Rocket and Roses Dragon Fruit & Lemon Yoghurt and/or Smoothie

Kitchen Play List:  Simply Red ~ Stars Album

I'm back! And trying to desperately catch up...lol. So the week I picked up the nasty lurgy I had 2 lovely Dragon Fruit as my Mystery Ingredient Challenge item sat in my fruit drawer. And to my astonishment they were still healthy and lush. 

I've made two recipes up with them. Whilst I was armchair bound (Argh!) I had plenty of time to research the little pink lovelies. And they turned out to be a powerhouse of goodness and combined with lemons..they turn into a Super Hero of the fruit world. With links to helping lower cholesterol! So this recipe is keeping with that thought and keeping things very simple...which is always good, no? I wanted to make a dessert with them initially but then found out all the good stuff. I didn't want to ruin that and so my mind went down the 'healthy' dessert route. Soya yoghurt + dragon fruit flesh+lemon juice and zest...and that really is it. 

To keep this a smooth yoghurt I would recommend that you make this just before serving...as the lemon juice will curdle the yoghurt. But if you make it ahead of time, a really good whisk will smooth it out again. 

The taste is fresh and clean and it excellent after a spicy hot meal. The smell hits you as you open the blender lid...delicious. I know we will be having this often as a dessert. I also tried the leftovers with some soya milk added to thin it down and it made a lovely Smoothie...2 recipes in one. As my friend F would say...Marvelous! lol

Rocket and Roses Dragon Fruit & Lemon Yoghurt

Rocket and Roses Dragon Fruit & Lemon Yoghurt
(Original recipe from the Rocket & Roses Vegan Kitchen)

1 Dragon Fruit, halved 
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp fresh lemon zest
400ml soya yoghurt
Chilled soya milk to thin (optional for smoothie)

Put the yoghurt and lemon zest into a blender and pulse until smooth. Scoop the flesh out of the Dragon Fruit halves and put into the blender with the lemon juice and blitz until smooth. The Dragon Fruit seeds will still be visable but that's a good thing! lol Serve or chill until needed. 

For the smoothie - add the milk in at the lemon juice stage and blitz until desired consistency is reached. Drink immediately.  (Or it will curdle!) 

Enjoy!  

Gadgets ~ Rocket Ice Lolly Moulds and Umbrella Ice Lolly Moulds

I have very fond memories from my earlier childhood of running around on hot summer days and then being called into the house by my Mum and being given an ice lolly from the freezer. The flavours were usually lemon, orange or tropical fruit. The moulds were from Tupperware as my Mum was once a rep for them. I loved these lollies and they were always so refreshing. I remember with great excitement one summer when a blackcurrant batch came out of the freezer and me and my cousins M & H fought to be in the front of the line. lol. Ah memories...

I'm going to start a section of this blog and devote it solely to this wonderful homemade treat. As the number of my nephew and nieces and friends children expand I am shocked and stunned by how expensive the store bought ices are. And the preservatives in them are awful. And My Love and I enjoy an iced treat every now and then too. So I am going to start creating healthier ices which will have all the flavour and less of the junk. I hope you try them out. 

As part of our wedding presents we were given a voucher for a store that we rarely use but was very surprised when we found a set of Rocket lolly moulds. So they were purchased and sat along side the ice cream maker we bought with the same voucher. The store bought 'Rocket' lollies are one of our favourites to this day so we had to buy these moulds.

Rocket Ice Lolly Moulds

 I was very lucky to be given a voucher from a friend for my birthday for Argos. And as I thumbed through the catalogue I found the most lovely set of Umbrella Ice Lolly Moulds. And as I have a collection of Umbrellas and the idea for the 'Lolly' section had already formed in my mind I took it as a sign that I should purhcase them. So I did..and they make me smile..

 

 Sometimes you just have to have things around that make the everyday reality a little lighter and these definitely make me smile. These Umbrella moulds can be bought from Argos for £4.99. 

So I shall be making lollies with many differing ingredients and I hope as the weather heats up you will try them yourself. I have tried a test run on both moulds with just water and that worked very well so I am confident they will work well in the future. 

So look out for the Yummy Ice Lollies label in the future and I hope you enjoy!  ~Red~  

Gadgets - Veined Sunflower, Gerberra and Daisy Plunger Cutter

I make a lot of cupcakes and cakes for friends and family for birthdays and celebrations. And the next one coming up is my own. This year I wanted to make up a new cupcake recipe for the occasion and then decorate them with gerberras. Recently I made a birthday cake for a much loved niece and that cake was covered in large daisies. But they didn't need the definition that I would want for the cupcakes. 

On a recent trip to The Range (a very good craft type shop in the UK) I was looking around the new cake decoration section and found a range of 'cutters' that were being used for cake decoration. Marvelous! Why hadn't I thought about these before??? And sure enough, in a corner of the stand, hiding behind some stars cutters were the Veined Sunflower, Gerberra & Daisy Plunger Cutters. Fantastic! Until I lifted it off the stand and checked the price on the back and both My Love and I gulped at the ridiculous price tag...£9.99!! I have never paid such a silly price for any of my cutters and never will..so I put it back and accepted that I would be hand cutting the gerberras for my cupcakes. Many hours of work but it would be worth it in the end, I thought!! lol 

We had reason to be in The Range again very recently looking for seeds (they have a small garden section too!) and as we weren't in a rush we strolled around looking at everything. We walked down the cake aisle and it had been moved around and sure enough the cutters were still there but a sign hung next to it saying £3.00! So now I have one lol. £6.99 off...bargain! And many hours of work saved...and much swearing! Ahem! lol. 

PME Arts and Crafts -Veined Sunflower, Gerberra & Daisy Cutter

The width of the cutter is 7 cm so you get quite a sizable flower. On the back of the packaging you are given clear and precise instructions on how to use the cutter.

I can't make it any simpler than to say this could be used by a two year old and they would get amazing flowers from it! lol. And the time it will save, when making the flowers for cakes in the future, make this cutter worth while. The attention to detail from the 'veining' is lovely. And the handy hints and tips are really useful too.

I will update this blog with photos of the cupcakes when I've made them...

Gadgets - Magnetic Smidgen, Pinch and Dash Spoon measures.

As I use recipes from all over the world, I have a large collection of differing weights and measures. The ones I use mainly are the American cup measures because some of the best vegan recipes come from the US. Simple as that. As I am not gifted with mathematics and I'm always far to busy in the kitchen, I find it hard to convert between US and UK so I use the fastest method at my disposal and that is having the differing measures sat waiting to be used. It works for me.

I do intent to convert the recipes used on here to both, eventually, but until then if you are a Brit, you can pick up a set of US cup measures for as little as £1 from Asda and other supermarkets and Lakeland Plastics do a superb set which is what I use. (OH! OK I have the others as well!! lol) Sprung!

Progresssive Mini Magnetic Spoons

The Progressive Mini Magnetic Spoons are truly fab. They were cheap and when My Love pointed out the measurements on them, I knew I 'needed' them for my collection. Unless you are creative in the kitchen, you just can't understand how much you sometimes think "...Ooh just a smidgen of this might work in this recipe!" But how do you measure a 'smidgen'??...well now I know! lol. They are designed that the right hand round well of the spoon is for liquid measurements and the left hand oval well is for dried goods.

I tried to get a good photo of the measures but this was as good as it was getting. So here are the measurements:

Dash = 1/8 tsp    Pinch = 1/16th tsp   Smidgen = 1/32 tsp

They are also magnetic so they stay together like in the picture above. Which is quite handy. I personally have a bowl that holds all my measuring cups and spoons so I don't tend to lose them but I know others do have that problem.

They were a very reasonable £2.99 and as they are made of melamine they will last forever. I would happily recommend these to anyone who 'needs' that tricky Smidgen measure. lol.

Gadgets - Runner Bean Slicer

Now i could very happily live on nothing but vegetables for the rest of my life. I wouldn't miss any other food. I would sit and munch my way through salads and piles of cooked veggies. A lovely meal for me is a plate of simple, steamed vegetables, no dressing and no seasoning. Just plain old vegetables which is good, considering I'm a vegan. Lol. I know it would be some peoples idea of hell...but they are just strange. lol. And I do love all vegetables..well except for Okra which I just cannot get my head around. I have tried and tried. But I just can't get along with the gloopyness that seems to come with it. I made a Chickpea Gumbo once that had 8oz of the sticky stuff in its list of ingredients...I was brave...I bought some and followed the recipe to the letter and the friends that were here to share the meal loved it...I didn't. Yuck. I was very relieved to fill their doggy bags with the leftovers. Nope...Okra and I will never get along nicely. lol. 

The other vegetable that I try to get along with is Runner Beans. I want to like them..truly I do. But I find the skins..well..furry. Am I alone in this? As a child being served my portion of runner beans used to make my stomach flip...my Grandad used to grow thousands of them and not wanting to disappoint him I ate every one. And felt very sick afterwards. Over the years I've spent my time avoiding them or trying them again, only to confirm that I still didn't have the Runner Bean love. Until I was having lunch out one day and as I was busy chattering away to the lovely person I was lunching with, I suddenly realised that I was eating....and enjoying Runner beans. They had been prepared in a very different way to which I had had them before. Instead of the chunky cuts, they were finely sliced and then sliced again. The 'furry' texture had disappeared and I found I liked them. Hurrah! lol 
Then I tried them at home...and no matter how I chopped them, I couldn't achieve the same fineness as I had experienced that day. So I gave up. 

Then I happened to be watching Jamie Oliver on television and he suddenly produced this little white gadget and started stripping the packet of Runner beans in front of him. And in seconds he was left with a perfect, uniform pile of beans. And yesterday when I was out cruising the kitchen gadgets in my local garden centre (who knew!?!) I found one of these little gizmos.  So whilst My Love cruised the seeds I snuck this cutter in the shopping basket. 

Now I have done my fair share of buying these wonder gadgets in the past and the result was a corner of my kitchen full to bust with gadgets that hadn't worked but I couldn't quite bring myself to admit defeat. Then I had a massive cull of these things and made a promise to myself that I wouldn't be taken in by the 'wonder' factor again. And I am proud to say I have kept to that promise. And the only recent purchases in the last couple of years were my mini blender which has proven itself to be a great purchase but I did my homework before I bought one. And a waffle maker which once I had got my ladle size right proved to be very good to use. So when I picked up this little cutter I hoped that it would be just as good. 

Krisk - French Style Bean Slicer  £3.99

When I opened the package I was struck by how many blades were visable. Starting from the top there is a very exposed blade which they recommend for topping and tailing the beans. I tried this and it slid through the bean smoothly and very quickly. Then underneath is the slicer device. You push your bean into the slicer with the 'stringy' sides pushing against the sides of the opening...this then takes off the outer edge of the bean along with the stringy bits...marvelous..as you feed it through the slicer the beans come through the other side thinly sliced and once they are part way through you pull them through the slicer to finish. It sounds like a lengthy process but I promise you its not. Its over in 3 seconds tops. I had a lovely pile of prepped Runner beans in under one minute. And they are now sat waiting in my steamer to be cooked later. 


I would recommend this gadget to everyone. Its easy to use. Easy to clean and does the job its meant to with no effort. 


The only down side would be the exposed blades. You would definitely have to keep this out of the reach of little ones as it could prove very dangerous. Mine is hung up on a hook with other such utensils.

Update:  8/2/11 Had the runner beans tonight as a steamed side dish. They were lovely. I now have the Runner bean love! And shall be having them again tomorrow too! Red x