Bariatric Foodie Play with your food
Leftovers Week!!! Woo-HOO!
What…you’re not excited? I understand. Normally, leftovers don’t excite me either, but wait until you see everything Jen and I have in store. So far, Jen has shared her delicious “Gobble it Down” Thanksgiving pizza. Have you tried it yet? If not, give it a whirl!
My first offering from leftover week comes with a shout-out. Most of us know the wonderful, gorgeous Eggface (a.k.a. Shelly) over at The World According to Eggface. I started my bariatric culinary journey with her and this offering was very much inspired by her.
It was also an intentional choice. You see, by the Monday post-Thanksgiving, my girls have gone through what leftovers they’ll go through and most of what’s left is not that bad. Some collard greens, some sauerkraut, a little turkey and…that one last slice of pumpkin pie.
I think they don’t eat that slice because of that age old unwritten rule, “she who made the pie from scratch, gets the last slice. Woe to him who eats her last slice!” So there it sat in my fridge, waiting for something to happen.
And don’t get me wrong, I love me some pumpkin pie and I even made it with whole wheat crust. But by Cyber-Monday…I’ve expended my carb limit for…um…life…and I am badly in need of a way to infuse protein into EVERYTHING I eat from this point forward.
So I got to thinking about what I could make with this piece of pumpkin pie that would make the carb hit a little less severe. Later that day I was in the grocery store and it all came together! I saw a tub of Edy’s Ice Cream with pie chunks in it and I said to myself, “self? We’re gonna make pumpkin pie protein ice cream!”
First, here are (most of) the ingredients. I used skim milk, which is not pictured here.
If you all read Eggface, you are familiar with the methodology of making protein ice cream. You basically make what I call a “double shot shake” (2 cups milk, 2 scoops protein, double the flavorings). I decided to go all the way with the pumpkin theme and make pumpkin pie ice cream as a base.
Pumpkin Pie Protein Ice Cream (a la Nik)
Ingredients
2 c. skim milk
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
3 tbsp canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
5 pumps Davinci sugar-free pumpkin pie syrup
No-calorie sweetener to taste
I threw everything in my Magic Bullet and whizzed it up then threw that all in my hand crank ice cream maker. Jen loaned me her Hamilton Beach frozen yogurt and ice cream maker, but I forgot to freeze the barrel. D’oh! Nothing like cranking ice cream at 5 a.m. (that’s how much I care about you all peeps…I forgot to make this last night and, not wanting to do a no-show, I got up at 5 to make ice cream…I’m either very loyal or the world’s biggest idiot…).
In order to incorporate my lonely piece of pie, I first froze it, then cut it into bite sized chunks, like so:
From there, everything went into the freezer for about an hour to firm up. The divas awakened to me trying to get my “money shot” (the finished product) and grumbling. I’m not the world’s best food photographer anyway, but working at daybreak is especially challenging for me. I hope I did a good job! I think the ice cream half melted by the time I got the shot.
So anyway, this ice cream was so good, I wanted to figure out how to make it in the absence of a slice of pumpkin pie. I thought about it and here’s what I came up with. The ice cream recipe stays the same.
At the very end of the process, instead of throwing in pie chunks you can throw in sugar-free shortbread cookies. Since I am head-to-toe in Girl Scout cookies at the moment (I’m the cookie mom this year), I might use a few Trefoils. They are about the same calories as a serving of the sugar-free version and have less than 2g of sugar per cookie. I’d probably use just one serving (5 cookies = 7g sugar).
Thus begins Leftover Week peeps. Check back everyday as we’re posting two great recipes for each of the most commonly left over Thanksgiving foods! And if you have any questions or comments, hit us up! We love to hear from you!
