Mango Custard

Here's a delicious dessert recipe for any occasion. I made it a while back and wanted to share with everyone on the eve of Valentines Day. If you are still looking for something quick and easy to make for Valentines day, then this recipe is for you.

Unlike other Valentines day desserts which are either made of chocolate or strawberry, this is made with mango -- which in my opinion is more exotic than he aforementioned ingredients :-)

Valentines day or not, this is a great dessert that can be made ahead of time. Fruit Custard is quite famous in India and as I was thinking of how make it a little more fancy, I thought why not add some mango puree I had in the fridge. The end result is this creamy mango flavored custard that serves as a great base for assorted fruit. A must try for all mango lovers.

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Fruit Salad with Vegan Custard

VeganMofo Day 16: Rice Milk that I bought from Trader Joe's is still sitting in my fridge waiting to be used. The consistency of the milk is very thin, almost water like and I can't see myself using it in my morning coffee (I started to like my coffee with soy milk these days). So after using it in these cupcakes and smoothie, I wanted to try and see how it would work in a custard. 

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Warm Lentil Salad with Grapes

It's been snowing cats and dogs for us this winter. I've had enough of this lousy weather already and we are only 1 month into official winter (official winter in Northern hemisphere started on Dec 21st, 2010), so this is going to be one loooooooong winter. To top that of, this is our first snow season in our new home and the shoveling all that snow seemed to be fun the first couple of times, but now I've thoughts of moving back to our old apartment complex where the management took care of cleaning up everything. Well, since that's not going to happen, I'm thinking of starting to exercise a little, so I'm physically fit to do it myself and not start hyperventilating after 5 minutes of pushing snow. My 3 year old says, "this is hard work Amma", after messing with the snow for few minutes. I'm not looking forward to anymore blizzards and winter storm advisories.

Coming to the Lentil Salad: Salads are not something that I make that often. I like to eat salads from a bag for lunch or dinner, but I rarely ‘make’ salads at home. Being a typical south Indian, I think all the dishes have to be eaten with rice, which explains why I don’t make ‘salads’.

But when I saw the recipe for this Lentil salad in Vegetarian Times magazine, I know it was going to taste great and was waiting for the occasion to make it. I made this for Sunday Lunch for a few friends and I really enjoyed it (even for lunch the next day).

Recipe adapted from Vegetarian Times magazine:

Ingredients:

French/ Puy Lentils – 2 cups, sorted, rinsed and drained

Leeks – 2 medium, thinly sliced

Fresh Mint – 3tbsp, finely chopped

Parsley – 3tbsp, finely chopped

Pistachios – ¼ cup, roasted and coarsely chopped

Red Grapes – 1½ cups, cut in half

Feta cheese – ¼ cup, crumbled (optional)

Salt & Pepper – to taste

Method:

• Soak the lentils for 8 hours. Add 4-5 cups of water to lentils and bring to a boil; lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until tender. Keep aside.
• Heat 2tbsp olive oil in a sauté pan, add the chopped leeks and cook on medium flame until the leeks are tender, about 15-20 minutes.
• Add the leeks to cooked lentils along with pistachios, chopped herbs and grapes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Serve warm or at room temperature. Tastes great cold too.

To save time, you can cook the lentils the night before you want to make the salad and mix in the warm leeks and other ingredients just before serving.

Sending this Yummy Lentil salad over to Simona @ Briciole, who is this month's host for My Legume Love Affair (MLLA) event started by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook.

Also Sending this Salad over to Prathibha @ Chef & her Kitchen's "Only Salads" blog event which was started by talented Pari @ Foodelicious. Thanks Prathibha for telling me about the event.

A Juice & A Review

Winter is definitely here in our neck of woods. Temperatures have plummeted defying gravity and it has been extremely cold the last few days. This seems to be the beginning of a looong, cold winter this year. Now why am I posting about a juice recipe in this weather instead of something warm and comforting, you ask!! This post has been in the drafts for a long time and it took me all this time to realize that taking a decent picture of freshly made juice (at least for me) is D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T., that too if it has apple in it.

CSN Stores have contacted me to do a product review for them long time back. I ordered this lovely Breville Juicer from their site. After opening the box we received we realized that the main plastic component of the juicer was completely shattered during transit. I called CSN and the friendly Customer service agent offered to send a complete new juicer instead. I was very happy and impressed with the professional manner in which they resolved the issue. We received the replace juicer in couple of weeks and this was prefect condition.

We have been using the juicer almost every day, but as I mentioned earlier none of them seemed to be picture perfect. But I didn't want to postpone my review any longer, so here I am with this yummy purple-pink juice that tasted much better than it looks.

The Juice:

My husband is the official user of the juicer and he tries different combinations everyday. His favorite combo to date is Grapes, Apple and Strawberries. Here's how he made this purple-pink juice:

Ingredients:

Pineapple chunks - 3 -4 cups

Carrots - 2 medium, chopped

Red Grapes - 2 cups

Method:

• Drop all the fruits and veggies in the juicer and enjoy the juice.

The Review:

My 3 year old loves these freshly made juices and I am happy to give him something that is fresh and includes some of the fiber, with no preservative and no added sugar. He is a picky eater and does not like to eat fruits, which is another reason why I let him have an extra glass of the juice.

Breville Compact BJE200XL as the name suggests is very compact and can be conveniently stored on the counter or in the cupboard. It has a central 3" feed tube that lets you add whole fruits without chopping them and the pulp container holds up to 1.5 quarts of waste before it needs to be cleaned. There are quite a few parts that need to be cleaned after using, but if that is done right after juicing, it does not take too long as the fruits don't have a chance to harden and can be cleaned easily.

I would like to Thank CSN Stores for giving me the opportunity to try this amazing Juicer. I apologize for the delay in posting my review.

Have a great weekend everybody.