VGYO (explanation below) smoothies represent Violet, Green, Yellow and Orange colored healthy smoothies…

The truth: I was hoping to make VIBGYOR smoothies and ended up with VGYO. The idea of making VIBGYOR smoothies had been tuning in my mind for a while. This was not an effect of seeing a rainbow. The last time I had encountered a rainbow was during my camping trip at Starved rock, IL in the summer of 2008. Since then, I haven’t seen one. Is it because it’s banned in my place? or does this mean that I don’t look at the sky these days?

When I decided to go with this VIBGYOR idea, I never thought that I would end up making VGYO smoothies instead. My whole idea was to make healthy fruit smoothies. However, while attempting to make these, I found that it was nearly hard to achieve indigo and blue colored smoothies with the fresh fruits. I tried a few of the blue and close to blue colored fruits like blueberries, purple grapes and plums, when they were blended I didn’t get a blue color, but got more of a violet color. Hence, I dropped the indigo and blue colored smoothies. Now, you must be thinking what happened to the red color. I knew it was quite easy to make red colored fruit  smoothies with watermelon or strawberries. Without much reasons, I skipped this too.

If I had added color I could have gotten the blue and indigo color. My goal wasn’t to make artificial colored smoothies, but to make healthy and refreshing smoothies.

VGYO Smoothies: for Violet color: Pomegranate; for Green color: Kiwi and Apple; for Yellow: Mango Lassi; for Orange: Cantaloupe.

Yes, I do have a favorite among these smoothies, hands down my favorite smoothie is Mango Lassi. I doubt if there is any Indian restaurant without this. Believe me, making this in your own kitchen is easy and fast.

Fruits Used:

V for Violet colored Pomegranate Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Pomegranate seeds- seeds from half of the pomegranate

• Milk- 1 1/2 cups
• Sugar- 3tbsp or as required

Preparation:

• In a blender, combine all the above ingredients.
• Strain the milkshake to discard the seeds.
• Serve the drink by topping with some pomegranate seeds.

G for Green colored Kiwi and Apple Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Kiwi, ripe- 2

• Apple, cored, seeds removed and cut in wedges-2
• Sugar- 3 tbsp

Preparation:

• Place these ingredients in a blender and puree to a smoothie constituency which will be thick and fibre rich.
• You could also make this in a power juicer to remove the fibre and for just the juice.

Y for Yellow colored Mango Lassi (My Favorite)

Ingredients:

• Fresh ripe Mango or canned mango pulp- 1 ripe mango  diced or 1/2 cup canned mango pulp
• Yogurt- 1/4 cup
• Milk- 1/2 milk
• Sugar- to taste, if you are using sweetened mango pulp, avoid adding sugar. Taste the lassi and add accordingly.

Preparation:

• Put the above mentioned ingredients into a blender.
• Blend it until smooth.
• Pour into individual glasses and enjoy.

O for Orange colored Cantaloupe Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Cantaloupe, rind removed, seeded and cubed- 4 cups
• Lemon juice (optional)- 1 tbsp
• Sugar- according to your needs

Preparation:

• Put the cubed cantaloupes, lemon juice if using and sugar if needed into a blender.
• Blend until smooth and you will get thick and fibre rich smoothie.
• You could make this in a power juicer as well, to discard the fibre and for getting just the juice.

Tips:

Difference between Blender and Juicer:

Blenders do not separate the juice from the fibre, while Juicers do so.

Nothing’s more inviting than the aroma of just-baked homemade goodies…

For these holidays, if you are looking for something different to bake other than the usual cookies, then you have landed on the right blog post. I am sure you must have tasted or at least heard of chocolate whoopie pies and pumpkin whoopie pies. Now let’s think totally out of the box and make whoopie pies with a totally different ingredient other than chocolate and pumpkin. How about we make whoopie pies with fresh ripe mangoes, doesn’t this sound interesting? Even I felt quite interesting when this idea struck me after a few days of thinking and searching for creative and different recipes using fresh mangoes.

The National Mango Board is running a contest in Foodie Blogroll and has challenged the foodies to post an original recipe using fresh mangoes. As soon as I saw this contest, I wanted to participate in this contest, as mango is one of my favorite fruits and I grew up eating lots of mangoes. Hence, I challenged myself and thought of the different ways of making some original recipe out of fresh mangoes. Since it’s Christmas season, I wanted to make something sweet and creamy. I suddenly felt whoopie pies would be a good one to have and I added fresh mango pulp while making the batter. I’ve never tried baking whoopie pies at home and so I was really excited to make this for the first time in my kitchen with mangoes. With all confidence I baked the mango cakes and was totally blown away when the mango cakes actually came out pretty good from the oven. Then I made the creamy frosting and generously smeared it between the mango cakes.

The mango cake was really soft and velvety; the rich frosting gave an extra creamy kick to the whoopie pies.

Mango pulp: Blend slices of ripe mango with little water to make thick mango pulp.

Mango Whoopie Pies:

For making Mango mini cakes:

Ingredients:

• Fresh mango pulp or canned Mango Pulp- 1 cup
• Butter, unsalted, melted- 1 stick, 6 ounces
• Light brown sugar-1 cup
• Eggs, large at room temperature, lightly beaten-2
• Ground cinnamon- 1/4 tsp
• Baking powder-1 tsp
• Baking soda-1tsp
• Pure vanilla extract -1 tsp
• Salt- 3/4 tsp
• All purpose flour-1 2/3 cups

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 35o F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar.
• Whisk in the eggs, mango pulp, ground cinnamon, vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• Fold in the flour into the above batter.

• Drop 12 moulds of batter, spaced evenly, onto each cookie sheet.

• Bake until sparingly to the touch, about 10 minutes.

• Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

For making Frosting:

• Cream cheese, chilled-4 ounces
• Confectioners’ sugar-1cup
• Butter, softened-1/2 stick
• Vanilla extract-1/2 tsp

Preparation:

• Using an electric mixer, cream the softened butter with the cream cheese.
• Mix in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla extract on low speed.
• Then beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Making the whoopie pies:

• Spread the flat side of one mango cake with the cream cheese frosting and top with another mango cake. Repeat this with other mango cakes.

Tips:

You could make pumpkin whoopie pies, by substituting pumpkin puree for mango pulp.

Not one scoop, two scoops, but many scoops of homemade mango ice cream you can devour and none is going to stop you…

Whenever I get the craving for mango ice cream, I rush to the nearby Indian restaurant. I still don’t understand why is it hard to find mango flavor in most of the Ice cream store. They have all kinds of flavors but mango. For me, mango and strawberry are my all time favorite ice cream flavors. Mango is one such fruit I had eaten a lot while growing up, this is because this particular fruit is immensely found in my home town, Kerala. Mango trees are found in the backyard of almost all houses there. My grandparents backyard is packed with mango trees, they have varieties of mangoes each named differently, I can’t remember the names at this moment. I have had pretty much all of them and it was amazing how each variety tasted differently from others. Besides making desserts, smoothies, lassi with mangoes, we even make savory dishes with them. Both the raw and ripe fruit can be used for making different dishes.

When I visited my cousin last month, after the sumptuous dinner, she opened her dessert suspense, it was my favorite mango ice cream. I couldn’t believe it was homemade as it tasted just like restaurant style. When she started saying about the ingredients it had and the preparation method, I was even more stunned. All these years I had thought that making an ice cream in my kitchen is beyond my expertise, as it needed ice cream maker and other super ingredients. Hence I never cared to even peep into that section. So for me, ice cream means Haagen-dazs, in fact any brand would work for me as long as I get the ice cream taste. But after the successful attempt at making homemade mango ice cream, I don’t think I will ever have to rush to any restaurants or store if I get the craving, I can make it in my own kitchen with all confidence and I get to devour not one scoops but many scoop of ice cream.

This recipe is inspired from Show Me the Curry. This is the quickest and the easiest ice cream you could ever make. And the recipe calls for easily available ingredients.

Ingredients:

• Mango pulp- 30 oz can
• Sweetened Condensed milk- 14 oz can
• Whipped topping- 7-8 oz ( I used Kraft, Cool Whip)
• Fresh Mango diced- 1 cup (optional)

Preparation:

• Combine mango pulp, condensed milk and whipping cream using a whisk until evenly incorporated.

• Pour the mixture into a glass dish or bowl, close with its lid.

• Freeze it for 2 hours ( Initial freezing)
• After 2 hours of chilling, take this out and put the diced mangoes into the mixture and combine everything with a spoon.
• Again freeze it for another 4-5 hours or until it sets completely.

• Voila, mango ice cream is ready, you could scoop this in your favorite cones or in a bowl, top with whipping cream, nuts of your choice, garnish with diced mangoes.

Tips:

• For healthy version, use fat free condensed milk.
• You can keep this in the freezer overnight, so that you can avoid peeping into the freezer every now and then, checking whether it is ready to gobble
• This is a Make-Ahead Party Dessert.