I was feeling pretty negligent about Father’s Day this year. I had this vague notion in the back of my mind that the day was approaching. I really wanted to honor the father in our lives in a special way but was feeling overworked by farm tasks and child shuttling. My go-to fix has traditionally been to hop on the internet for some online shopping. I do this fancy justifying in my mind - telling myself how the gift I’m selecting is really thoughtful and from a tasteful and socially-conscious source. But this time around the justification wasn’t working, and so I had gotten myself into the spot where - even if I did pony up to buy something - there was no delivery service that was going to make it to our rural address in time for the big day.

So isn’t it great that Father’s Day takes place during the month of the Strawberry Moon? I had spent so much time planting bare root strawberries last year (ninety of them in fact), and now the abundance was happening right in synch with the moon cycle.

Our whole family is a sucker for the many bougeious ice cream options in Portland, OR. And one of my husband’s favorite are the ice cream sandwiches from Ruby Jewel. The options are so very well-curated: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip + Butterscotch, Brown Sugar + Oregon Strawberry, Dark Chocolate + Fresh Mint, Lemon + Honey Lavender.

Problem is - we are currently working with a child that has systemic candida. If you don’t know what that means, let’s just say, sugar is off the table. So my Father’s Day plan became to make a ketogenic, sugar-free option of the Ruby Jewel ice cream experience. It felt like an effort in keeping with the awesome-ness with the fathering we experience, plus, we got to harvest straight from our garden, bypassing the need of extra fossil-fuels.

**Garden Fresh - No Fossil Fuels Required**

The ice cream recipe is a riff on a recipe in the Plant Paradox cookbook. We took the basics, tweaked the flavor, and used our preferred sweetener. And for the cookie to sandwich the ice cream between, we made a ketogenic lemon cookie. We used this recipe and substituted monk fruit sweetener for the maple syrup.

Just a quick note on sweeteners - we use granulated monk fruit. You can use it in any recipe that calls for sugar, and simply substitute in a 1:1 ratio. There are a lot of articles on sugar alternatives and which ones are healthy or not. We use monk fruit often because it comes from an actual plant and has zero calories and zero carbohydrates, which means it does not affect blood sugar levels. Also, some people in our family do not tolerate erythritol which is another popular alternative sweetener. Sometimes information can be overwhelming, but I encourage you to do your own research. And if you have any feedback on alternative sweeteners, especially when used in a candida diet, I’d love to hear from you.

So below is our recipe for your garden-fun strawberry-basil ice cream.

Keto Strawberry Basil Ice Cream

Holly Jones | July 15, 2019

prep time:30 min
total cooking time:12 hours

Ingredients

1. 2 pounds strawberries
2. 2 oz basil (adjust to taste)
3. 2 15-ounce cans unsweetened coconut milk
4. 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5. 1 ripe avocado
6. 1/2 cup Monk Fruit Sweetner

Procedure

1. Make sure the bowl of your ice cream machine is well-frozen
2. Chop your basil and liquefy your strawberries using a food processor or blender.
3. Heat the coconut cream in a large saucepan, along with the Monk Fruit Sweetener and vanilla until the sweentner is dissolved. Add the chopped strawberries and basil and simmer on low.
4. Remove from heat. Add this mixture and a ripe avocado to a food processor. Blend until smooth.
5. Chill the mixture at least four hours but ideally overnight.
6. Blend and freeze according to the instructions on your ice cream macine.
7. At this point, you can choose to eat your ice cream soft serve, or put it in the freezer to get firmer. If you choose to freeze it more, I recommend taking it out of the ice cream maker. Ours got too  hard to eat. But if put in another container you can get it to a consistency between goop and rock hard.