Cooking that gives a damn
Frozen grapes are the perfect treats for a hot day . They are such a fun and gorgeous snack or healthy dessert option for kids and adults alike. It doesn’t get much easier than this.
YOU NEED
Grapes
YOU DO
Wash the grapes to remove any gritty bits and pop them in the freezer until they are solid.
Serve and ENJOY.
Simple, delicious and healthy.
Mango Tropical Ice Treats
YOU NEED
1 cup of fresh mango
1 cup of paw paw
1 cup of pineapple juice
The pulp from 8 passionfruit
YOU DO
Place 8 small cupcake baking cups on a small tray that will easily fit on a shelf in your freezer.
Blend the first 3 ingredients together.
Whisk the passion fruit pulp through the blended ingredients.
Pour the mixture into the baking cups. Place the tray in the freezer.
Wait till the ice treats are partly frozen. Once they are, carefully insert a paddle pop stick into the centre of each baking cup. Then continue freezing until the mixture is completely solid.
Serve once frozen.
Yields: 8 serves
Time: 15 minutes preparation. Plus the freezing time.
Ingredients
1 cup of mango
1 cup of coconut yoghurt
½ cup of orange juice
Method
Blend all ingredients until they are smooth.
Pour into icy pole moulds.
Freeze until firm.
Yields: 6 ice creams. This will vary with the size of your moulds.
Time: 10 minutes
Notes: When foods are frozen, it can “dull” their sweetness. You can combat this by using really ripe sweet fruits when making ice treats, or by adding a tablespoon of pure maple syrup to your mixture before you blend it.
I love these with a little minced ginger to taste too.
YOU NEED
2 bananas
1 cup of Bonsoy Soymilk
brown rice syrup to taste
Ground cinnamon
YOU DO
Blend the banana, Bonsoy and brown rice syrup until smooth and creamy.
Pour in a glass and dust liberally with the cinnamon.
Yields: 1 serve for a hungry person or 2 smaller serves for 2 not so hungry people.
Time: 2 minutes
YOU NEED
1 unsliced loaf of wholemeal bread. * See Method
1 cucumber
2 tablespoons of dairy free cream cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
YOU DO
Purchase the loaf of bread from your local bakery and request that they slice the loaf lengthways for you. Place the crusts aside for another recipe.
Line a plate with some paper towel and cut the cucumber into thin slices, lengthways. Place the sliced cucumber onto the plate with the paper towel and put it into the fridge over night. You will need enough slices to be able to cover one slice of the bread. Put any remaining cucumber aside for more sandwiches another day.
When you are ready to make the pinwheels, lay one slice of bread on your bench and spread the dairy free cream cheese evenly onto it. Make sure that there is cream cheese right to the edges. Then place one layer of cucumber slices lengthways onto the bread, without overlapping them. Season the cucumber with salt and pepper to taste.
Roll the bread slice from one of the short ends until the whole slice is rolled into a snail shape. Cut the roll in half, so you end up with 2 good size pin wheels. Put the rest of the bread into an airtight container to use throughout the week.
These are great for parties and picnics or just a different lunch box idea for the kids.
Yields: 4 pinwheel sandwiches. Note that you will get up to 14 pinwheels from one loaf.
Time: 5- 10 minutes. Plus the draining time for the cucumber.
Notes: Cucumber has very high water content. So it is an important step to lay the cucumber slices on draining paper, otherwise you will end up with very soggy sandwiches.
It’s important to lay the cucumber lengthways on the bread. If you lay them along the short side of the bread slices you will have trouble rolling the pin wheels.
You can purchase dairy free cream cheese at Coles. It is usually located where the dairy cream cheeses are kept.
If your children like herbs, these are also beautiful with finely chopped dill mixed through the cream cheese.
You can make the pinwheels with bean dip, hummus or any dip or filling that the kids love.
Ingredients
½ cup of fresh coriander
8 round rice paper rounds
½ cup of finely sliced red cabbage
½ cup of finely sliced savoy cabbage
½ cup of very finely sliced red capsicum
½ cup of peeled carrot, cut into fine match sticks
Method
Trim the roots from the coriander, wash it well, pat dry with a clean tea towel and set aside.
Lay all your prepared ingredients out on a plate.
Place 1 rice paper round in a shallow bowl of lukewarm water for about 10 seconds. When you pull it out of the water, it will still feel firm. It will soften as you work with it though and it is much easier to work with this way. Place it down flat onto your bench top.
Put equal amounts of each of the ingredients down the centre of the rice paper round. Make sure there is space at the ends and don’t be tempted to over fill it, or you will have trouble rolling it. Fold the ends of the rice paper in and roll up firmly, to enclose the fillings. Repeat with the remaining rice paper rounds and fillings.
Serve with fresh lime and/or organic tamari or sweet chilli sauce.
Yields: 8 rolls
Time: 20 minutes
Notes: You can purchase rice paper rolls at Asian supermarkets and in the Asian section of most supermarkets.
If you want the fillings to show, you can place the ingredients all to one side of the rice paper round and only fold one side of the round, before you roll it. This is great for parties and gatherings, but for lunches its best to enclose all the ingredients.
For a more filling snack or lunch, add a small amount of vermicelli rice noodles to each roll.
Like all my pop recipes, this is incredibly easy to make. Just juice the apples and add as much or as little raspberries as you wish.
It’s a healthy, raw, delicious dairy free snack, dessert or even breakfast for kids (or adults).
YOU NEED
organic apples
organic raspberries to taste
YOU DO
Juice the apples and blend as many or little raspberries as you would like through the apple juice.
Pour the mixture into small cupcake baking cups. Place the cups onto a tray and put them into the freezer. Once they are half frozen place icy pole sticks into them and leave them to finish setting.
Time: 5 minutes plus freezing time.
Notes: Juicing apples are a more economical way to purchase organic apples for recipes like this.
Add a few raspberries at a time and taste the mixture as you go. The more raspberries you add, the more tart the mixture will become. You want to end up with a nice balance of sweet and tart.
Gorgeous snack, sweet treat or even breakfast for kids of all ages. I always have over ripe frozen bananas in my freezer these days and this is why.
YOU NEED
1 large ripe banana
2 teaspoons of raw cacao
YOU DO
Peel the banana, cut it into chunky slices, place it in a plastic container and put it in the freezer.
Once it’s frozen, blend with the cacao until it’s smooth.
Serve immediately.
Yields: 1 serve
Time: 5 minutes. Plus the freezing time.
I keep seeing these at my grocers & the supermarket, so I decided to give them a go and they are SO easy.
They would be perfect in school lunch boxes or for a quick easy mid morning snack at work or home. They would even be a lovely sweet finish at a dinner party, served along with coffee.
I used medjool dates so they blended beautifully and they blended in seconds. I never pass up a chance to add a bit of citrus zing to a dish though too so added some orange zest. This is completely optional.
YOU NEED
1 large organic orange
1 cup of pitted medjool dates
¼ cup of desiccated coconut
YOU DO
Grate the peel of the orange with a citrus zester. Put the rest of the orange aside for another use.
Blend the dates & zest together until you get your desired texture. I blended mine until it was smooth.
Get a tablespoon of mixture and roll it into a ball and then into a log shape. Repeat until all the mixture has been shaped.
Once all the date mixture is shaped into logs, roll the logs in the coconut.
Serve straight away or refrigerate in an air tight container in the fridge.
Yields: 16 small date rolls
Time: 10 minutes.
Notes: My medjool dates were organic and so soft and caramel like. If you use dates that are not quite as pliable and soft you may need to add a small amount of water to get them to blend.
Lemon zest instead of orange zest would be a gorgeous addition too. You could also roll them in sesame seeds, pistachios or any other nut instead of coconut. Just make sure any rolled in nuts don’t go into lunch boxes as schools tend to be nut free zones these days:)
