Mango macadamia smoothie

So, as you might have guessed by the recent chutney & ice cream recipes, we have had a major oversupply of mangos here at the moment! Mangos are definitely one of the upsides to a Queensland summer!! Unfortunately one of the downsides at this time of year is having a mango tree in the front yard!!! Our mango tree is at that annoying stage - the bats and possums have their seasonal passes in full swing, and every morning there are what feels like 10,000 half eaten mangos scattered about the front lawn, garden and driveway - the remnants of a midnight feast. Then there is the added bonus of 'what goes in must come out!' with bat droppings all over my car, front steps and garden path. So charming - wash the car one day and the next morning it looks like it's never been washed in its life - bits of mango and bat droppings splattered all over it. 'Only another few weeks' is what I must keep chanting to myself at this time of year...as I step in another half eaten mango on the way out the front gate. It's such a lovely old shade tree and goodness knows how ancient.... Soon enough the pain will be over & the bats and possums gone for another season.

One of my friends asked me for 'frozen mango options!!' when I was in the middle of my mango recipe frenzy recently. Apart from the obvious mango daiquiri (sure helps cope with the wildlife mess out the front!) we have been loving these mango & macadamia smoothies!  Mr almost 3 & I have been having them for brekky all week, as I too have a freezer full of frozen mango. This recipe inspiration came from my gorgeous friend & fellow Thermomixer Amy Welsh. We were doing some Christmas cooking together last month & she whizzed us up a quick mango macadamia smoothie - it was so delicious and filling - I came home experimented with her ingredients.

Mango macadamia smoothie

Ingredients:

300gms diced frozen mango

30-40gms whole raw macadamia nuts

500gms coconut water

Method:

Simply add all ingredients to your Thermomix bowl and blend 1 min speed 9. 

This makes 2 large or 4 small smoothies. 

If these are a little thick for you, add some filtered water and blend on speed 4 for 10 seconds. 

Enjoy!! 

Creamy Mango Ice Cream Bars

I usually get someone to roadtest my recipes before I post, but this one is pretty simple, so fingers crossed you like it! 

WHY do I get someone to road test my recipes?! It's pretty simple. 
I never measure anything. 
I never write anything down. 
I never time how long I cook anything for.... it's just the way I've always cooked. 

I measure by eye. 
I cook by memory,
and I judge readiness by taste, smell and sight. 

So sometimes while I'm merrily jotting down a recipe for here, I do a few things intuitively and forget to write them down... so in order for you to avoid disaster, I try to cook my own recipes as per my own instructions, once I've drafted them on here. Then, to be sure to be sure.. I have a few lovely friends who are happy to be my guinea pigs!

A big part of the reason I started this blog, is because I'm often asked for my recipes - and they are almost always in my head... or if I've followed someone else's recipe, I usually look at the ingredients list and the picture, and then change it according to what I've got in the cupboard or what I think will work better! I can't even count how many times I've given out my spinach pie recipe (it's coming..) or my Tuna Pasta recipe... so this blog now means I have a record of things and I can point everyone in this direction!

Creamy Mango Ice Cream Bars

Ingredients

5 large ripe mangos*

1 cup water (200gms)

1 cup raw sugar (200gms)

the juice of half a lemon

250mls pouring cream (250gms)

*If you have mangos in the fruit bowl that are still a little firm, it's worth waiting a few days until your mangos are nice and ripe, especially if you are planning to omit some/all sugar (see note below)

TM Method

1. peel and slice mangos, set aside

2. weigh 200gms sugar and 200gms water in the TM and cook 

5 mins | 100 deg | speed 2

3. add mango slices you set aside in step 1 to TM bowl and blend 20 secs | Sp 9

4. Set aside 1 cup of blended mango puree from step 3 in the fridge 

5. line a baking tray or a square cake tin with baking paper, you need the paper to come up the sides of the tin by about 2.5cms or an inch (this will make it easier to get your slice out in one piece in the end)

6. pour remaining mango puree into the tin and put in the freezer to set

7. once the first tray of mango has set, add the reserved cup of mango plus 250gms pouring cream into the TM bowl and blend 20 secs | Sp 5

8. Pour on top of frozen mango tray and put back into the freezer to set. 

9. Once the top layer has set, remove tray from freezer, upturn onto a board and rub a cloth thats been rinsed under hot water and wrung out, all along the bottom of the upturned tray. This will soon slightly melt the bottom of the mango mixture making it easier to remove from the tray. 

10. run a knife under hot water and dry and slice your mango icecream into whatever sized bars you like. 

I wrap mine in baking paper and store in a container in the freezer so they are easy to remove and don't all stick together. 

Conventional Method

1. peel and slice mangos, set aside

2. add 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water to a small saucepan and simmer, stirring frequently until all sugar has dissolved. Set aside to cool

3. once your mixture is cool pour into a blender with the set aside mango slices from step 1 until it's completely smooth

4. Set aside 1 cup of mango puree in the fridge from step 3

5. line a baking tray with or a square cake tin with baking paper, you need the paper to come up the sides of the tin by about 2.5cms or an inch 

6. pour remaining mango puree into the tin and put in the freezer to set

7. once the first tray of mango has set, add the reserved cup of mango plus 250mls pouring cream into the blender and blend until combined

8. Pour creamy mixture onto the top of the frozen mango tray and put back into the freezer to set

9. Once the top layer has set, remove tray from freezer, upturn onto a board and rub a cloth thats been rinsed and under hot water and wrung out, all along the bottom of the upturned tray, this will soon slightly melt the bottom of the mango mixture making it easier to remove from the tray. 

10. run a knife under hot water, wipe dry and slice your mango icecream into whatever sized bars you like. 

I wrap mine in baking paper and store in a container in the freezer so they are easy to remove and don't all stick together. 

*If you have mangos in the fruit bowl that are still a little firm, it's worth waiting a few days until your mangos are nice and ripe, especially if you are planning to omit some/all sugar

NOTE:

I do this for my almost 3 yr old without the sugar, using a similar method, except I pour into popsicle trays in reverse. So I set aside the water/mango/lemon mixture, and blend the cream and reserved cup of mango, and pour this into the bottom of the popsicle moulds, just a tiny amount. I let this set in the freezer and then fill to the top with pureed mango. There are no complaints!

If you are dairy free or vegan, you can swap the cream for coconut cream following the same method.

Enjoy!

Green mango chutney

I was lucky enough to spend most of my childhood in Far North Queensland. To this day, the smell of Mangos and that first mango of the season, simply transports me back to that time - the sweet heady smell of summer - evoking memories of bare feet, the beach, Nan and Pop's house, swimming in the pool with my cousins, stifling humidity and an endless supply of sweet sticky mangos, the juice running down our arms as we sucked the stringy fruit off the seeds.

In early Summer when the Mango trees are full of large, full, green fruit, it's chutney time. My Pop used to make it, my Mum makes it and now I do too. This recipe is an adaptation of my Pop's famous Mango chutney, I have his original recipe written down, the page stained with splotches of yellow - a visual timeline of the many chutneys that have been made with this recipe over the years. 

This is a rich, unctuous, sweet and spicy, sticky chutney, that is delicious with cold meats, dolloped on the side of a bbq plate, it's delicious with cheese, excellent on sandwiches and I have a dear friend who loves it so much she claims it can be eaten with a spoon! It can be blended and mixed with a little olive oil to be used as a glaze for meats or roasted vegetables and is brilliant with curries.

"Pop's" Green Mango Chutney

This is a photo of the enormous and ancient mango tree out the front of our little house - we have an endless supply of mangos (as well as the possums, bats and the odd python that come with them!)

TM Instructions

Ingredients

300gms Green Mango (peeled and seeds removed)
150gms Green apple cored, cut into 4 (approx 1 large green apple)
1/2 red onion
10 gms peeled ginger
4 large cloves garlic
1 birds eye chilli
100gms dates
100gms sultanas
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
300gms malt vinegar
100gms water
300gms brown sugar

Method

1. Pick your mangos! My son and I had fun knocking these low hanging greenies off with a broom!

2. Peel Your green mangos with a potato peeler and keep them in a sink of water with half a cut lemon floating in the water as you peel the rest. 

3. Cut the flesh away from the seed - get as much flesh off as you can without including any of the seed. 

4.) Add Mango flesh, Green apple, red onion and garlic to TM bowl and chop 2 secs | speed 5, set aside. 

5.) Add ginger, red chilli to bowl and chop 5 secs | Speed 6| scrape down side

6.) Add mango and apple/onion/garlic mix to TM bowl, add water, vinegar, spices, salt, dates and sultans and cook 5 mins | varoma |sp 1 | reverse with MC cap on, then remove MC cap and cook for a further 5 mins | varoma |sp 1 | reverse.

7.) Add 300gms brown sugar and cook 50 mins | 100 deg | Sp soft | reverse with the varoma bottom on top - this lets the steam out but catches the spitting.

8.) Cook for a further 10-20 mins | varoma | Sp 2 | reverse with varoma bottom on top You should be able to tell if the chutney is ready, as it will be thick and sticky, and it will 'gel' when tested on a cold plate. 

Bottle in hot sterile jars.

This recipe makes approximately 1 litre of chutney.

Stovetop Method 

I usually always make this on the stove in a nice big pot. This year a friend and I did a preserves swap, so I had the thermomix as well as 2 large pots going on the stove. The stovetop method is very forgiving, you can have a bit more or less of something and it will usually all still work out in the end. 

Ingredients:

8-10 large green mangos

5 green apples (My Pop uses paw paw 1/2 ripe, but it's not as easy to come by here as it is in Nth Qld so I use apples and I prefer the flavour)

1 cup water

1.5 litres brown vinegar

1.5 kgs brown sugar

2 handful dates

2 handful sultanas or raisins

1 large knob of green ginger (peeled)

1 large knob of garlic

6 birds eye chillies (if you don't like spice you can leave these out or reduce down the amount)

1 teaspoon allspice

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 tablespoon salt

2 large red onions

1. Prepare Mangos as per TM method (peel, cut away flesh)

2. Either use a food processor top chop mangos/apple/onion/garlic/ginger OR dice up mangos, apples, onion and garlic with a knife and grate ginger. Chop chillies finely. (I used the TM to chop everything in the picture below, it took literally seconds!)

3. Add mango and apple to a large pot with 1 cup of water and bring to the boil stirring regularly

4. Add all ingredients EXCEPT sugar to a large pot, bring to the boil and then gently simmer for 1/2 an hour, stirring regularly

5. Add sugar and simmer on a low heat for 2.5 to 3.5 hours stirring regularly. 

This recipe makes about 3.5 kgs of chutney. I didn't have a pot large enough to put everything in, so I split it between 2 pots. Just halve the recipe if you don't want to make as much, the cooking time is similar though. 

Bottle in hot sterile jars.

This is a picture of it all happening at once in my tiny kitchen, with 2 pots and the TM going at the same time! It made about 15 large jars of chutney. 

Truth be told, I don't think you can beat a long, slow cooked 3+ hour chutney, but the TM is a brilliant time saver and particularly good if you only want a few jars and not a very large batch. 

Enjoy!