No bake lemon yogurt tart/pudding/cassata

So I whipped this awesome tartie thingie quite some time back and I completely forgot to blog about it!

I really love the acerbic taste of a fresh lemon and tart lemon pies and puddings but lemon curd based desserts are just so rich! All the egg yolks and sugar it’s to egg-y and heavy for my liking.

Yogurt is another one of my favourites and I just love how flavoured yogurt can capture fruit flavours and lend a light and summery mouthfeel.

So I mixed them both up. The results were pretty good; got a nice no-bake pudding/tart/frozen dessert; almost like a lemony cassata.

What you need:

1 pack of lemon flavoured pudding mix

1 cup of strained or greek style yogurt

sugar as per taste

1 tbs fresh lemon juice and rind

1/2 tsp lemon essence

10 digestive biscuits broken into chunks

1/2 cup glace fruits, nuts and fresh fruit chunks (fresh fruit is optional)

What to do:

1. prepare the lemon pudding and set aside to cool (should be equvivalent to one cup)

2. Put the digestive biscuits in a deep dish

3. Beat yogurt with sugar, lemon juice and essence

4. Mix cooled pudding with yogurt and gently fold in the glace fruit and nuts

5. Pour over digestive biscuits

6. Freeze till set. Garnish with fresh fruit or lemon slices. Cut into slices and serve.

hard working cook, lazy blogger

Writing a blog is hard work. Ever so often I find my self cooking away or even clicking away but never get the patience to blog about any of it.

I’m going to be reall-ly busy the next one month, it’s Ramadan plus I will be studying like a crazy nut (or at least I should be!) for all the damned exams that I have to give. I’m quite addicted to social networking and useless browsing so I might even unplug my Internet for the month (yikes!)

So I’m scheduling a couple of posts. hopefully you wont miss me too much

Ohh here’s the Cinnamon french toast with poached caramel flavoured apples that I turned out the other day. Ok Ok so I couldn’t resist. I took a bite before I could click the pic, trust me- you would do the same.

Cinnamon toast + poached apple

What you need:

for the french toast:

1 egg

2 slices of white bread

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

2 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 cup cold milk

For the poached apples

1 red apple; peeled, cored and sliced(whichever type)

1 small cinnamon stick

3 tbs sugar

1 cup water

1/2 tsp lemon juice

What to do:

1. Make the poached apples. Caramelize 3tbs of sugar in a saucepan and pour a cup of water once caramelized. Reduce heat.

2. Put the lemon juice, cinnamon and apple slices in the saucepan and cook covered for 15 minutes till done.

3. Make the french toast. Beat eggs, cinnamon, sugar, salt and milk. Dip slices of bread and fry in a non stick pan till golden brown on both sides.

4. Serve both together. Pour some of the caramel liquid over the apples and the toast. YUM!

I sat down on my pretty little (new!) carpet to enjoy this massive breakfast. ahh soft soft carpet.

Bendy Straw Mango Smootie

The best part about Summer is the Mango of course. The Alphonso Mango to be more specific. 

The Mango Season is almost like a festival one to be prolonged and savoured without bothering about trivial obstacles like weight loss or diabetes. My dear (severely diabetic) grandmother bought 6 dozen of these crimson shells of happiness. 

For most of the part, we just eat them whole: It really is nonpareil in it’s natural form. But what harm is it to smootie it or to aamras it or to tart it or cheesecake is?

And there certainly is no harm in eating it for breakfast.

A couple of days back I twittered  about the boredom in breakfast dishes. I take that back. If mangoes were to be my daily morning fix; so be it. 

As though the idea of gulping thick sweet crimson mango flesh wasn’t good enough, I added a bendy straw for additional joy. Of course I’ve always known and used straws but my awareness towards bendy straws arose from an episode of ugly betty (believe it or not). Well what can I say about the power of suggestion, we had the straws at home in a week.

I don’t know what it is about bending a plastic straw toward my face that gives me immense comfort and joy, really.

 

Bendy Straw Mango Smoothie

What you need:

1 ripe mango (pref alphonso)

1/4 cup milk

4-5 ice cubes

1 bendy straw 

 

What to do:

1. Blend the mango, milk and ice cubes.

2. Pour into a glass and place your bendy straw in a strategic position (the way you like it) Drink up the crimson joy.

Chocolate pancakes with hot fig sauce

Some days just call for decadence.

I felt heady and I gave in.. somewhat.

What you need:

(for the pancakes)
¾ cup of plain/ whole flour
2 tbs coco powder
1 egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup water
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar/ substitute/ honey
a pinch of salt

(for the sauce)
6 fresh figs, finely chopped
2 tbs honey
1 tsp butter
1 stick of cinnamon
¼ cup water

(for decadence)
1 tbs nutella (optional: only for the ultimate hedonist)

What to do:

(Pancakes)
1. Mix all the ingredients to form a smooth batter. Add more milk if using whole wheat flour. Basically just make a smooth not too runny batter. Stir vigorously to prevent forming lumps.

2. Spread on a nonstick pan and cook on a low heat and cover while cooking. Cook on both sides till brown(er) and well done.

(Sauce)
3. In a saucepan, on a low heat, put all the ingredients for the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes till sauce is thick.

(Assemble)
4. You can either fill the sauce into the pancake and roll it up or sandwich the sauce between layers of pancakes, like I did. Top with nutella, if you want more.

Mulberries and smoothies

I remember that silly rhyme we would sing as kids, round and round the mulberry tree. The fruit is not silly though.

It resembles a blackberry but has these tentacle like thingies all over (forgive me for not knowing the scientific word, this is a food blog)

I bought some of these but really didn’t know what to do with it. I remember Patrick Star (of Spongebob Squarepants) once say: “when in doubt, pinkie out!” (that REALLY did not help)

SO I created a new one “when in doubt, blender out!”

I made a dee-licious smoothie with the mulberries and strangely a larger quantity of other stuff.

What you need:

¼ cup mulberries
½ cup diced papaya
1 cup cold milk
honey to flavor (honey is perfect as a sweetener for this recipe)

What to do:

1.Blend all, preferably with some ice
2.Slowly sip and enjoy the flavor. And keep your pinkie out. Its Friday the 13th!

My beautiful mulberries.

My even more beautiful mulberry smoothie.