The Choices We Make: Coconut Cherry Ice Cream With Toasted Almonds

I was going to write this big long post on home, but what I really want to share with you this month is an easy, delicious ice cream recipe and a video from Willie Nelson’s newest album that makes me cry when I see it.

First, the video.

My darling child took me to see Willie Nelson at Merriweather Post Pavilion in June as a Mother’s Day present, and good lord did I ever love it. He is slowing down, and he didn’t play as much or sing quite as well, but his is the voice of my childhood, a soft and gravelly and sweet recollection of moments of peace. I like that he is such a lover of horses and actually has a rescued wild herd of his own in Texas.

He opened his set with this video, and it immediately filled me up and made me want to move out west to watch the wild horses run and then maybe buy a little cheap land of my own and rescue all of them myself. And later when I came home and finally calmed down I started to think about how the choices we make in our lives are as much about letting something go as they are about choosing something. So when we decide we are going to be a firefighter we don’t get to be an astronaut.

We have to decide between two things we might most want to do because we are only all of us just humans and not able to split in two.

So I don’t get to go out west and buy land to rescue horses because I have chosen to buy some raw land in Canada and build a camping platform, then a shed, then maybe a little house with a deck that looks out into the thunderous waters of the Bay of Fundy.

Still, and even though I am in love with our little patch of grass, with its baby forest and population of bark-munching porcupines, I feel a deep tug in my heart towards horses, a connection that I have felt since I have known breath. I think it’s their wildness that moves me – the way they are pure instinct and beauty.

Perhaps I will have another life to surrender to that tug of wildness.

But in this life, this current one where my particular friend and I are trapped inside due to heat that is in the 110-degree range, a stifling, suffocating sweat bath of weather that may become what is normal for this time of year, I have made perhaps the most delicious ice cream to date (giving Spicy Sweet Corn and the one with the tamarind caramel a run for their money). It is simple and can easily be dairy-free if you like.

Also, I used an ice cream machine to churn (reluctantly because I hate my ice cream maker, but that’s another story. Currently taking recommendations if you have any.), but you could also just freeze it without churning and thaw slightly before serving. Easy and delicious.

Coconut Cherry Ice Cream With Toasted Almonds

Ingredients

2 cans of full-fat coconut milk (NOT coconut cream)

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk (or 1/2 cup sugar for vegan version)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups pitted fresh cherries (ish. Don’t get too precious about this amount)

1/2 cup almonds, chopped and toasted

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

Method

Place all ingredients except for almonds and coconut in a blender and blend until combined.

If you are going to churn with an ice cream maker, follow your manufacturer’s directions, adding the coconut and almonds in the last five minutes of churning.

If you are going to simply freeze, stir in coconut and almonds, and freeze until set. If you prefer, you can leave the coconut and almonds out for a couple of hours, and then stir them in before freezing completely. This will keep them more evenly dispersed in the ice cream (they will sink to the bottom while the ice cream is still liquid).