Tag Archives: yogurt

Piña Colada Smoothie

28 Nov

Piña Coladas are the quintessential Caribbean drink… Wanna make them even more nutritious??? Let’s take the flavors and make it into a smoothie, perfectly suitable for a breakfast drink.

PIÑA COLADA SMOOTHIE

1 banana
½ cup pineapple, cut into cubes
½ cup vanilla yogurt
2 tbs cream of coconut – I use Coco López
1 tsp ground flaxseeds
2 -3 ice cubes
About ½ cup Water or pineapple juice – enough to make the mixture blend well in the blender.

 

This is a recipe for one smoothie… I blend it all in my Magic Bullet.

  1. Mix all the ingredients well in a blender.
  2. Serve immediately.
  3. Garnish with a piece of fresh pineapple, but this is completely optional.

 

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Broccoli Mashed Potatoes

17 Sep

Broccoli is not something I grew up with. I learned to eat broccoli in my adulthood, and probably something I started to appreciate more once I decided to try more and more vegetarian recipes. My first memories of broccoli are not fun and were associated with dieting at an early age because I was in Ballet Camp… you know the days when I barely weighed 85lbs, but my ballet teacher told us all we could lose 10 more pounds. Oh, how we long TODAY to be as “fat” as we were then…

The truth is… broccoli is delicious, but it’s even better when you add some cheese to it. This recipe… has two cheeses, but you can indulge and add any or as many cheeses as you want.

This is a great recipe to use broccoli that’s a little past its prime… and to use the whole vegetable, florets and stalk too. It’s also awesome for times when you’re super busy. The potatoes and broccoli boil/steam on their own with little tending to. Check it out…

 

BROCCOLI MASHED POTATOES

3-4 medium Yukon Gold or red-skinned potatoes
½ a head of broccoli, florets and stem or you can use just florets if you prefer
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 tbs of butter
2 ounces of cream cheese
2 tbs of plain greek yogurt
1 handful of shredded 6-cheese blend
Drizzle of Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

 

 

  1. Boil the potatoes by placing them in a medium pot with water almost covering the potatoes. Salt liberally. Place over medium-high heat. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. When the water is boiling and steam is starting to escape the lid, turn the heat to medium low and boil/steam until the potatoes are tender for about 10-15 minutes.
  2. While the potatoes cook, prepare the broccoli… By cutting the florets away from the stem. Peel the stem to reveal the tender inside. Cut the stem into small pieces and put them to boil together with the potatoes. Dump in the garlic cloves too. Reserve the florets.
  3. When the potatoes are about to be done, place the florets inside the pot over the potatoes and cover the pot again. Count until 10 and turn the stove off. The broccoli florets will cook with the steam inside the pot already. Wait about 10 minutes until you uncover the pot again.
  4. After the 10 minutes have elapsed, drain most of the water and return the potatoes and broccoli to the same pot you cooked it all in. Add the butter, drizzle of olive oil, cream cheese and yogurt. Mash them well. When all is mashed, add the shredded cheese and season with freshly cracked black pepper. Mix in well.
  5. You can certainly serve at this point… but if you want a crunchy top, transfer to a bake safe dish, add a little more shredded cheese on top and bake in a 400F over until the top turns golden brown. This is also the way I reheat any left-overs of this mash.

 

This is more a method than a recipe… because you can add any cheese you prefer to this recipe. I sometimes use the little bits and pieces of cheese I have laying around my cheese drawer for this. Any will work and will still taste delicious…

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Mango Passion Fruit Lassi

4 Sep

Believe it or not, I’m getting ready for my 4th trip to India next year… We will be visiting at early in the year to ensure we do not combust from the India heat felt April on. You would think that growing up in the Caribbean would prepare you for the Indian heat – NOOOOOO!!! We have breezes and sea around us… the heat in India feels 200 times hotter than any summer in Puerto Rico.

But I do love to visit India, especially for spiritual trips like the one I am about to make. Our love for mangos is something both our cultures, India and Caribbean,  coincide in. Lassis are one of the first things I learned about Indian cuisine and I just love to drink them (the sweet kind, of course) when I travel there. They’re a great way to keep the heat at bay – the heat from the climate and the heat from the spicy food you eat. And as much as I love eating a mango just as a fruit… I also love to make it into a smoothie.

This version of a lassi yogurt drink is something I came up with the other day as an experiment. The combination is tangy and not too sweet, just like a refreshing drink should be. It’s like India and Puerto Rico combined in a glass… maybe not too traditional but very, very delicious.

 

MANGO PASSION FRUIT LASSI

1 cup of mango, cut into small pieces
1 cup passion fruit nectar or juice
½ cup greek yogurt
2 tbs agave nectar
3 ice cubes
  1. Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend at a high speed until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Enjoy as part of your breakfast or as a snack.

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Breakfast Granola Parfait

30 Mar

I mentioned recently how I love the combination of fresh fruit, granola and yogurt for breakfast… so the other day I wanted to share it with my mom and friend. But I wanted to make it look pretty. That’s when I had the idea to layer it into a parfait. It would look far prettier than just mixing everything haphazardly in a bowl.

 

BREAKFAST GRANOLA PARFAIT

1 cup ricotta
1 cup vanilla yogurt
Squirt of honey
2 cups fresh strawberries, quartered
1 tbs brown sugar
2 cups granola
  1. In a bowl, mix the cut berries and mix in with the brown sugar to macerate. Allow the berries to release some of their own juice about 10 minutes.
  2. In a separate bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, yogurt and honey. Mix together well.
  3. In parfait glasses, or just some old-fashioned glasses, layer all the components – First add some yogurt/ricotta, then some fruit and end with some granola. Repeat again, yogurt/ricotta, fruit and granola. End up it some additional fruit on top.

Serve immediately. Serves about 3 parfaits.

The flavors are spectacular and the presentation is really nice, especially if you are entertaining for breakfast or brunch when you have special company, don’t you think??

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My new Favorite breakfast…

14 Mar

I love breakfast foods. And I could eat breakfast foods all day…

Well, a few weeks ago I discovered this local bakery that sells their breads and granola at local health food stores. I encountered this granola, partly recommended by a guy who was demonstrating an açaí sherbet and juice. He served the sherbet with pieces of banana and granola. I liked the sample so I bought the sherbet and the granola. If there’s any testament to how much I like the granola, the sherbet still sits untouched in my freezer and I am in my third bag of granola already…

Nowadays, my favorite breakfast combination is to mix fresh fruit – strawberries, peaches, papaya, pineapple, etc. – with yogurt, honey and about ½ cup of Granola from La Hogaza. I’ve never been fond of eating dry cold cereal with milk in a bowl. But, I like the granola mixed with yogurt because it stays super crunchy until the last bite.

Besides my usual fruit-based smoothies, I love that I have a new way of getting my fruit for breakfast. Every morning I look forward to my granola/yogurt mix… it may not look all that good all jumbled together, but it tastes amazing.

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