Pistachio Gelato

To celebrate the end of the official dairy-free challenge, we decided to whip up some gelato for friends coming over. My rationale was that since gelato just has whole milk instead of the heavy cream you find in ice cream, it isn't THAT bad for you :) As a background, I used to work in a cafe in college, and I was the "gelato girl" who received the base from a local gelato shop and made it in the store. I had so much fun mixing and matching flavors and making pretty peaks. That's where I discovered and loved pistachio gelato!

Luke led the charge on this one and did lots of research, and we ended up doing a mash-up of several recipes he found, tweaked to what we had on-hand (we'd run out of the almond extract that most recipes called for, and we were also super low on sugar). We waffled on whether or not to strain out the pistachios and ultimately decided to in the name of texture, so we were amazed at how strong the flavor still was! My only complaint was that I wish we had made more. This made 4 pretty large servings, so we don't have any leftovers.

Pistachio Gelato

1 cup pistachios, raw and shelled

1/4 cup almonds, raw
2/3 cup sugar, divided
2 cups whole milk
5 egg yolks

Put pistachios, almonds and 1/3 cup sugar in a food processor and pulse until very fine.

Bring milk, remaining sugar and pistachio mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Strain out pistachios over a fine mesh sieve and reserve for a different use (we mixed ours in some oatmeal and it was dynamite!). Pour hot milk mixture slowly into a bowl of egg yolks and whisk.

Warm mixture over medium-low heat until thick, but not boiling, for 5-7 minutes. It should coat the back of a wooden spoon. 

Pour in a metal bowl and chill for a few hours (we chilled ours for 4). Pour into your ice cream maker and let churn 15-20 minutes. Ideally, you should chill the bowls you plan to serve it in so that it doesn't melt. Serve with additional pistachios on top and enjoy!

Up close and personal