The past week has been rough.  And when things get rough, I tend to crave comfort foods such as fresh chocolate chip cookies from the oven, a homemade roast chicken with mashed potatoes, even something as simple as scrambled eggs on toast.  But this time I found myself wanting vanilla ice cream.

My grandfather passed away last week after a debilitating stroke.  It’s been awhile since there has been a death in our family, so this hit all of us pretty hard.  I consider myself very lucky to have had as much time with him as I did, and I am thankful he got to meet my fiancée a couple of times as well.

One of my fondest memories of my grandfather was his love for ice cream.  He never had that much of a sweet tooth so you wouldn’t find him eating cookies, or cakes or brownies, but he loved a bowl of vanilla ice cream with some fruit on top after dinner.  And if it was the holiday season, then it would be peppermint ice cream.  My parents would joke that when he came to visit from Colorado they would need to get him his own carton of ice cream because he ate so much.

As luck would have it, one of my lovely friends recently gifted me with an ice cream maker for my birthday, so I decided to make my first ice cream a vanilla one in his honor.  Only I decided to change it up a bit and make a coconut vanilla ice cream instead.

This coconut vanilla ice cream is super easy to make and requires minimal ingredients.  Just coconut milk, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar.

Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients:

3 cups coconut milk (I used Trader Joe’s brand)

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp vanilla

Directions:

Combine your coconut milk, powdered sugar and vanilla in a blender or food processor and pulse 2-3 minutes.  Pour your mixture into your ice cream maker and follow according to your manufacturer’s directions.

I have the Cuisinart Ice Cream maker so I left the mixture in the ice cream maker for 15 minutes.  Place your ice cream in the freezer for at least 6 hours so it can firm up a bit, and then enjoy.

Since my grandfather loved to have fruit with his ice cream, I topped mine with fresh berries.  And although it wasn’t quite the same as the vanilla ice cream he always enjoyed, I think he would’ve really liked this.

Thanks for the recipe inspiration grandpa.  I will miss you.