Mango Delight Ice Cream

Mom got a big basket of fresh Mangoes from the farmers market last saturday for just $3. I think they were around 11 or 12 in one basket. And these looked more like Rasalu type of Mangoes that we get in India and they were real sweet, not like the ones that we get in our Indian Stores.

This quickly reminded me of Mango Delight Ice Cream, the recipe that I noted down from a TV show recently. We made these creamy and heavenly ice creams in less than 10 mins and I just finished eating my second one.

This goes to the event Monthly Mingle 23-Mango Mania

Here is the Printer-Friendly Recipe: Mango Delight Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 fresh ripe Mangoes
50 g Cream

100 g Condensed Milk

half cup gelatin

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cardammom powder

food color, optional

Method

1. Puree mangoes in a blender.
2. Add fresh cream, sugar, condensed milk, elaichi powder and mix.
3. Add some milk, gelatin, food color (this is because the mango color gets reduced with the addition of all the dairy items, I avoided it and still they looked good)
4. Whisk again in the blender and put it moulds or cups and freeze for 10 mins.

Jonna Payasam

Dessert: Jonna Payasam

(Jonna: Jowar/Sorghum/Millet)

We've heard of various Payasams, but this one was completely new to me. When I saw it on TV, I immediately jotted down the recipe. Though this recipe calls for Whole Jowar (soaking it for a day and grinding it coarsely), I made this with the Jowar flour I already had in the pantry. Coconut powder certainly made a huge difference to the overall taste and I would definitely recommend this to everyone.

Jonna has good amount of calcium and phosphorus and is said to be very good for bones and teeth. Especially good for the people suffering with Osteoporosis. And this has good amounts of fiber too and that helps in controlling sugar levels. Coconut has all the essential vitamins and minerals needed for the body. Maida could be replaced with Jonna in certain recipes.

Printer Friendly Recipe: Jonna Payasam

This should be cooked on a low-medium flame.

1 cup Jonna Flour
1 cup Milk
1 cup Water
1 tsp Cardammom powder
1/3 cup Coconut powder
2/3 cup Sugar
1/2 cup khoya
4 tbsp Ghee (add generously if you don't mind calories)
Saffron, optional

1. In a cooking pan, add ghee and roast the Jowar flour till you smell nice aroma.
2. Add cardammom powder to it and mix.
3. Add coconut powder and mix again.
4. Add warm milk and water and keep stirring, mixture tends to thicken a bit. Cook for 5 mins.
5. Add khoya and mix, then add sugar at the end. You will see mixture loosening up at this stage. Add Saffron.Cook for 2-3 mins.

Remove and serve. Garnish with ghee and coconut powder.

Note: This pudding becomes hard after cooling, so it is better to serve it hot.

Strawberry Milkshake

It is one of the easiest recipes on my blog I guess.

Add Strawberries in blender and make pulp. To this add required amount of sugar, milk and little bit of cardammon. Add few scoops of Vanilla ice cream and serve cold.

Though I added 2 scoops of ice cream for 3 glasses of shake, it was very light on the stomach. We wanted more :-)

Sapota/Chikoo Milkshake

I always loved this fruit in my school days. Vendors used to sell these in the colony and my mom used to buy these for us. She used to buy the ripe ones thinking that they would be sweet. But, I have eaten only small sized ones in Hyderabad and now I see large ones in the US and I heard that these are mostly imported from Mexico.

I made this drink with frozen Sapotas, bought from the Indian store last week.

It was very heavy on the stomach even though I made the drink with fat free milk, we even thought of skipping our dinner. I guess this is best served for the brunches on a busy day.

You need…

2 cups frozen Chikoo
2 cups fat free milk
1 tbsp dry fruit masala
2 tbsp cream (optional)
2 tbsp ricotta cheese (optional)
4 tbsp sugar (add more if you like)

1. Put them all in a blender, blend and serve cold.

If you are not conscious of fatty stuff, then serve it with whipped cream.

Facts about Sapota/Chikoo

A rich source of digestible sugar, the chikoo is rich in protein, fibre and minerals like phosphorus, calcium and iron. Some like this fruit as it is fleshy while others savour it for its sweetness. The chikoo tree begins bearing fruit within three years of planting. One of the main reasons for its popularity with the gardeners is that there is no danger of pilferage of the fruit as it is ripened in the basket and not on the tree, where it remains hard, astringent and rich in latex (the milk that oozes out when it is scratched).

Not many people know that the latex extracted from the chikoo stem forms the base material for the chewing gum.

A boy selling Sapotas in India.

Picture source: Wikipedia

Content source: TribuneIndia

Palak Soup

I never made Palak Soup before and many of my friends suggested that I make one and enjoy the taste of it. I searched for a while on the net and since there were too many recipes, I had hard time picking up the best one that suited to my taste buds. I got this one from Bawarchi and we felt as if we were eating curry in the beginning, it tasted very close to Palak Paneer and there was some left for the next day. And just like any other soup, this was good the second day. I modified the recipe a bit according to my taste. I guess the best part of this soup was adding corn. As the palak tastes bland, corn gave us that extra spicy taste since I roasted it in ginger garlic paste; this made a huge difference to the entire dish.

You need…

2 cups of palak
1 onion, medium, chopped into 4 big pieces
2 tomatoes
1 cup sweet corn, I used Frozen
2 or 3 green chillies
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic pod
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp red chilli powder
Salt to taste

1. Boil chopped green chillies, onions and whole tomatoes until tender. Remove the skin of the tomatoes.
2. On the side, boil palak until tender.
3. Heat oil in a pan; add crushed garlic (I think you guys know the aroma that comes with the combination of EVOO and Garlic).
4. Add corn and cook for 3 minutes. Add ginger garlic paste and cook for another 2 minutes.
5. Blend palak, green chillies, onions, tomatoes and pour in the corn mixture.
6. Add red chilli powder and salt and bring to a boil.
7. Add milk at the end and cook for 5 mins.

Serve hot with any kind of bread. We had it with freshly made garlic bread.

Ragi Pudding

I make this quite often now, atleast twice a week. We are incorporating Ragi into our daily food schedule. We are either eating Ragi Dosa or Ragi Pudding daily for dinner after reading a lot of good stuff about Ragi. I even asked Mom to make this for Dad sometimes. My mom talked about Ragi Ambali (that I never heard before), she also gave me the recipe and I will try that soon.

I made this in Microwave though Microwave is not recommended for cooking because of the loss of nutrients due to the radiation.

You need...

3 cups Milk
1 cup Ragi
3 spoons of Jaggery
1/2 spoon dry fruit masala

1. Heat milk in the microwave for 2 or 3 minutes.
2. Mix Ragi with little milk to form a paste.
3. Add that paste to the milk and cook in microwave in 30 sec increments. Remove after 30 sec and mix. Ragi tends to become hard but mix that well and cook again. Cook until the kind of thickness you want. I get my kind of thickness (like pudding) in just 2 or 3 increments. Add dry fruit masala and serve hot.

It is healthy and tasty too. It tastes something like Bambino sweet.

To make Dry Fruit Masala you need..
one tablespoon each of cashews, almonds, pista and one or two cardammoms (Ravi doesn't like the taste of cardammom, he says it dominates, so I put little) and blend all together. Keep the masala for future use. I put this masala in all the desserts.

Weekend News & Ragi Malt

Watched many movies this weekend. Illayaraja fans (my friends) made a big deal about this movie and made us all go to watch Anumaspadam, but it was not upto the mark.

I never got a chance to watch Bend it like Beckham before and I viewed that this weekend, it inspired me so much and I told Ravi that we should not stop playing sports. Not just sports but any dream you have, I guess you should try hard to fullfill that.

I made Ragi Malt followed the recipe of Indira at Mahanandi and the drink was nutritious. My husband asked me to buy Ragi Flour from the Indian Store and I didn't know what I would be doing with that, when I searched on the google for some Ragi recipes, I found this recipe and it was not only tasty, but it has some good nutritional value too. Heard that this is good in both Calcium and Iron. I am planning to make some Ragi Dosas with the leftover flour.

Ragi malt recipe from Indira is here!