Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

So a few months ago, my mom was telling me about something she heard about from Dr. Weil. I recall being distracted by my son (who chooses to let his presence be well known when I decide to be on the phone). What I heard her telling me of mashed bananas and cocoa powder and calling it "ice cream", I thought sounded very misleading in every sense and admittedly tuned her out (sorry mom!). So fast forward months later, I heard of this really cool idea from various Pinterest posts of turning mashed bananas and cocoa powder into ice cream! It took me a little while to make the connection that this was exactly what my mom was so excited about, but I gave the idea a little more consideration--still had not tried it yet though...until today. Yes, I finally decided to give this one a try. My lack of interest before, was because I am not too much of a fan of bananas. My son however, is a huge fan! As in, we use to have to hide bananas because he would eat them all day every day if it were possible. He was watching a show on tv, DisneyJr. I believe, and there was a little demo/commercial about making banana "ice cream", Gavin who has a sweet tooth like no other...and loves ice cream, blurted out that he wanted to make some! My immediate thought was, "hey if this could fill the gap on real ice cream for him, then sign me up!" Bananas are always getting thrown out for getting too ripe around here, so why not! Well, let me tell you, after trying this stuff, I am now a true believer that you can blend up some frozen bananas and call it ice cream! There are plenty of different ways to make this, but this is the one I came across from The Nourishing Gourmet. >>Simple Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

So it really is simple, all you need are 3 ingredients...

2 bananas, frozen (From my own experience, peel bananas BEFORE you freeze them)
1 tbsp (I had mine heaping) of unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp vanilla extract

*That's right, NO SUGAR NEEDED* the bananas make this sweet enough!

Plop the ingredients into a food processor or blender until creamy. This made a soft serve consistency, which I thought was great! Other things you could try, adding strawberries, coconut, nuts, sprinkles.. whatever! Enjoy ;)