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Macerated Strawberries

I used these strawberries inside my vegan gluten-free crepes for the latest International Vegetarian Festival we held at the Yoga Center recently.

These are super easy to make… I like to use frozen strawberries or berries of any kind because they tend to be consistently sweet whereas sometimes fresh strawberries can sometimes be very tart.

You can use this as a method to sweeten any frozen or fresh fruits to use in any dessert form. It can also be used as a way to preserve very ripe fruit for future use.

MACERATED STRAWBERRIES

4 cups frozen strawberries, chopped
1 cup turbinado sugar

Place chopped strawberries in a large bowl and add sugar. Mix together so the sugar covers most of the strawberry pieces.
Mix them once in a while to ensure sugar is well dissolved in the juices created by the thawing, fruit juices and sugar. Let the fruits macerate for about 2 hours at room temperature to allow the fruit to thaw completely and for the sugar to infuse into the fruit.

Use immediately after the fruit is macerated or store in an airtight container in the fridge. Use inside crepes, to top ice cream, to top a slice of pound cake or to flavor your favorite morning smoothie.

Tags: carob, crepe, easy, food, fruit, gluten-free, natural, strawberry, sweet, syrup, turbinado sugar, Vegan, vegetarian

Comments 6 Comments
Categories basics, desserts

Fruits are Fast Food… Eat them often!!

22 Jan

I am so tired of listening to the bad rap people are giving fruits… Fruits are nature’s fast food. They are full of phytonutrients necessary for our bodies to function properly.

Fruits are the best way to start your day… the best breakfast in my opinion. And a great snack… Let’s give back the good rep to fruits.

Tags: eat healthy, food, fruit, health, natural, vegetarian

Comments 3 Comments
Categories basics, MY EDITORIAL

A new Tip on Mangoes…

25 Sep

I already showed you my favorite way to peel and eat a mango… it’s actually one of, if not the MOST popular post on our blog!!

But, have you ever peeled a mango to find out it was still under ripe? What do you do with it? Do you throw it away? Do you eat it still unripe?

Just cover it in plastic wrap and leave on your kitchen counter to ripen, just as if it had the skin on still. The outside will get dark, it will not look all that pretty, but in a matter of a few days, you’ll be able to peel the outside again and the pulp will be ripe and delicious as if you never peeled it in the first place.

Wish I had some pics to share… but I wanted to share this tip today after having for breakfast a fresh and perfectly ripe mango that I originally tried to enjoy for the first time last week. It was DE-LI-CIOUS!

Tags: delicious, easy, food, fruit, mango, ripen, tip, unripen, useful, vegetarian

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Categories basics, breakfast

La Gran Fruta – Great fruit franchise in Lima, Peru

15 Jul

I love finding hidden gems… and in Lima, Peru I think there is one.

If you love fruits salads, natural juices and smoothies look no further than La Gran Fruta. They are a fruit based establishment that offer great alternatives for vegetarians. It’s not a vegetarian place, but we had some wonderful breakfasts thanks to them.

La Gran Fruta offers various sizes of fruit salads, all accompanied by yogurt, granola and honey.

Some of us were more adventurous than others. I ordered the largest salad only because I wanted to try a few new fruits I was not familiar with (and hey, I shared with my mom and a few others who also wanted to try):

Granadilla – very similar to a passion fruit in texture, but the taste is sweet and not tart like a passion fruit.
Chirimoya – very similar to a soursop but much creamier and sweeter. My friends went bonkers for cherimoyas and were seeking them out everywhere we went.
Lúcuma – this fruit is very similar in taste and texture to a mamey or sapote. It’s dense in texture and a tad bit grainy. Makes a wonderful juice but I think it would make an even better milkshake or smoothie.

In this plate you also see soursop… this one I was familiar with, but this one was super tart… in my opinion, it needed a few extra days to fully ripen.

At La Gran Fruta, they not only make awesome fruit salads and juices… they also have these awesome cookies made with only a few ingredients – oatmeal, sugar and fruit pulp. My favorites were the ones made with passion fruit. Imagine a tart and sweet cookie?? I am telling you it’s something to taste to believe… They also have them with apples, figs, mango, strawberry and a combination of several fruits. These cookies are gluten-free and egg-free… perfectly vegetarian!!!!

Because we went in wintertime, we did not get to try something everyone was recommending – Raspadillas. I am sure this is something very similar to our piraguas, shaved ice doused in pureed fruit pulp. Yum… something definitely to look forward to in the Summer, no?

La Gran Fruta has several locations throughout Lima… check them out if you’re ever in Perú.