Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Product Spotlight: MimicCreme

I have another summer time fave that I would like to share with you! I thought that I might like to start a new thing and have "product spotlights" where I share some vegan goody that is especially great for vegans and kids. This time, I'd like to tell you about MimicCreme.

This product came across my radar a year or two ago and I've enjoyed using from time to time ever since. MimicCreme ( http://www.mimiccreme.com/ ) comes in three different varieties, Unsweetened, Sweetened, and Sugar-Free sweetened. It's made with wholesome ingredients, like nuts, and is soy-free. (You can check out the details on their website.) I just used the Unsweetened variety to make some awesome strawberry ice cream. So yummy! (More on that in a minute...) I've used all three varieties, and they can work for different things, yet I just figured out that the Unsweetened variety can actually be used for every kind of recipe, I think, and that would give you more flexibility when you have some stored in your pantry and you decide to whip it out and whip it up.

For example, I have used the Unsweetened kind to make a delectable cream sauce which I served over whole wheat pasta and roasted portobello mushrooms for a "fancy" indulgent anniversary dinner for my man. (He used to love Alfredo sauce in his prevegan days.) It was quite good, and I modeled it after a recipe posted on the MimicCreme website. I remember that I added a few other things to the sauce that weren't called for in the recipe, like fresh nutmeg and I think I thickened it with some arrowroot powder as well. Fancy schmancy.

Now, last summer I used the Sweetened and Sugar-Free Sweetened products for ice cream, but today I just added my own agave nectar to the Unsweetened creme to make it sweet. I saw that it was sold on Amazon now (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_5?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mimiccreme&sprefix=mimic), in a four pack, for a good price, and I used my Amazon Prime membership to get it with free shipping. Now that's sweet...unsweetened sweet, that is. Now I just used one box to make a large amount of ice cream, and I have three boxes left. I can either make more ice cream, or more cream sauce, or...who knows what else? My MimicCreme possibilities are endless!!

Making the ice cream is a snap and takes just a few minutes to prepare before I pour it into my ice cream maker. I poured the box of MC into my VitaMix and added a FEW frozen strawberries and a time, blended it, and then added more strawberries, so as to avoid the dreaded blob of frozen fruit. I also poured in about a teaspoon of vanilla and added agave nectar to taste. I like to keep a few chunks of frozen strawberries in the mix just because it is oh-so-good. Then I poured it into my pre-frozen ice cream maker bowl, and turned on the ice cream maker for about 25 minutes. You can eat it at this point, though it's softer than store bought--but still a good enough firmness. Alternatively, you can pop the bowl in the freezer for a couple of hours to make it firmer. I would think that you could pour the mix into a storage container and freeze that too, though I do recommend having an ice cream maker on hand. I use a Cuisinart one that I've had from my wedding nine years ago, and it still works perfectly and is quite handy. It's totally fun to make ice cream in less than thirty minutes. The kids love it, and so do I!

I have also made peanut butter ice cream (my favorite) with the MimicCreme and is was amazing. I love anything with peanut butter, and this did not disappoint. I followed the same basic principle as with the strawberry variety, using the creme, crunchy peanut butter, vanilla, and agave nectar and it was great.

I'm sure that there are lots of great recipes for MimicCreme and I'm excited to try something new. For now, I'm happy to make ice cream with the kiddos on a moment's notice and sit outside on a warm summer night and enjoy the good vegan life....

xoxo
tami

No comments:

Post a Comment