Happy Thanksgiving!  Eric and I will be celebrating with my family, but from ages 18-25 I was single and on my own for Thanksgiving.  Sometimes I’d go to a restaurant with another single friend.  Sometimes I’d be invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with a friend and her husband.  A couple times I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for a few other single friends.  One thing everyone seemed to agree on was that there’s no point in cooking the HUGE Thanksgiving recipes for just 1-4 people.  It’s too much food, time, and expense.  So I thought I’d share a collection of recent recipes I’ve posted that are perfectly sized for a newlywed (or retired) couple, a few single friends, or cooking for yourself.  They’re also EXTREMELY affordable.  The entire meal you see below is under $5 a serving!

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I am a big fan of pumpkin pie, it’s on of the few food items I think is great for any meal.  I especially love making it with fresh pumpkin puree because there’s just something so right about knowing I really made it all from scratch.  (Wanna know how to cook a whole pumpkin and make your own puree?)  I thought about sharing a pumpkin pie recipe for the holidays, but really, they’re everywhere.  So I decided to change it up with something everyone loves…ICE CREAM YOU SCREAM WE ALL SCREAM FOR PUMPKIN PIE ICE CREAM!  Whew!  Got that out of my system.  This is a great dessert option for someone who isn’t confident in pie making.

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Homemade Banana Ice Cream, the healthiest ice cream recipe ever!

If you haven’t yet heard of frozen banana ice cream, you are going to be so stoked.  This is a recipe that can change your life.  The only sugar is the natural sugar in the bananas.  It’s simply bananas and milk, that’s right, the healthiest ice cream recipe in the world! It can even be made without milk if you want vegan ice cream. When I was taking care of my brother last week, he would get “fun time” with me if he finished his chores and responsibilities with a good attitude.  I’d offer all sorts of things like seeing a movie, going to the park, playing a sport, but he always chose to cook or bake with me in the kitchen.

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Alright, yesterday was my first day back at work after vacation, I feel like I’m back in the real world again.  Not so fun, but necessary.  Two things that can help you get through vacation rebound?  Reliving your time off through photos, and refreshingly tropical treats.  I’ll have some posts over the next couple weeks about our vacation interspersed with regular recipes.  To kick off the post vacation posts, I’ve got some photos from Foodportunity, a neat idea of freezing tropical fruit puree that I got from Kiran (Help, I saw this idea on someone’s blog who commented here recently but didn’t bookmark it you made popscicles and called them lollies, let me know so I can link to you!), and the amazing and incredible vegan smoothie I made with the fruity ice cubes.

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“We have to make ice cream, stat!” Those were the words that rushed out of my mouth as my husband brought home more groceries than could fit in our freezer with the ice cream maker in it. There’s no way we could take the ice cream maker out of the freezer to thaw without actually using it! Remember I promised this recipe because it goes so great with lemon blueberry bundt cake? Now that I’ve had the combination, it would be hard to have one without the other, it’s so good!

For those of you who aren’t sugar addicts (myself included) I have to apologize for all the sugary posts. I have had more “junk” food in the last two weeks than I do in a year, literally! First of all, we helped some friends of ours move over last weekend. The first day we brought a crew of teenage boys and got everything moved from one house to another. The second day Eric and I went alone to help them unpack. Both days they had bags of chips and M & Ms sitting out on the counter in the kitchen (my dream kitchen by the way). It was so easy to just snack on them every time you walk by without even thinking about it.

Then, I made mango and lemongrass ice cream with blood orange syrup. A couple days later I stopped by Goodwill and found a cute bundt cake pan and decided I needed it since it was only a dollar and I didn’t have one. So of course I had to make bundt cake. That same day I realized my Daring Baker’s challenge was due and so whipped out some mini chocolate and orange cheesecake bites. Then finally, we’re at the emergency blueberry ice cream. I am on sugar overload, and my jeans were actually too tight in rear on Friday I am back to cooking healthy after this (and regular gym visits/hikes!). You can expect more yummy cheap and healthy meals soon.

But as long as we’re indulging, I have to say that this is the best ice cream I have ever made. It’s the first time that we could not think of any ice cream storebought or homemade that we like better. It’s that good. In fact this is the first time that as soon as I made it I rushed to the laptop IMMEDIATELY to make sure I write the recipe correctly. It’s that good. So honestly, to look out for my hips, I may not make the bundt cake to go with it very often, but I will definitely make this ice cream again. Oh, and it has 2% milk in it, so I can pretend it’s healthy right? Right?

The Best Homemade Blueberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
1 TBS lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar (divided)
1/2 cup 2% milk
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 TBS vanilla

Instructions

Place berries in a microwave safe bowl and microwave about 30 seconds until slightly softened but still very cold. Add lemon juice and half the sugar (1/3 cup). Mash with a fork until well mixed. Place in the refrigerator.

In another bowl mix remaining sugar and milk until sugar dissolves. Mix in heavy cream and vanilla. Pour into ice cream maker and churn for 25 minutes. Add blueberry mixture and churn another 5 minutes.