Strawberry Frozen Yogurt ~ Blogging Marathon#5

Its fun to be back to blogging, after a break, as part of the blogging marathon, initiated by Srivalli. When Srivalli announced BM#5, the last group was the one that suited me. And I was not sure If I will be able to post soon after my vacation. Since I enjoyed the previous marathon, which was a first for me, decided to join and chose the Summer Coolers theme. So, starting today, you can see varieties of summer coolers here. I hope I can  bring in variety here.

I had some frozen strawberries. I went for a frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. This dessert was very light and very refreshing. Its a very easy recipe. Just blend all the ingredients and freeze.

You need

Strawberry - 15 nos (I used frozen)
Sugar -1/3 cup
Hung curd - 1/2 cup
Lemon juice - 1/2 tspn

Method

Hull the strawberries and halve them. Take the halved strawberries and sugar in the blender jar. Pulse to make a fine puree. Add in hung curd and lemon juice. Pulse to blend everything well. Check the sweetness and add more sugar to suit your taste. If the berries are not sweet enough, you might want to add some more sugar.  Transfer to a plastic or steel tiffin box. Freeze till it is set. Take it out and break the crystals using a fork and put it back in the freezer.    Repeat this for 2 more times and finally leave it to set for 3 or 4 hours. Scoop and enjoy. 

The frozen yogurt had set nicely. But, by the time I could arrange and click, it started melting.

This frozen yogurt goes to the Kids Delight-Cool Comforts, hosted by PJ, an event started by Srivalli

Check out the Blogging Marathoners doing BM#5 along with me
Curry in a hurry under 30 min: Aarthi, Divya, Jayashree, Kaveri, Pavani,
Seven Days of Indian Sweets:Gayathri, Priya Suresh,
Seven Days of Microwave Meals: Monika,
Seven Days of Regional Specials: Cool Lassi(e), Harini, Vaishali, Suma
Seven Days of Colorful Dishes Kid's Special: Kalyani
Summer Coolers:Jayasree, Kamalika, Srivalli

Strawberry in two avatars - Milkshake and Shrikand

I am putting the strawberry season to full use. And this is the first time I have access to strawberries which doesn't cost a bomb. And we are nearing the end of the strawberry season here. I have frozen quite a few and made two bottles of jam. The easiest way to use them is to make milkshake for breakfast. Its made atleast twice in a week during the season. Occassionaly, I make strawberry flavored Shrikand too. That is also quite easy except that hung curd has to be made. Often I forget to reserve the curd to prepare hung curd and by the time I realise I would have churned the curd to make buttermilk. At home, we prefer buttermilk than curd. Though the plain Shrikand is not much favored by husband, he loves the strawberry flavored one. So here is two super easy recipes with strawberry. In fact, there isn't much to write about  in terms of the recipe. Here is I how I make it.

Strawberry Milkshake

You need

• Strawberries - 10 -12 nos
• Chilled milk - 2 cups
• Sugar - 2 tblspn (Or use honey)

 Method

Wash and hull the strawberries. Cut into halves. Blend the halved strawberries along with sugar to fine puree. Add the chilled milk and pulse for few second. Pour into glasses and chill it if you are not serving immediately.

 

Strawberry Shrikhand

You need

• Hung curd - 1 cup
• Strawberries - 8 to 10 nos
• Sugar - 2 tblspn
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn

Method

To get hund curd, take 4 cups of curd in a cheese cloth. Tie it and hang it to drain the whey or the liquid in the curd. What remains is the creamy curd. I usually hang it in inside the fridge so that the curd doesn't turn sour.

Puree the strawberries with sugar. Beat the curd till smooth. Add the sweetened strawberry puree. Mix well. Finally add cardamom powder. Chill and serve. Garnish with chopped pistachios/almonds/chiroli  while serving

Strawberry Coconut Fudge/Burfi with fresh strawberries

Today, being Valentine's Day, I have been seeing loads of recipes to suit the celebration mood. Personally, I am not the kind who looks forward to this day. Its like any other day for me. I have been looking for strawberry recipes to make best use of the seasonal availability.  Of late, I was baking a lot of cakes/cupcakes.   I wanted to make some Indian sweet for a change. Two days back, I asked my husband which traditional sweet he would want me to make. Husband's option was Coconut burfi. So I thought why not try adding some strawberry puree to my usual burfi. I wasn't sure if the sweet will set or not. I thought even if it doesn't hold shape, it will have a consistency of a halwa and can be eaten with a spoon. I went ahead and tried in smaller measurements, so that if it doesn't come out well, the wastage will be minimal. Probably, this is one of the few times, a recipe made in my kitchen makes it to the blog in the shortest time.

You need

• Fresh, grated coconut - 1/2 cup, packed
• Strawberry puree - 1/2 cup
• Sugar - 1 cup + 2 tblspn
• Ghee - 2 tspn
• Water - 1/2 cup

Method

Take 6-8 strawberries and make a puree of it. No need to strain the puree. Make sure there is no pieces in it. Heat a kadai with sugar and half cup of water. Keep stirring till the sugar is fully dissolved. Let the syrup boil to one string consistency. Stir in the strawberry puree. Let it simmer for 3 minutes or so. By then the syrup will bubble. Add the grated coconut. Keep stirring. When it starts thickening, add a teaspoon of ghee. Continue stirring for another 10 minutes. When it starts bubbling from all sides, add the remaining ghee and cook for a minute or two. Transfer to a greased plate and level it using a greased katori with a flat base. It takes little more time to set than a regular coconut burfi.

The fruit flavored burfi was very tasty. Its difficult to stop with one. And adding the fruit puree gives a new flavor to the burfi and doesn't even remind you of the traditional coconut burfi. Its a completely new taste. I am glad I tried this.

Easy Strawberry Jam

I love making jams and I wanted to make best use of the strawberries which are in season. I usually puree the fruit and go about with my jam making. I found a recipe here and the method interested me. I followed her first step where in the berries are mixed with sugar and left for few hours. I felt this gave a good texture to the jam. As usual, I made it in microwave. So that doesn't stop those who doesn't have a MW oven. This can be very well be made on the stove top and I think it will get done in almost the same time. This jam is quite easy that you have just mix all the ingredients and cook for around 15 minutes.

You need

• Strawberry,hulled and halved - 2 cups
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Lemon juice - from half of a lemon

Method

  

Take the strawberries and sugar in a bowl. Keep it aside for 4 hours or so. Lightly mash the berries in between. The sugar would have drawn the juice out of the berries and you can find the berries slightly pulpy too. Transfer the mix to a microwave safe bowl. Add juice from half of a lemon and micro high for 12 minutes. Give a stir at 5 minutes interval. Give a standing time of 3 minutes and do the plate test to see if the jam is set. Ladle into sterilized jars. 

Adjust the sugar according to the sweetness of the berries. Adding too much of sugar will make the jam sticky and the flavor of berries will not come through.  Enjoy on a warm toast for breakfast or tea. Try making it yourself and see how it easy it can be. Once you taste home made jam, I am sure you will never go for store bought ones.  I usually make in small batches and it gets over in 10 days. If you are making a big batch, you can as well refrigerate for longer shelf life.

  

On a different note: I am happy that my blog is shortlisted among the 10 best food blogs selected by Blogjunta. Kindly vote for me if you feel it deserves. The poll widget can be found the right side bar of the blog. Let the best blog win. Thank you dear readers for your support. Thanks to the friends who have already voted.

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

Though I wanted to clear my drafts at the earliest, I do not want to postpone the posting of recipes which makes use of the seasonal fruits/vegetables. Strawberries are in plenty in the market and its hard to ignore those red beauties.  When  Mahabaleshwar is nearby, you can find them in heaps at the carts lined up near the market. I wanted to make best use of them during the season. My husband is happy with the milkshake. He says why bother to use them in any other way when the milkshake is heavenly. While looking for strawberry recipes, I came across the cheese cake recipe at Nandita's. And I decided it was the dessert for the New Year's eve.  I did not make much changes to her recipe except that I used some chocolate biscuit too and increased the sugar by 1/4 cup.

For the base

 

• Marie biscuit - 1 packets (24 nos)
• Chocolate biscuit - 1 pkt (I used Hide & Seek)
• Melted butter - 3 tblspn

 

For the cake

 

• Fresh Strawberries - 250 gm
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Hung curd - 1 cup
• Fresh cream - 1 cup (used Amul cream 200ml)
• Agar agar/China grass - 1 pkt (10 gm)
• Water - 4 tblspn

Method

 

I used a combination of marie biscuit and chocolate biscuits. You could use marie biscuit alone. Pulse the biscuit coarsely in the mixer along with the melted butter. Or take the biscuits in a zip lock cover and powder it coarsely with the chappathi roller.

  

Take a round tin. Line it with cling film. Make sure you leave some of the film hanging over the edge, to make it easier to lift the cake out of the tin, later. Spread the biscuit mix on the tin. The base should be firm. So press it down tight. Freeze the base for half an hour. Meanwhile prepare the cake mix.

 

 

 

Mix hung curd and cream in a bowl. To get hung curd, take almost 4 cups of fresh curd and tie it in a muslin cloth and hang it. The whey will be drained and you will be left with creamy curd.

 

 

Puree strawberry with sugar till smooth.

 Mix in the strawberry puree to the curd+cream mix. Mix well so that its uniformly blended in.

 

 

 

The agar agar I used were strands. I put them in warm water for 10 minutes. Then put that bowl in a pan of boiling water for the china grass to fully dissolve. Add the liquefied agar agar to the mix. Mix it well with a spatula. I reserved few drops of the puree and made a marble effect. But on setting, the effect was not seen, though. Leave in the refrigerator for overnight, to set.

 

 

 

Once set, take the pan and pull the cake out by lifting the cling film. You could garnish with some fresh strawberries or strawberry preserve. I served it plain

 

 

 

Notes:

 

The quantity of agar agar used  helps in the setting of the cake. I used only half a packet (5 gms) which I found was not enough. On leaving it in the fridge overnight also, the cake did not set well. Later I had to move it to the freezer to set. Then it set well. But once taken out, after sometime, it started melting like an ice cream. The full packet of agar agar would have worked well. But for that, the cake tasted well. No after taste of agar agar.