Blood Orange Fruit Salad

Spring has arrived - well, for the rest of the country. It has been here in Phoenix for a while, and we're just about ready to welcome - dare I say it - Summer.

I can hope that the triple digit temperatures will stay away for a few months more. We always have hope, right? At any rate, warmer temps are coming and that makes me less inclined to cook, to turn on the stove or, even worse, to turn on the oven. Just as cold days bring cravings of warm soups and stews, hot days bring cravings of  - well, let's be honest, popsicles and ice cream.

Since living on popsicles and ice cream is not nutritionally ideal (although could be extraordinarily yummy), fruit salad often fills the bill for us during Phoenix's outrageous summer months. Fruit salad is light and delicious, easy to make, and best of all, requires no heating.

Another thing I love about fruit salad is its versatility. Any fruit combination will do - as long as you like the fruit, various combinations can come together to create a yummy, satisfying dish. And, it can be a side salad or a meal on its own.

For our most recent incarnation of fruit salad (shown above), we picked blood oranges from our neighbor's tree, paired it with apples, raisins and green bell pepper. The sauce is simply plain yogurt. (I absolutely love plain yogurt for its versatility, too. Add sweetener or spices like salt and pepper and it becomes something completely different.) The fruit in our fruit salad was plenty sweet, so we didn't add any sweetener to the yogurt, but feel free to experiment, and sweeten to your tastes. And enjoy! Enjoy the warmer temps, make an easy, light, carefree dinner and go outside and play! Be Fulfilled!

Mostly Raw milkshakes

My dad is a huge ice cream fan, and he passed that love to me. Recently, when Dairy Queen was celebrating the 25^th Anniversary of the Blizzard, I recalled the first time I had one, just after they came out. At that time, the commercials showed the Blizzard being held upside down without spilling a drop. This - I suppose - was to demonstrate how thick and chock-full of yummy stuff it was, as opposed to those runny regular ice cream shakes. My dad and I went to the Dairy Queen drive-through, and when we got to the pick-up window, we asked the employee if they could really hold it upside down without anything falling out. The employee did so, and we were supremely impressed! The Blizzard was also very delicious, thick and chock-full of yummy stuff, much cooler than those runny regular ice cream shakes.

And, my love of milkshakes that are so thick with ice cream that I have to eat them with a spoon was born!

There is raw ice cream in the world. Check out Sweetly Raw for some tantalizing raw ice cream cakes. Since I am just at baby-steps with eating raw (less than a year now), I have not attempted to make raw ice cream. Luckily for me, I can have a mostly raw milkshake. It is easy and delicious, and has been a regular treat during this warm summer. Sometimes, it has even been dinner!
 

Banana shake - thick and creamy

The key is the frozen bananas. They absolutely make the consistency very much like ice cream. And, it is different than a smoothie, although more so in consistency than in ingredients. The ingredients are very simple: 1 frozen banana, 1 fresh banana, ¼ teaspoon vanilla, and about ¼ cup of milk. Blend it all up and you have a delicious treat. If the bananas are too ripe, the banana taste can be strong.

It is very helpful to break the banana into small pieces before freezing. At least, our blender can handle it better!
 

Adding ingredients

Strawberry-banana milkshakes are the same, just add about 3 frozen strawberries to the mix.

Keep in mind that although this is mostly raw, that does not mean it is mostly calorie-free. One medium sized banana is about 100 calories, and I use 2 in this recipe. But, you are getting about 2 to 3 servings of the recommended 3 to 4 fruit servings per day.



Pouring it to serve - how yummy!


Of course, I could add nut milk or fresh, unpasteurized dairy milk to make it 100% raw. I checked out Almond Milk sold in a carton at the grocery stores, and there were additives in them – all the brands – that I did not want. And, I am not close to a dairy farm where I reside, and don’t even know if it’s legal to sell unpasteurized milk here in AZ. My best bet is to make my own nut milk, which sounds rather simple. Right now, I do not have a nut milk bag to begin making my own nut milks. But, I would like to try it sometime.

Any suggestions on making my own nut milk without a proper nut milk bag?

Fruit Salad

Doesn't look very appetizing, but, oh, it was yummy!

The weather here in Phoenix has been absolutely gorgeous, sunny and mid-70's. I want to be outside all the time. Also as a result of the warmer temps, my body has moved on from craving warm soups and stews and hot tea. It's just not that cold anymore! (Not that it ever was THAT cold, compared to our friends that had snowstorm after snowstorm!)

Fruit salad fills the meal bill perfectly. I don't have to spend a lot of time in a kitchen getting warm over a stove or oven - you know when it's 110 degrees here, that's the last place I want to be! I made a fruit salad a few nights ago just with stuff I had on hand - no special trip to the store - and thought it was so yummy I had to share this quick, light, healthy recipe.

Hmmm . . . don't have a name for this recipe . . . but here goes anyway!

1 small banana, sliced
1 small fuji apple (or any sweet apple I'm sure would work), chopped
2 heaping tablespoons Ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon Agave nectar
1-2 tablespoons shredded coconut, toasting optional

Combine the first 3 ingredients, stirring to coat the banana and apple with the Ricotta. Drizzle with the Agave nectar and top with the toasted coconut.

The coconut was leftover from a previous dessert. I toasted it by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. I spread the shredded unsweetened coconut on a cookie sheet. Then, I baked the coconut just for about 3-4 minutes until golden brown. I let it cool a little before handling.

Voila! There is a very tasty, easy, quick, simple and healthy fruit salad to whip up on a night or afternoon when you'd rather be outside playing. The Ricotta cheese is made with skim milk, so less fat, and the Agave nectar is supposed to have a lower glycemic index than sugar, so you don't have the highs and lows associated with sugar.

Alright, back outside to play some tennis I go!! :-)