When you puree almonds and walnuts in a blender with cooked grains such as amaranth and quinoa and add liquid such as almond or soy milk substitute, carob powder, cocoa powder, and two or three bananas, you then freeze what looks like a chocolate milk smoothie until it's the consistency of frozen dessert. This can be completely vegan if you don't use honey, but sweeten with bananas instead.
Assemble your ingredients: a cup or two of cooked red quinoa mixed with 1/2 cup cooked amaranth, a banana, one tablespoon of raw organic honey, a quart of almond milk, 1/2 cup of almonds, and 1/4 cup walnuts. Optional is a handful of cashews.
Cook a cup of amaranth and a cup quinoa--either red quinoa or yellow, mixed with water until the water is absorbed. When cooled, put it in your blender. Add two more cups of water, a handful of almonds and two handfuls of walnuts or cashews (or both).
You can add more almonds and cashews, if desired, up to 1/2 cup each. Optional: add a slice, about a one-inch piece of fresh ginger root to the blender. Instead of trying to wolf down dairy fats and processed sugar, make your frozen desserts look like ice cream, taste chocolate-like, and be made entirely from fruit and nuts.
Sweeten with stevia if you don't want sugary bananas as a sweetener
If you are allowed to eat bananas, for example two bananas can sweeten a smoothie made of cranberry juice. It's one way of eating sugary fruit while avoiding processed white table sugar, brown rice syrup, or fructose. Or you can use one banana and a tablespoon of raw organic creamed honey. The grain will be pureed into a liquid with the nuts and fruit and flavored as well as colored to look like chocolate milk by the half chocolate cocoa and half carob powder. If you like spices, you also can add a pinch of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.
In the blender, add one banana, two tablespoons of cocoa powder (unsweetened) and two tablespoons of carob powder. If the blend is too thick, thin with a little water, or use as liquid in your blender either unsweetened soy milk or almond milk instead of water.
The liquid should be thick, like a runny wallpaper paste
Blend everything until liquified. Freeze in containers or covered dessert bowls. Serve as you'd serve ice cream. If you want it sweeter, add a tablespoon of raw organic honey. Or if you can't have honey, add a little stevia powder to sweeten it more, if desired.
What you get when you eat this dessert is the equivalent of a bowl of cooked quinoa and amaranth which is a higher-protein grain than rice or oat groats. You get the healthier fats from the almonds and walnuts or cashews, and the sweet taste of the carob powder, cocoa powder and banana.
As a rule, don't emphasize too many sweets in your diet. Or it could unbalance the cortisol-insulin balance between your tired adrenals and resistant pancreas. Some people prefer walnuts and almonds to cashews. Freeze until firm. And eat like any nondairy frozen dessert.
Nondairy milk substitutes made from seeds or nuts
Perfect for liquids are these recipes for blending your own almond, chia seed, soy, hemp, rice, oat, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, sesame, sunflower, peanut, brazil nut, pecan, pistachio, chia seed, or flax seed 'milks.' Highly recommended blender is the Vita-Mix, but any blender set on liquefy will do. Instead of sweetening with honey or other sweeteners, use fruit, such as three small bananas or two large ones.
How about a glass of organic white chia seed dairy alternative 'milk?' According to the Raw Glow site, "Chiaseed's mucilaginous fibers make a barrier in the stomach between carbohydrates and digestive enzymes."
Chia seed 'milk,' gel, or puddings
Sacramento restaurants and ice creameries might offer those seeking nondairy frozen desserts an alternative that tastes pretty much like chocolate ice cream when frozen. How about frozen desserts made from steamed brown rice or cooked quinoa and amaranth? Did you know your favorite grains can be liquefied or pureed into smoothies and then frozen? All you need to do is add fruit or cocoa powder, carob, or any flavor you like from fruit juice to bananas and freeze.
The three main ingredients would be nuts, grains, and nondairy 'milks' such as soy, hemp, hazelnut, oats, almond, or rice milk. And you can make all these yourself by mixing liquid and nuts or grains and putting them in your blender to form a smooth liquid that looks like milk. Then sweeten with fruit and add flavorings from cocoa powder (unsweetened) to carob.
Nondairy frozen desserts can't call themselves ice cream, but they can taste that way
If you work at a restaurant in Sacramento serving vegan, vegetarian, or raw foods, you might suggest to the chef to market nondairy frozen desserts made with natural ingredients and no artificial sweeteners. Try out frozen desserts made from quinoa, amaranth, cocoa, carob, almonds, and walnuts.
Quinoa and amaranth raw can be ground into meal with an electric nut and seed grinder (or coffee grinder) and used as a flour mixed with grounded flax seeds (flax seed meal) and oat bran to make a cookie without eggs or milk. Just add raisins or other fruit, moisten with almond milk and bake at 350 degrees F. until the wetness is gone.
Sometimes it takes up to an hour of baking to finish. Otherwise, you can use ground almonds or other nuts and seeds with cut up fruit and some almond milk and form into balls to eat raw or dehydrated. Or sprinkle with coconut flakes and/or sesame seeds and chill overnight in the refrigerator until the ball shapes hold together.
Only use a good sweetener, not agave, but two bananas blended in a quart of almond milk or pure raw honey or stevia before you puree cooked red quinoa and amaranth to thicken the blend and then freeze it. Or you could suggest carrot ice cream, but made nondairy with coconut cream and carrot juice. Or check out the Sacramento's gluten free market. See the website, VegGuide.Org, Sacramento. Want a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant in Sacramento? Try, Andy Nguyen's Vietnamese Restaurant.
What would you suggest to the various vegan and vegetarian restaurants or bakeries? How about a frozen dessert nondairy creamerie using almonds, vegetables, fruits, and grains? You could offer carrot juice frozen dessert made with frozen carrot juice and raisins, for example. For a richer taste, here's how to turn cooked red quinoa and amaranth into a chocolate-tasting frozen dessert.
Why try to manage your weight with high saturated fat dairy desserts when you can make your own chocolate ice cream substitute using grains, nuts, and fruit. The only ingredients can be unsweetened almond milk, almonds, walnuts, cashews, one or two bananas, and a pot of cooked quinoa and amaranth. When you blend all the ingredients, they liquefy.
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