Roasted Strawberry Mint Ice Cream

I resisted the whole premise of an ice cream maker for a long time. One attempt into having one though (thanks to my mother in law) and I want to punch myself in the face for the years I missed out on this homemade amazingness because of my stubborn “I don’t need another kitchen appliance” stance.

I needed it, I just didn’t know it.

And I got the one that’s an attachment to my KitchenAid stand mixer so it’s barely another appliance. More like an add-on. Totally justifiable.

Deciding on what flavor to make the first go around was somewhat like what I imagine it would be like to pick out a name for your kid. Oh, the choices! Like names, there are about 10 million ice cream variations out there.

Milk & cream or dairy free? Egg base, no eggs? Chocolate mix ins or the fruit route? Nuts, no nuts? The choices go on and on and on and on…

After some facebook input, I decided to go the coconut milk base route (just like my two other favorite dairy-free ice cream recipes: matcha ice cream and coconut coffee ice cream) this time around and while almond joy, lemon, York peppermint patty and Oreo were thrown out as suggestions (and will eventually be made because they all sound amazing) the abundance of strawberries I had on hand won out.

Roasting them and mixing with a little bit of fresh mint resulted in what I’d call the perfect spring flavor.

Only made better by the 70+ sunny weather, a good book read front to back, the open top jeep rides and the complete avoidance of the computer this past weekend.