Foods Of The World – Sri Lanka – Cantaloupe and Blueberry Salad

By Amila Wickramarachchi from Food Corner

Who doesn’t like a refreshing salad in a hot summer day?

This Cantaloupe and Blueberry salad is a really simple and quick dessert I tried with some yogurt and honey over it. Specially during a hot summer day, having a healthy snack with some fruits is a perfect idea and melons come to my mind first. I have tried many recipes with different melon types and this is one of the easiest and quickest desserts I have ever tried!

I used a melon baller to scoop cantaloupe, but it is not necessary. Instead use a fruit knife and cut cantaloupe into small bite size cubes of similar size. Taste of blueberries was really good with cantaloupe balls and yogurt added some rich smooth flavor to it. I used natural low fat yogurt to keep it healthier.

Over the fruits, I added some fresh lime juice. Lime juice gave a good flavor to this salad. Once honey is drizzled over, it looked perfect and delicious. I couldn’t wait until I finish the whole bowl.

Below is the simple and quick recipe for Cantaloupe and Blueberry Salad. Try this when you are in need for a snack or a dessert in a hot summer day!

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• ½ of a Cantaloupe
• 1 cup Blueberries
• 1 cup Natural yogurt
• Honey to drizzle
• 1 tsp. Lime juice

Method:

First scoop melon with a melon baller (or cut into cubes)

In a bowl, mix cantaloupe balls together with blueberries and lime juice.

Add natural yogurt over it.

Drizzle over some honey as per taste.

Cantaloupe and blueberry dessert is ready to serve.

Mix other fruits together with cantaloupe balls for different tastes.

Enjoy!

About the author:
Amila Wickramarachchi is a Food Blogger who loves to share her recipes and moments of the culinary journey in her Food Blog ‘Food Corner’. Food Corner is mainly a collection of Sri Lankan recipes; however there are recipes from other lands as well as other kitchen related posts.

If you would like to know more about Sri Lankan food please visit Amila blog Food Corner or Facebook page or follow @slfoodcorner on Twitter.

Alphabet Project | F is for Fruit

A fruit is a part of a flowering plant.

In common language usage,

“fruit” normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of a plant

that are sweet or sour and edible in the raw state.

Alphabet Project is hosted by PODcast

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What’s Cooking – American-style Blueberry Pancakes

American-style Blueberry Pancakes

Few days ago a very strange coincidence happened in our humble little home. I had a crazy craving for pancakes and Mark was wondering around the kitchen with a pack of blueberries that where close to their use by date. Then my cravings latched onto this and developed into not just wanting pancakes, oh no, now it was not just any pancakes… now I really wanted American-style blueberry pancakes. Mark checked the content of the fridge and pantry and decided that we are good to go… Happy times!

Ingredients:

• 210g plain flour
• 2½ tsp baking powder
• 3tbs sugar
• 2 large eggs, separated
• Pinch of arrowroot
• 250ml milk
• 45g butter melted
• Pinch of salt
• 250g fresh blueberries
• Vegetable oil, for brushing

Method:

Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and add the sugar, make a well in the middle.

Separate your two eggs and place the yolks with the milk and melted butter into a bowl and whisk. It will be helpful not to have ice cold milk as this will cause the butter to set again, not that it matters to the cooking process, it just doesn’t look so good when making.

Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl with a pinch of arrowroot, until stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed.

Add the wet ingredients into the well in the flour mixture, and gently whisk to create a batter, don’t worry about any lumps, it proves they are home made.

Now add your blueberries into the batter and stir.

Now fold in the egg whites with a large metal spoon and let rest for 5 minutes

Now you are ready to cook!

The batter should be the consistency of cake batter, it will not be runny like a traditional pancake batter, this is not a batter you will be running around the pan to create a flat object.

Heat a heavy non-stick pan over a medium heat and brush it with some vegetable oil.

Use a large spoon and scoop up some batter and gentle tip the contents into your pan. Don’t be tempted to touch it just leave the mound of batter to settle as it wants, remember every time you touch it somewhere a little bubble pops and your pancake becomes less fluffy.

Cook the pancake for a couple of minutes, or until bubbles start to form on the surface. When you lift up the edge of your pancake the underneath should be a nice golden brown. Turn the pancake and cook the other side for additional minute until golden-brown also. Remove from the pan and reserve in a warm place.

Serve with maple syrup or with icing sugar.

Join Weight Watchers 🙂

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What’s cooking – Blueberry muffins

So today Mark is on holiday and to avoid housework has offered to create a scrummy breakfast! Happy me!

Fresh baked blueberry muffins turned out to be my breakfast, they where delicious so I thought I would share with you the secret to a great start to the day. It takes about an hour start to finish, after that it’s all up to your self control how long they last.

So start by turning on your over to 200C/400F/GM6 and placing a shelf in the centre position.

Now take the largest mixing bowl you own and a measuring jug.

Into the mixing bowl sift:

+ 300g self raising flour

+ 1 teaspoon baking powder

Make sure you sift the flour, we want it light and dusty, and stir. Now take

+ 50g of cold butter

…and quickly cut it up into big chunks and drop it into the flour. Now just keep picking up a flour covered butter piece and chop it in half, keep going till all butter pieces are too small to find.

+ 80g caster sugar

+ 150g blueberries

Add the sugar and berries to the mix and give a last gentle stir and put aside.

Now in the jug put the following ingredients:

+ 2 eggs

+ 225ml of milk

+ 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Now with a whisk or a fork give the contents a good whisk till the contents resembles very runny custard.

Now take a 12 cup muffin tin and place a paper/silicon mould in each space. If you don’t have any lining cases you can grease the tin.

Now timing is everything, take a big serving spoon, make a well in the flour and pour the contents of the jug into the well. Using the big spoon, gentle fold the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Use a scoop, lift and turn method, turn the bowl a degrees and scoop, lift and turn, repeat until the dry ingredients are at least damp. The trick here is to do as little mixing as is possible, it doesn’t matter about lumps or small lumps of flour, it will sort itself out in the oven.

Lastly without a moment’s hesitation, spoon the mixture into the muffin tin using another spoon to scrape the mixture from the big spoon. You need to be quick as the raising agents will have been activated by the liquid, we don’t want to miss any of that wondrous chemistry.

Once you have filled, place them straight into the hot oven. Bake for 20minutes or till well risen, golden coloured and firm to the poke. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin then remove them to a wire cooling rack to warm… then, and only then can the unceremonious devouring of poor helpless muffins occur!

Couple of notes, these muffins will be strange if you are used to supermarket muffins, as they will not be as sweet as you are used to.

Mark also said that he would love to take credit for the recipe but it is actually from a little book he highly recommends to all budding muffinologists called Muffins Galore by Catherine Atkinson ISBN978-0-7537-2018-9

Enjoy