Tag Archives: coconut

Smoothie of the Week: Coconut banana smoothie pops

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I guess I’m still a kid, because when the dog days of summer start to bear down on DC, all I crave is popsicles. Lucky for me, they’re super easy to make homemade — a lot of the store bought ones are full of sugar and artificial ingredients, and the healthier varieties can get expensive.

I bought a popsicle mold for $2.50 at Target and I use my smoothie machine to make the filling. Pretty much anything you can dream up as a smoothie can be made into a popsicle, so have some fun experimenting! Give me your best recommendations in the comments.

These tropical pops are so much better than the artificial banana flavored ones you buy in the store. Other fruits like pineapple or mango would work well here, too. If you have bananas that are ripening too fast to eat and it’s too hot to bake banana bread, peel and freeze them in freezer-safe bags and you can use them to make these.

Banana popsicles

Coconut banana smoothie pops

2 ripe bananas, peeled and cut in half
3 tablespoons coconut flakes (sweetened or unsweetened)
1 cup soy or almond milk

Combine all ingredients in a smoothie maker or blender and blend until very smooth. Pour directly into popsicle molds and freeze until solid — in my experience, this has taken at least 6 hours. If there’s a heat wave coming through, set them the night before so you have them ready to go.

Makes 8 popsicles

Tropical curry banana salad

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I’ve been taking Bikram yoga lately, and for those of you who haven’t done it before, it’s very unique. Classes are held in a very hot room, and it’s 90 minutes of slow, intense postures. You sweat from pretty much every place it is possible to sweat from, and although it’s very challenging, it’s incredibly cleansing and renewing. I like to do it on the weekends and after, I tend to feel like I’ve flushed out all the toxins and junk that’s accumulated in my system from the week. Afterwards, I’m usually starving and in the mood for something light and natural.

After my last class, I pulled together a tropical salad featuring curry and bananas. It’s just red leaf lettuce, sliced banana, raisins, shredded coconut and shelled sunflower seeds. As for dressing, I just whisked together olive oil, a bit of white wine vinegar and some curry powder, along with salt and pepper. It added just the right amount of spice to balance the sweetness of the bananas, raisins and coconut!

Tropical curry and banana saladAnyone have any great salad recipes for these hot days?

Curried lentils with butternut squash

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“I think I like anything with curry in it.” – My boyfriend

Amen! Last night we needed something quick so we could get to cleaning up in anticipation of my mom and brother’s arrival, so I went with an old favorite: curried lentils with butternut squash. Best of all, I had already cooked up the vegetables a few days ago thinking I was going to tackle butternut squash risotto (which I still haven’t gotten around to), so all I had to do was cook the lentils and throw it together in my cast iron on the stove! Here are the instructions assuming you haven’t already cooked the veggies, though.

Curried lentils with butternut squash

Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup lentils, uncooked
curry powder to taste (I probably used about 1/2 a tablespoon total, since mine is spicy, but taste it as you go)
salt and pepper, to taste
shredded coconut as a topping (optional)

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the butternut squash, carrots and lentils. Return to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until vegetables and lentils are tender.

2. Meanwhile, heat a large pan over medium heat. Drizzle olive oil in it and add the pressed garlic. When it starts to get fragrant, add the onion. Cook until translucent.

3. When the vegetables in the pot are tender, drain them. (You can reserve the liquid if you like and use it later for broth!) Add them to the pan and combine them all together with a spatula, using it to mash the squash a bit as you go.

4. Add curry powder, salt and pepper to taste.

5. Cook them all together for a few minutes to let some of the residual liquid from the lentils and squash evaporate. Once it’s reached a consistency you like, remove from heat and serve.

Serves two.

Fledgling inspiration

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The inspiration for this blog came to me on my run this morning. I do a lot of my best thinking when I’m running, but the circumstances for this somewhat manic sprint were a bit different this time.

A few days ago, I found this post on baby bran muffins over at 101 Cookbooks, one of my favorite places to visit when I’m dreaming of the culinary abilities that I’m sure I have somewhere underneath a thick layer of inexperience. The recipe, which was adapted from The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook by Jean Hewitt, uses only two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of sugar, and the rest of the moistness comes from yogurt. I was intrigued: Muffins are just one example of a long list of special breakfast foods that I adore, so I drooled at the thought of a recipe that might actually not contain a million calories per serving.

Let me back up for just a second: I just moved to D.C. four weeks ago after graduating college last spring and moving back in with my parents. My mother is a fantastic cook, and while I was home, we spent many an hour in the kitchen, cooking with wine (yes, some actually made it into the food) and holding informal lessons on some of her favorite recipes. Now that I’m spreading my wings, so to speak, my cooking hobby has developed into somewhat of an obsession. I’ve been addicted to cooking blogs and websites and I’ve been making a long list of kitchen items that I’ll need to acquire to make a fully functional supply.

My grocery excursions, thus far, have generally revolved around how much I can carry the mile back to my house, as I am currently carless. Yesterday, I carefully crafted a list that reflected the recipes I wanted to spend my Easter Sunday testing out. For the first time, I have the time and resources to really nourish this interest and test my abilities beyond the Ramen noodles and sandwiches that nourished me during my college years. And boy, am I excited.

This morning, I literally popped out of bed at 7 a.m., ready to start the holiday that always signifies the beginning of spring for me. I got halfway through the muffin recipe, coffee in hand, when disaster struck–I was short half a cup of yogurt.

The issue was, I didn’t know how to make up for it. I had already been scraping by as far as following the recipe. It called for wheat bran, which the store didn’t have, so I substituted oat bran and hoped for the best. The store didn’t carry full-fat yogurt, either, so I was substituting low-fat. And to top it all off, I discovered that the girl who moved out of my house when I moved in took the only dry measuring cups, so I had to eyeball the dry ingredients using the wet measuring cup, but I had no real idea of whether I was on the mark or not.

So I did the only thing I could think to do–I put plastic wrap over all my mixing bowls, stopped the oven from preheating, stuck everything on the top shelf so my roommates wouldn’t think I had been eaten by bears or something when they came down and found my stuff everywhere but no sign of me, and took off for a jog to the grocery store.

I realize how manic it sounds. I saw exactly one other person crazy enough to be out of her pajamas and on the street at that hour on a holiday, and it was probably only because of the dog she was walking, who gave me a quizzical look as though he knew just how out of my mind I was acting just then.

So that’s how I found myself jogging–nay, sprinting–to my local Safeway in the wee hours of the day. I thought of how most people my age probably wouldn’t be up for at least another couple of hours, and if they were awake, they certainly wouldn’t be running to the store to get the last ingredients to make bran muffins. But there I was.

I’m happy to report that my debacle did turn out to be a success, at least in my mind. The first batch, I added raisins, and although they were fluffy and tasty just out of the oven, I thought they needed something more. The inspiration fairy hit me over the head once more–I spotted a bag of coconut in my pantry and figured I’d give it a shot.

I like coconut in pretty much everything, but it was exquisite in these muffins. It gave them a fabulous texture and a bit more sweetness and flavor than the solo raisin variety.

And best of all, I had a great feeling of accomplishment by the time the first of my roommates rolled out of bed at 10:30 a.m. I knew that I needed to pursue this path and embrace cooking, because hey, if I’m going to have a hobby, what more productive one could I choose?

So this blog will be an exploration of my journey to becoming a true “foodie,” through all the bad substitutions and great triumphs and new tastes along the way. I can’t wait to get started.