Wishful thinking…

All week I have been planing to do a post today on a delicious healthy sorbet and cooling ice lollies, writing about how they would be perfect for a sunny weekend.

So when I woke up this morning to hear the all too familiar sound of cars rushing through puddles outside and the pitter patter of tiny raindrops on the roof, my heart sunk a little.

When is summer going to arrive?! Let’s face it, everyone could do with the emotions summer brings. It seems when the sun shines we can all be that little bit happier, we take life a little bit slower, we are more sociable, we live more easily and we relax. Summer and all the images of it ( true or not) seems to be associated with fun times, easy living and the good life. So what do we do if the rain doesn’t stop?

Well I have decided it’s fairly simple. Act as if it is sunny. Rather than thinking ‘oh its raining, I might as well, make some wintery dish and stay inside and watch tv’ I have decided that I am going to act as if it were sunny and wonderfully warm. Obviously I won’t be running around outside in shorts and a t-shirt, but I am going to encourage those little feelings of joy that come with a blue sky and sunshine. I am going to listen to summertime songs, be sociable, live life a bit easier, go for more walks, be outside more ( I actually quite like the rain you see), oh and definitely make ice cream.

If we all get this bit of summertime in us, we might encourage the world to get a bit sunnier but if not you probably won’t care because actually the weather isn’t what makes a good summer, it’s your attitude. So let’s all live easy, be sociable and let the fun times roll, rain or no rain.

Get started now.

Your weekend treats – Healthy Strawberry Sorbet, and Yogurt, Vanilla and Cherry Ice Lollies.

My Kitchen Soundtrack? The Beach Boys

Strawberry Sorbet – This is the simplest and one of the yummiest puddings that you can call healthy, so Yay!

Ingredients – Serves 1-2 

1 Banana

½ Packet Strawberries (about 250g)

1tsp Vanilla Extract

Equipment

For this you need some sort of Blender/ smoothie maker/ food processor

Method

  1. Chop your strawberries into half and peel you banana, place in the freezer – to freeze overnight/ for about 4 hours
  1. Once frozen remove from the freezer and chop Banana into a few chunks
  2. Place in blender with frozen Strawberries and Vanilla extract and wizz up until everything is combined into a smooth texture
  3. Then serve

That simple, that delicious.

I am pretty confident this recipe will work with most fruit combinations, so why not try raspberry and mint, blueberry and banana, summer fruits, banana and peanut butter, or even better banana and Nutella – veering off into the slightly unhealthy end of the tasty spectrum, but what’s 1tbsp of peanut butter in comparison to half a tub of Ben and Jerry’s?!

I can promise you as an ice cream lover this does not disappoint. Keep your cool treats and your flat stomach – Win-Win.

Frozen Yogurt and Cherry Lollies

Ingredients 

8 tbsp Natural Yogurt

1 tbsp Icing Sugar ( you dont need to use this much – I just have a sweet tooth)

½ tsp Vanilla Extract

10 Cherries washed and chopped

Method

  1. Pour the yogurt into a bowl and sieve in the icing sugar
  2. Add the vanilla extract and stir
  3. Pour this mixture into your molds until they are about 2/3 full, then sprinkle in the chopped cherries, pushing a few down to the bottom with a spoon
  4. Fill up to full with remaining yogurt and place in the freezer to set for 4-5 hours

Again the possibilites here are almost endless, you can go fruit, chocolate, mint…. anything that you think will work, or fancy a taste of.

Well that’s it for now, more summertime recipes to come soon.

I wrote the first part of this blog this morning and am now sitting in front of my sunny window to finish it off. So all I can say is Weather 0, Wishfull Thinking 1.

Happy Weekend. x

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