Banana Coconut (Vegan) Milkshakes

With interpersonal relationships, compatibility is an issue in constant flux. We want to be around people who compliment yet challenge us and, in a way, making good friends becomes an art. That push/pull makes - and keeps - things interesting. So while friendships might be formed over memories and experiences, it's really the little things that keep us together - things like views on music, theater, politics, art, and yes, food. This time, it's about the food.  

Last night, I had dinner with Emily. She and I have maintained a friendship since the sixth grade, despite long distances, busy lives, and poor Internet connections. Seeing each other roughly 2 -3 times a year, we always manage to pick up right where we left off, a strange fact that at once makes me feel old and like I might never be older than fifteen, no matter how hard I try. Anyway, be it a function of there being little to do in the West Side suburbs or the fact our friendship is on some kind of record-repeat loop, hanging out inevitably involves attempting to cook something for dinner that get a lot of laughs before it meets the disposal. 

This could've been understandable, even excusable,  in our teen years, but we're in our early 20s now. We're college educated girls and with reasonable kitchen knowledge - why must our food experiments end so disastrously? Though Emily and I might compliment each other in a variety of ways, we have one serious challenge: competing food allergies. A vegetarian celiac trying to eat the same thing as a ham eating, lactose intolerant, soy yogurt buying girl? It's not so easy. 

But I've never been one to shy away from a challenge - or break tradition - and before I knew it, we were on our way to the local Giant Eagle to buy ingredients for vegan milkshakes. 

As tradition and a poorly stocked grocery store would dictate, we bought most of the ingredients on the fly. (It's more exciting that way, trust me.) We swapped coconut milk in for the hoped for coconut ice cream and read ingredients on all of the soy and rice dairy products (notorious for harboring hidden gluten) until we found ones satisfactory for us both. Upon returning home, we blended the ingredients up with vague - at - best measurements and hoped for something at least palatable. 

And while we've had many, many kitchen accidents in the past, these milkshakes were actually good. Maybe there's hope for our joint culinary adventures after all. At the very least, I know we'll try it out again in another six months. 

Banana Coconut (Vegan) Milkshakes 

1/2 pint of Tofutti ice cream

2 and a 1/2 ripened bananas 

1 can of lite coconut milk

about 1 and a 1/2 cups of vanilla rice milk (use discretion based on how thin or thick you like it) 

Silly as it sounds, place all ingredients in a blender and blend (we chose the oh so fancy "frappe" setting) until your milkshake has reached desired thickness. At first, the milkshake had that you-know-it's-vegan soy aftertaste, but the addition of another scoop of Tofutti and another half a banana really made it quite tasty. 

This recipe makes four mugfulls of milkshake goodness.