Tag: Frozen


Aug
2014

Skinny Summer Popsicles

categories: Desserts, Ice-creams, Summer
Skinny Summer Popsicles1
I love popsicles any time of the day. Be it for breakfast, an afternoon snack or dessert. I mean who doesn’t, right?! This one here is so refreshing and healthy without addition of any sugar, be it refined or unrefined. Just some fresh fruit pieces blended along with little bit of fruit juice. It’s a perfect pick-me-up treat using all the gorgeous summer bounty on offer. I bet you can’t stop at just one!
Hope you all are having a great Monday!
xx
Skinny Summer Popsicles
Yields: 4 popsicles | Prep time: 5 minutes | Cook time: 0 | Freeze time: 4-5 hours/overnight
Ingredients:
Puree 1:
  • 6 slices fresh pineapple
  • 1/3 cup pineapple juice (freshly squeezed or packed)
  • Pinch of salt
  • Zest from 1/2 orange
Puree 2:
  • 1/4 cup cherries, pitted
  • 1 medium nectarine, cored
  • 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 1 orange)
  • Pinch of salt

Directions:

  1. Puree 1: In a blender, blend together pineapple slices, pineapple juice and salt. Stir in orange zest to it and divide the puree among 4 popsicle moulds.
  2. Puree 2: Wash and wipe the blender dry. Add all the ingredients mentioned under puree 2 in a blender and process until smooth. Top the popsicle moulds with puree 2, dividing equally.
  3. Insert stick in the centre of each mould, cover and freeze for about 6-7 hours. To demould, run the moulds under warm running water for 30-50 seconds. Enjoy!

*Recipe can be easily doubled or tripled or quadrupled!

 

Skinny Summer Popsicles2

 

Share this recipe:

Apr
2014

Sunshine Smoothie for Two ~ 100th Blogpost!

categories: Breakfast, Drinks, Summer

Sunshine Smoothie1

 

Woohoo (with more o’s than I can type)!!! This is my 100th blogpost! I know I should have reached this teeny-tiny (quite huge for me of course!) milestone a long time back but I’m glad I did. I thank each and everyone of you for being with me on this journey. And even tolerating my sporadic absence. You guys are sweetest. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Really 🙂

I’m sure we all agree on this that no celebration is complete without a cake. And I know I should have brought one today but instead, I come bearing smoothie and I ain’t sorry. This is no ordinary smoothie, it’s a sunshine smoothie! Yes, pure liquid sunshine for breakfast and you won’t need anything else. Great way to get lots of fruit in your system. So go fruit wild this summer. This one is mindbogglingly refreshing!

 

Sunshine Smoothie2

 

This fruity concoction is so creamy, it may trick you into thinking there is ice-cream involved. This smoothie is created using shockingly simple ingredients aka fruits and nothing else! I’m a huge fan of frozen banana whip and it works as a great base for a smoothie. I made this whip for breakfast last week with frozen kiwi and banana and it turned out totally amazeballs. The idea was sparked then to turn it into a gorgeous smoothie.

I went fruit crazy and added mango (my fav), banana, kiwi and orange with a squeeze of lime and a spoon of honey, blend and Ta Da! You get this tropical heaven. Truly summer in your glass! (See I didn’t whine about the hottest, sunniest weather we’re experiencing here even once.. Ha!)

Put your feet up and enjoy this citrus bursting smoothie. It’ll brighten up your day and make the weather certainly more tolerable. Trust me.

Sunshine Smoothie for Two

Serves: 2 obnoxiously | Prep time: 10 minutes 

Ingredients:

  • 1 large frozen mango, previously peeled & sliced
  • 1 large frozen banana, previously peeled & sliced
  • 2 frozen kiwi, previously peeled & sliced
  • 2 oranges, peeled, seeded and sliced
  • Juice from 1 lime
  • 6-8 ice-cubes
  • 1 Tbsp honey (optional)

Directions:

Blend all the ingredients in a blender on high speed till you get a smooth consistency (for about 2-3 minutes). Serve in tall glasses.

*You may turn this smoothie into green smoothie by adding 1 cup of your favorite greens.

*You may swap kiwi with frozen chunks of pineapple. Whatever rocks your boat!

Share this recipe:

Jun
2013

Caprese Ice-cream

categories: Entrée, Ice-creams, Summer

Does the title of this post shock you? Do you think it’s a typo? Nope… It is exactly what you read it is. Caprese Ice-cream… It has tomatoes, basil, Mozzarella cheese and whatever else an authentic Caprese Salad is supposed to have!

Caprese Ice-cream1

 

A perfect summer entrée for your guests!

It is the last day of the week-long ice-cream marathon going on here and I wanted to come up with an out-of-the-box flavor! A unique ice-cream which you have never read about on any other blog or probably (I’m just guessing) have never had it at any of the sophisticated restaurants! A treat I have specially created for you!

Our favorite summer salad made into an ice-cream!

It is actually a mix between ice-cream and sherbet.

It’s beautiful pink color will be a complete deception for your guests till they take a first bite of it!

It has a very refreshing kick from basil and is light on palate due to tomatoes.

We cook the tomatoes and basil leaves with olive oil on low-heat thus extracting basil flavors completely. The sieved puree is then mixed with Mozzarella cheese, salt, pepper, sugar mayonnaise and whipped cream.. Freeze it overnight and just before serving blend it to a smooth consistency like how we made our frozen whip and serve immediately!

You can even add roasted~peeled~pureed red bell paper to add a different dimension to it!

Trust me it is a perfect start to your elaborate dinner party. Just double the recipe if serving a larger crowd.

Caprese Ice-cream2

Caprese Ice-cream

Serves: 4 | Serving: 1 scoop | Yields: 4 scoops

Ingredients:

  • 15-17 cherry tomatoes
  • 1/2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 4-5 basil leaves
  • salt and freshly cracked pepper, as per taste
  • 1 Tbsp finely grated Mozzarella cheese
  • 1/2 tsp mayonnaise
  • A dash of lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp caster sugar
  • 3 Tbsp fresh Medium fat cream (40%)

Directions:

Add tomatoes, olive oil and basil leaves in a saucepan and cook it covered on a low-flame for about 4-5 minutes till the tomatoes have soften, stirring occasionally. Pass them through sieve to remove the skin, seeds and leaves.

Season the puree with salt and pepper. Add grated Mozzarella, mayonnaise and lemon juice to it.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream and sugar together till you get a soft peak. Fold in the tomato mixture in a cream mixture and scoop it in a airtight container. Freeze it overnight.

Just before serving, add the frozen ice-cream to your blender and process it till you get a smooth consistency. Scoop and serve in individual glasses topped with basil or mint leaves.

*The last step of blending before serving is MUST as the tomatoes have high water content and therefore the ice-cream straight out of the freezer will be icy.

Enjoy!

Share this recipe:

Jun
2013

Zesty Lemon Ice-cream with Blueberry Swirl

categories: Ice-creams, Summer

Zesty Lemon Ice-cream with Blueberry Swirl1

I have a declaration to make. This is by far THE best ice-cream I have ever made! Seriously!!! It’s so good that I could not believe this was made by me at home without the use of ice-cream maker. It came out so perfect, it was definitely to die for!

It was tart, light, refreshing, tangy, sweet, velvety… Lick-your-bowl good if you still don’t get what I mean! Everything you want your lemon ice-cream to be and more!

This ice-cream definitely screams SUMMER!

We are making this one little bit differently than how we were doing with our previous ice-creams. First, we need to make lemon curd for the base and then fold it in with whipped cream. That’s it!

Lemon curd is wonderful and super easy to make. It is so versatile that apart from using it in this ice-cream, you can use this as a filling for your tarts, pies and cakes or simply as a spread for your scones!

We are going to cook the lemon curd in a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water aka double boiler. It will only take about 3-4 minutes to cook.

I have scaled down the recipe to make ice-cream for just 2 people. I have been whipping ice-cream daily so you can understand why I would do this! But I regretted my decision as soon as I had its first bite.. It was heavenly! And I wanted more!! 🙁

So let’s get down to the business!

Zesty Lemon Ice-cream with Blueberry Swirl2

Zesty Lemon Ice-cream with Blueberry Swirl

Yields: around 6 scoops

Ingredients:

  • 1 small egg
  • 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice, sieved so that it is free from pulp
  • 1 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
  • Lemon zest from 1 lemon
  • 1/2 cup fresh medium fat cream (40%), chilled
  • 2 Tbsp blueberry compote

Directions:

  1. In a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together the egg, sugar and lemon juice until blended. Cook, stirring constantly (to prevent from curdling), until the mixture becomes thick. This will take about 3-4 minutes to cook.
  2. Remove from heat and immediately pass the mixture through the sieve to remove any extra lumps. Whisk in butter and lemon zest. Let cool. It will continue to thicken as it cools down further. Freeze it till cream is ready.
  3. Whip the fresh cream till soft peaks form. Gently fold in the chilled lemon curd. If it is too tart for you then add more cream as per your taste.
  4. In a small airtight container, spoon in half the mixture and top it with blueberry compote, top with rest of the mixture and freeze for 4-5 hours before serving. Serve it topped with fresh blueberries and dig in!

*Tips: Lemon curd has to be made with fresh lemons. Juice lemons at room temperature to get more juice and strain the juice to remove any pulp from it. While grating the zest from the lemon, be sure not to remove pith (white membrane) from the lemon as it is very bitter tasting. Cold lemons are much easier to zest. You can use a zester or fine grater for this. Do this just before using as the zest will lose moisture if it sits out too long.

Lemon curd recipe scaled down and barely adapted from Joy Of Baking

Share this recipe:

Jun
2013

Fresh Mint & mango Creamsicle Ice-cream

categories: Ice-creams, Summer

You do not think that ice-cream week on blog will go by without the addition of an ice-cream whipped with our fave seasonal fruit to my repertoire? Of course not… I wouldn’t let that happen! And yes.. You have guessed it right… You know how much I love my mango and they taste best chilled..  So while deciding on 7 flavors to be included in this week-long marathon I am participating alone in (!sigh!), mango unquestionably topped the list!

Fresh Mint & Mango Creamsicle Ice-cream1

But just the plain mango ice-cream wouldn’t do the justice to the ‘ice-cream week’ as the idea is to create something really special in the comfort of your home and without the use of ice-cream maker. Plus, perhaps there are zillion versions of plain mango ice-cream already doing rounds on the internet. So why do another version just like what is already there!

The hunt for that perfect combination started… What do we know and what have we learnt? Mangoes are sweet, juicy and succulent fruit which goes really well with fresh mint. Remember this? Toasted coconut and mango chunks would add a bit of a texture to the otherwise perfectly creamy smooth ice-cream.. And a dash of lemon juice to cut that sweetness.. Done deal!

Fresh Mint & Mango Creamsicle Ice-cream2

Bringing the flavor of fresh mint to the cream was an easy thing. I used the method which worked perfectly for me here. I added mint leaves to the cream and let it sit in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Trust me the flavor kick was there without adding even a drop of mint extract! I toasted the desiccated coconut using gas stove itself though you can use oven, I am more comfortable with this method as I am scared of getting burnt coconut in the oven. Let’s get started then!

Fresh Mint & Mango Creamsicle Ice-cream3

Fresh Mint & Mango Creamsicle Ice-cream

Yields: around 8 scoops

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup fresh medium fat cream (40% fat)
  • 1 handful of fresh mint leaves
  • 2 Tbsp sugar (more if mango used is not sweet enough)
  • 1 mango, peeled, pureed
  • Juice from 1 lemon
  • 1/4 cup toasted coconut
  • 1 mango, peeled, finely diced

Directions:

For toasted coconut:

Toast the desiccated coconut in a pan over a medium heat on gas stove.

For oven: Preheat the oven to 350 F/ 170 C. Put the desiccated coconut in baking tray and bake for 3-5 minutes. Keep a close watch as you do not want burnt coconut.

For making ice-cream:

Mix cream and mint leaves in a bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours to extract the flavors from mint to cream. Use sieve to separate mint leaves from cream.

Add sugar to cream and whip till you get soft and fluffy consistency. Gently fold in pureed mango, lemon juice, toasted coconut and diced mangoes to the cream and spoon the mix in airtight container. Let it freeze for 4-5 hours and serve it.

*For any left-overs, let the ice-cream thaw for 15 minutes before serving. Run hot water on the ice-cream scoop before scooping the ice-cream out.

Share this recipe: