Green is The Colour - Kiwi Fruit Muffins with Coconut

What is the colour of spring? Of course it's green! I need lots of this colour in my life. Generally, I need colours (and light) in my life, but green has a special place and meaning. Green to me represents freshness and vitality. It's a positive colour.

Last week I bought a basket of kiwi fruits. I blended a few of them with banana, grapes and apples for our morning smoothies or mixed them with yogurt. I still had so many kiwi fruits left and didn't know what to do with them. Then I suddenly came up with the idea of "green muffins". I loved the idea and started playing around. Sadly, the first batch was a complete disaster and ended up in the bin. I learned that you should never mash kiwi fruits and mix them with other ingredients, unless you want soggy inside and burnt outside muffins. Not my idea of light green soft and fluffy muffins at all. Second try was perfect!






This recipe inspired me to experiment with kiwi fruit even more. I already drafted another two recipes I would like to try, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my green muffins.



Kiwi fruit muffins
Makes 8 muffins

75g self raising flour
40g plain flour

45g ground almonds

20g desiccated coconut

80g sugar
pinch of salt
60g melted unsalted butter, cooled
1 egg
65ml buttermilk
3 kiwi fruits, peeled and cubed
1tbsp desiccated coconut
1 kiwi fruit, peeled and sliced (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180℃.
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, lightly whisk the egg, stir in buttermilk and melted butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture and stir until well combined. Gently stir in most of  the kiwi (reserve one tablespoon) and spoon the mixture into a lined muffin pan. Top the muffins with remaining kiwi pieces and sprinkle coconut on top.
Baked for 25-23 minutes until lightly golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Let them cool down a bit before serving. You can serve them with fresh kiwi slices.

Coconut Rice Pudding with Pineapple

Hey my friends, I'm back. Not that soon as I promised, though. I don't know what is keeping me from doing anything! May it be Christmas around the corner? May it be my laziness? Or both? I just know that I feel like I have less energy left inside of me these days. I want sunshine or snow. I guess, I simply just need more light.

I know that sugar makes me happy and keeps my energy up! This theory was thoroughly tested during my studies. Oh yeah, I can not even say how much chocolate I ate during every exam term! :) I did not nourish myself with chocolate this time, though. I know I have already posted a recipe for a rice pudding some time ago. However, rice pudding is one of my all time favourite desserts, and I made a lighter version, omitting a double cream, and I used a proper pudding rice.

I got the pudding rice in a local food centre. I was actually quite surprised. I felt like Alice in Wonderland while browsing the shelves full of all kinds of rice, bulgur, polenta, couscous and other yummy stuff. Unfortunately, I could not spent so much time there as P. was not so excited to be in a food kingdom and kept asking me if I got everything I needed. I have to go back alone! :)

I used a pineapple to serve my rice pudding, but it is delicious with any fruit you find at home. I even like it just plain when the pudding is still warm.

Coconut rice pudding with pineapple

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 cup pudding rice

400ml coconut milk (1 can)

150ml ful fat milk

4 cardamon pods

2 tbsp palm sugar

shredded coconut to serve

unsalted pistachios, chopped

fresh or canned pineapple, diced

1 Wash and drain the rice in a sieve.

2 Heat the coconut milk mixed with the full fat milk and cardamon pods in a small sauce pan over a low heat. Bring to the boil.

3 Add the rice and stir well. Simmer, covered for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until almost all milk is absorbed and the rice is tender.

4 Discard the cardamon pods. Add the sugar and stir well. I usually let the rice stand, covered, for couple minutes before serving.

5 Divide the rice pudding between prepared bowls or glasses and top with pineapple, coconut and pistachios.

Homemade yogurt without a yogurt maker

Finally!!! I have been wanting to make my own homemade yogurt for, I would say, more than a year? Phew. Yeah that long! I thought it was too difficult and that I needed a special yogurt maker and so on. The result was, I did not even try. The good news is, it is not difficult at all, quite the contrary, it is easy-peasy :)

I have noticed recently that I tend to cook at night. I am not exactly sure why. I can see several advantages though. First, I like the quiet all around. It is just me and sounds of cooking or baking. Secondly, I like the freshly baked cake or bread in the morning. Thirdly, with the winter coming slowly and days shortening day by day, I have more time to photograph my produce! And lastly, I do not know, I just like it. Well, it was about 10pm again, when I decided I would make a homemade yogurt.

I told my boyfriend: "I am going to make a homemade yogurt!". "Now?", he asked. "Yes, now. It is easy-peasy!".

I went to our kitchen and only a few minutes later my boyfriend appeared. "So, how do you do that? How do you make the yogurt?", he asked.

"Well, that is it", I pointed to a pot of hot milk. "I just heat the milk, add the yogurt, and in the morning, yogurt is ready!".

And that was it! I woke up in the morning and ran straight to a radiator where the yogurt was sleeping and maturing. I was excited like a child before Christmas! I still kind of did not believe that the milk, I just heated and mixed with a couple of spoons of yogurt, would turn into a yogurt overnight. It was a beautiful day. The sky was blue without a cloud which is very rare these days in London. I felt happy! :)

I put the yogurt in the refrigerator and let it get cold. After 3 hours, I could not wait any longer. The taste of the yogurt was delicious. Very smooth and not that sour as some yogurts might be. I ate it straight from the jar. Later that day I just mixed the yogurt with mango and shredded coconut to make a delicious snack.

Homemade yogurt

Ingredients

1000ml whole milk

5 tbsp plain yogurt with active cultures (I used greek yogurt)

1 In a saucepan, heat the milk over low heat. Remove the saucepan from heat just before it starts boiling (82-85ºC).

2 Let the milk cool down until you can keep your finger in there (42-43ºC).

3 Add the yogurt to the milk and stir well. Pour the milk into carefully washed jars and close with lids.

4 Set all jars in a warm place for about 8 hours or overnight until thickened. I placed jars on a warm radiator covered in kitchen towel to make sure they would keep warm. (The yogurt bacteria need temperature around 43ºC to grow.)

5 Refrigerate the yogurt for about 3-4 hours before eating.

Childhood memories and Cranberries Coconut rice pudding

I can't believe I have not had rice pudding for soooooo long! Well, I had a ready made rice pudding couple of times. I mean, the one you can buy in any grocery store, but it does not count. What I am talking about is the yummy, lovely smelling home made rice pudding. Yes, that one which my mum made for my brothers and me. It always took infinitely long to get it cooked, from my point of view. I just could not wait to taste it's marvellous creamy taste. I loved it still warm when the smell of freshly cooked rice was strong, and any fruit on top was slightly melting and releasing it's own aroma. My mum usually served rice pudding with fresh apricots during summer and with home made apricot compote during winter, when no fresh apricot were available.

When I am thinking about it, this was a first rice pudding I have made myself! And the best is, it was extremely easy to do. Yes, it is the kind of quick, easy, and very tasty dessert. I have mixed all leftover I found in a fridge, but the result was extraordinary! :) I guess, you can use just a coconut milk if you prefer more coconut flavour, or just a milk if you don't like coconut. As well, you can omit a double cream for a lighter dessert. I have chosen a cranberry sauce to finish the rice pudding, and I have to say, it was a good choice. I like the slightly sour taste of cranberries contrasting with sweet rice.

Cranberries Coconut rice pudding

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 cup rice

140ml double cream

160ml coconut milk

220ml milk

3 cardamon pods

2 tbsp palm sugar (jaggery)

cranberry sauce or cranberry jam (better option)

1 tsp shredded coconut, to serve

1 tbsp unsalted pistachios, chopped, to serve

fresh mint, to serve

1 Wash the rice and drain well.

1 In a small pan mix the double cream, coconut milk and milk with the cardamon pods. Bring the mixture to the boil.

2 Add the rice and stir well. Cover and simmer over very low heat, stirring occasionally, about 15-20 minutes, until the rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. If the rice is too dry, add a little milk and stir.

3 Discard the cardamon and add the palm sugar. Mix well.

4 To serve, pour 1 tsp of cranberry jam into each glass and divide the rice pudding between them. Top with another dollop of cranberry jam and sprinkle with coconut and pistachios. Finish with the fresh mint leaves. Serve warm or cold.

Curried Prawns in Coconut Milk

I've had prawns in my fridge for a couple of days already but I wanted to try something new this time other than our favorite prawns with garlic and herbs. I went for a help to our Red Hot! cookbook which we got as a present last christmas and which has been resting in a bookshelf till this moment. Actually it was even worse after a while of browsing. I've realized what a treasure was hidden in our bookshelf and my head was full of recipes. Which one to choose???

Laziness won in the end and I chose recipe with most ingredients I had at home. I really wasn't in the mood to run round all local shops looking for missing exotic ingredients! :-) And the result was - Curried Prawns in Coconut Milk. Actually after finishing it I was pretty pleased I chose this recipe - it was just delicious!

As I wrote above my choice was the recipe with MOST ingredients I had at home which means I replaced the yellow curry paste with the green curry paste but this exchange was exceedingly positive.

Curried Prawns in Coconut Milk
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
600ml/21/2 cups coconut milk
30ml/2 tbsp yellow curry paste
15ml/1 tbsp fish sauce
2.5ml/1/2 tsp salt
5ml/1 tsp granulated sugar
450g/1lb king prawns (peeled, tails may leave)
225g cherry tomatoes
juice of 1/2 lime, to serve
2 red chillies, cut into strips, and coriander leaves, to garnish

1 Put half the coconut milk into a pan or wok and bring to the boil.

2 Add the yellow curry paste to the coconut milk, stir unit it disperses, then simmer for about 10 minutes.

3 Add the fish sauce, salt, sugar and remaining coconut milk. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

4 Add the prawns and cherry tomatoes. Simmer very gently for about 5 minutes.

5 Serve the curried prawns sprinkled with lime juice and garnish the dish with chillies and coriander.