Mango Lassi

 After a quite long holiday break, it is time for something new and refreshing as we are still in holiday mood :)

Mango Lassi, deriving from India, it is based on a Mango fruit with yoghurt and water. Easy to prepare, will pamper your palate :) 

I haven't taken the recipe from anywhere, I've just read on the Internet about this drink and created my own recipe. It is possible to prepare as a cold coctail, as a soft drink or with alcohol.

Ingredients (for 2-4 glasses - depending on the size of the glass):

• 2 mangos
• 1 greek yoghurt or natural yoghurt (around 300 ml)
• 1 tablespoon of Golden Syrup or honey
• 1 glass of cold/room temperature water (add only 1/2 glass of cold water if using ice cubes)

Optional ingredients:

• 1-2 teaspoons of sugar
• 1-2 pinch(es) of ground cardamom (definitely worth trying)
• 2-5 ice cubes
• 20-25 ml of Vanilla Vodka or Malibu
• mint leaves

Useful info:

• While using Golden Syrup it is advisable to heat it a little bit - for example by putting the right amount of it in a small bowl and then that bowl in another, with hot water.
• If the mango is really really ripe - then the sugar isn't that necessary, because the more ripe the fruit is the more sugar it contains.
• Trying things while preparing them is really a useful skill - you can decide on your own whether you want the taste of the fruit to be dominant or rather the yoghurt, etc. With coctails such as Mango Lassi, just add all the ingredients gratually, mix and taste it, using a clean spoon each time you try it, to make it suitable for you.

Preparation:

1. If preparing it in a cold version - put mangos in the freezer.
2. Take a blender and its cube cutter.
3. Wash and peel mangos. Chop.
4. Put inside the cube cutter and mix till smooth.
5. Add yoghurt, mix.
6. Add Golden Syrup/honey, sugar, water, ice cubes, cardamom. Mix again till smooth or even longer, to make a foam.
7. Decorate for instance with mint leaves.
8. Bon Appetit! :)

Summertime cheesecake

A very tasty mix of 2 recipes + my own creativity :) 

Fresh, light, non-baking cake, perfect for a summertime coffee in a green, blossoming garden.

One recipe comes from this website and just the 'appearance' idea from this one.

Ingredients:

• 4 packagings of ladyfingers
• 2 tins (400 g each) of coconut milk
• 1 kg of creamy quark (the one for cheesecakes)
• 1/2 - 3/4 glass of sugar
• 6 teaspoons of gelatin
• strawberry jelly
• strawberries, blueberries for decoration

Optional ingredients:

• 80 ml of Malibu liqueur
• whipped cream

Preparation:

1. Take a spring pan. Grease it, put baking paper on the bottom. Put some ladyfingers on the bottom (only one tier).
2. Open the tins with the coconut milk. Fill the entire glass with part of it and the rest of the coconut milk pour to the bigger bowl, add quark, sugar and liqueur. Stir.
3. Take the glass with coconut milk and pour it to the pan. Add gelatin and heat on low heat, stiring all the time till the gelatin melts. Do not boil.
4. Take a big bowl, put the coconut milk with gelatin inside and partially add the mix from the other bowl with quark, stiring all the time so that everything links. Pour it to your springpan with ladyfingers on the bottom.*
5. Put it in the fridge for 10-20 minutes. Keep checking what's going on. If ladyfingers are on the top, using a spoon, plundge them in. The quark-substance gets thicker.
6. Leave the cake in the fridge. Prepare the jelly as the packaging says. 
7. Stir, cool it down, so that you get cold liquid.
8. Pour the jelly on your cake. Leave, so that it solidifies. (Keep checking by shaking gently the spring pan)
9. Put the fruit on the top. You can add whipped cream on the top as well.
10. Keep in the fridge, so that it completely solidifies (5 hours - entire night)
11. After that time, open the sides. If the cake is sticky - then just stick the ladyfingers. If not - apply some whipped cream on the sides and then stick the ladyfingers.**
12. Bon Appetit :)

* Don't worry if ladyfingers don't stay on the bottom after adding quark-substance.