Smoothie madness!

From one madness into another! I’ve been making noodle soup loads last week and I’ve also made my fair share of smoothies again – cuz it’s so lovely with this weather! Then again, it’s very windy and rainy today and I still enjoy my freshly made smoothie!

Creamy lychee smoothie

Ingredients:
6 lychees (half a can)
4 spoons lychee juice
2 spoons grenadine
2 spoons rose lemonade
2-4 spoons mascarpone
a bit of yoghurt and vanilla sugar if wanted

1. Put it in a mixer and mix!

If you’re not so into the creamy stuff or if you don't have any cream cheese in the house (I made the same with créme fraîche and it works fine too!) then you can go for a normal lychee smoothie. Just leave the mascarpone, yoghurt and sugar out – or add the last two anyway if you want. For a different smoothie try the next one. It’s fresh and creamy as well, but perhaps a bit less sweet than the last one. For both recipes it’s about 2-4 glasses.

Pineapple & coconut smoothie

Ingredients:
500 gram can of pineapple chunks
300 ml coconut cream
Vanilla sugar

1. Mix it again! (electric mixer, plug it in, let it do the work – you know!?)

Well, as for the pictures. They come out looking pretty much the same - white thicky liquid, which, now I think of it, sounds pretty WRONG! And since my friend keeps pestering me to write this (no, I didn't quote you) this will be quite a short blog again! I hope you enjoy the smoothies and maybe come up with your own combinations! Oh, and grapefruit with cucumber isn't such a success so far.

Noodle soup madness

Noodle soup! Who hasn’t had it and who doesn’t love it? It’s lovely to just add boiling water to a package and enjoy the soup without having to go through the effort of cooking. And it’s quick too!

Ingredients:
Noodles
Broth
Baby corn
Mushrooms
Leek
Runner beans

1. Put the broth in a pan on low fire together with the noodles.
2. Cut the vegetables in small pieces and add to the soup. Wait until everything is cooked and that’s it!

If you want to add chicken I’d advice you fry the chicken first on a low fire – make sure it doesn't burn!- and add it after. Of course there’s loads of other stuff you can add and leave out. Used this recipe loads in the week my parents were off and the rest of the family felt like eating simple things – and when they didn’t they just wanted my soup! It’s always nice when people appreciate your cooking isn’t it?

Might seem like a bit of a simple thing to add to my little database of recipes, but it’s something that needs to be remembered – I have a whole arena of people backing me up on this! The nice thing is that we grow quite a lot of vegetables and herbs in our garden, so half of the vegetables came from there. I should write a recipe with some of the lettuce we have in our garden. I was thinking of strawberry and other fruit with lettuce salad and then the strawberry vinegar I have (but have not yet tasted) over it. Anyone ever had strawberry vinegar and knows what goes well with this? I’ve never actually heard of this until I got it.
- Oh, and do we actually need pictures of soup?

Coconut rice with peach

I’ve been getting way too far behind on posting. But I did manage to post at least once a month so I suppose that’s something to be proud of!
One recipe I’ve made a couple of times since my last post, and I suppose some before as well, is coconut rice, preferably with some peach. There’s no rice that can top the creamy-fresh taste of coconut rice with some fresh-fruity peach. Risotto (rice boiled in broth) might be next in line.
Anyway, the recipe for coconut rice is quite easy and if you can make rice. You can make this!
Unfortunately I can't see much about the amounts needed. I never pay attention to the amounts needed. I always take as much rice as I think is enough and make sure the water reaches about double as high as the rice. Then my ricecooker does the rest! And well, we can never have enough peach can we?
Note: I’ve substituted coconut milk from a can with powdered coconut cream before and it works just as fine. Anything coconut you find I suppose will work, dessicated coconut however, will not really have the same effect. - Oh, and I hope you’re smart enough not to put in whole coconuts?



Ingredients:
Rice
Coconut milk
Peach (preferably canned)

1. Wash the amount of rice you need before using. Add the coconut milk until you have reached the amount of liquid needed to boil the rice. Add water if you do not have enough coconut milk or you feel it is too thick. Then cook it!
2. Cut the peach into little chunks and mix these through the rice. If you want, you can cool the rice slightly beforehand.

And there you go! A lovely recipe in just two steps! I hope you enjoy!





P.S. I've hit the 50 posts! hurray! Maybe when I reach 100 I should post something grand eh? Ah, that reminds me, blogger has some nice new templates, I might actually change the way my blog looks and make a new title-picture. What do you think?

Strawberry Smoothies

Ah, I haven’t posted anything in waayyyy too long again. But at least I update monthly right?
I’ve been really busy last month, so haven't been able to do much in the meanwhile. I haven’t tried any big recipes, but I did get around to doing some easy things that just can’t ever fail!
Let’s start with something that everyone has to like, especially in these hot summer days: Smoothies. They’re fresh, they’re fruit, they range from sweet to fresh to bitter even and you can put anything you want in it! I used to go by the same basic recipe a lot, something I just made up myself because it always works out nice. I’ve tried some complete different recipes too, but for today I stuck with my basic again, so here goes, the simplest smoothie recipe ever!



A little note on the ingredients: I have no clue how much I exactly used, but I tried ordering them to the amount. It really depends on what you like. If you want a thicker smoothie, use more yogurt and even leave out the milk, if you don't then use more milk. If you want a nice full taste use full yogurt and milk, or use the diet-version if you want a little less calories. You can leave out any sweeteners I put in as well, like the jam and sugar. And you can try out millions of combinations of fruit, or add things like raisins and nuts. (Apple, raisin and banana is GREAT – as soon as I make that again I’ll post it WITH measurements, to make it a bit easier on you!)

Ingredients:
Yogurt
Milk
Fruit (just strawberries in my case)
Jam (or lemonade)
Lemon juice
Vanilla sugar
Decoration like left over fruits, umbrella’s and the likes

1. Just put everything in a mixer or blender and let modern technology do its work! I would add sugar and jam later, since it might get too sweet or you just want to leave this out after all.
2. Add more or less of any of the ingredients while tasting it in between, poor it in glasses and decorate them and voilà!

With the measurements I used I ended up making two glasses. This wasn't much of a problem, since we were with three people and the glasses were quite big. I left one glass for my sister and when I came back downstairs she asked me if there was any more for her. Always good to know people like what you make right?
I hope you like the recipe! I’ll make sure to add some measurements next time and make the recipe a bit more specific. Ah, if you come up with your own combination of fruits, I’d love to hear!





I do hope you enjoy the pictures! I’m kind of proud of them! And kind of have no idea which ones are nice and which ones aren't, so I guess I ended up showing too many, especially for such a simple recipe!