Ingredients
10 Chocolate Cupcakes
1 stick (1/4 lb.) unsalted butter
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
20 brown M&M's
1 long strand black licorice
25 white mini jellybeans
10 mini Chocolate Cupcakes
1 (9 oz.) box chocolate wafers
Preparation

Beat together butter and shortening for 2 minutes. Slowly beat in confectioners' sugar. Add vanilla and salt; beat for 1 minute. Mound 1/4 cup frosting in center of top of each larger cupcake.
For faces, add M&M's, pieces of licorice and halved jellybeans (see photo).
For hats, dab frosting on mini cupcakes, invert and stick to chocolate wafers. Put one on each icing mound. read more →

Makes 3 sandwiches

1 tablespoon rolled oats

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons unsweetened peanut butter

3/4 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon raisins

1 medium apple

Combine the oats and cinnamon in a dry skillet over medium heat and toast, stirring occasionally, until the oats are golden. Cool before using.

Mix together the peanut butter and honey.

Core and slice the apple into 6 rounds. (If you don't have an apple corer, you can slice the apple first and then cut out the centers with a small cookie cutter or knife.)

Spread 1 tablespoon of peanut butter on 3 of the apple slices and sprinkle with raisins and oats. Top with the remaining apple slices to form sandwiches.

Notes: 

• If you are not eating the apple right away, you can brush it with lemon juice to prevent browning. A solution of 1/4 cup water and 1 tablespoon lemon juice does the trick without tasting too lemony.

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Makes 1 1/4 quarts (1.25l)

Use very ripe, tasty strawberries for this. Rice milk has a neutral flavor so the strawberries should really do most of the work in this. I don’t strain out the seeds in this ice cream. But you can strain them all out, or just some of them.

As mentioned, I did try soy milk and didn’t like the taste. But for a richer ice cream, you can replace half of the rice milk with coconut milk. For those who eat dairy, you can use heavy cream in place of the rice milk.

I left the liquor optional because some people avoid alcohol, but it does help keep the ice cream softer once frozen; since rice milk doesn’t have the fat of cream, it helps to keep the ice cream smoother. As mentioned, because this ice cream has much less fat than traditional ice cream, it will become quite firm when frozen for a long period of time. So eat it shortly after churning or remove it from the freezer before scooping, to give it time to soften.

1 1/2 pounds (700g) fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled

1/2 cup (100g) sugar (or 1/2 cup, 125ml agave nectar)

2 tablespoons honey

1 1/2 cups (375ml) plain rice milk

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

optional: 2 teaspoons kirsch, vodka, or orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier

1. Slice the berries and toss them with the sugar (or agave) and honey, and let them macerate for one hour at room temperature.

2. Puree the berries and their liquid with the rice milk, lemon juice and liquor, if using, with a standard or immersion blender.

You can puree it until completely smooth and strain out some or all of the seeds by pressing the mixture through a mesh sieve. Or you can leave it slightly chunky and omit straining it.

3. Taste, and add more lemon juice or liquor*, if desired.

4. Chill thoroughly, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

*You can add up to 3 tablespoons of liquor to this ice cream; the alcohol softens the texture so the more you add, the less-hard the ice cream will get.

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