Fruit of the Month: Cherries!

Who doesn't love cherries?? (My sister, apparently. Crazy!) I have been eating cherries like they were air this season. I have been buying cherries for $7.99/kg at my fruit shop for a couple of weeks now - they are the reject cherries marked down because no one would buy them at the normal price (15 or so dollars/kg) but I think they are still good, especially used in what I've been using them in!

Cherries are apparently an aid to sufferes of gout (and arthritis) - the flavonoids in the cherry juice help reduce uric acid levels in the blood stream. Doesn't work for everyone, but it does for many! They also taste good. For only 87 calories per 1 cup serve, they make an excellent snack choice for anyone. (Not that I care about the caloric content - I'd eat the whole kilo if I wouldn't feel sick!) That same one cup serving also has 3% of your daily iron needs, 16% of your vitamin C and 2% of your calcium. [Source: nutritiondata.com]

Now for some uses:

Freeze them for the long cold winter ahead of us. I've found this to come in handy. I've hardly bought any frozen berries lately (because my freezer is full of containers of cherries) and pitting all the cherries is quite relaxing. I just cut them in half, twist it apart and then pry out the pit with a knife. Don't cut yourself. Apparently if you freeze them whole they'll take on an almond flavour from the pit. I just put it all into plastic takeaway containers (or whatever container you want) and freeze. When I need to use them it only takes a second to pry them apart (once you get one the whole lot usually falls apart).

Use them in a tart or pie. (Top right obviously). This was our Christmas dessert table! I contributed the Pear Frangipane Tart from the Post Punk Kitchen. Everyone loved it. I've made it twice now. I'm sure the pear version is lovely, but I don't think pears are in season here right now. But when they are I'm totally making it. Again.

Put them in your breakfast smoothie. I have smoothies for breakfast quite often. Since my old food processor finally carked it (JUST when I was about to start making my christmas tart) and I bought myself a fancy pants new one with a blender attachment, smoothies will be much more regular. Here's one I had this morning:

Cherry-Almond Smoothie

I small frozen banana

1 cup frozen cherries

30g (1/3 cup) almond meal

30g (1/3 cup) rolled oats

1 tbsp chia seeds

1 1/2 cups slmond milk

Blend. Makes about 2 cups.

This smoothie provides:  17g protein, 28% daily calcium, 10% daily iron, 23g fat (only 2 of which are saturated). Not bad huh? I was pretty impressed. It also lasted me for like, 3 hours.

Bake them into a cake or muffins. I made Lemon cherry muffins by Vegan in Bellingham. I chose this recipe while searching 'vegan cherry muffins' on the net because I already had all the ingredients. And they are so good. I made them yesterday afternoon and there's only 3 left. Good thing they are relatively good for you :)

And last, but not least, ice cream! I was gifted with an ice cream maker for Christmas from my mum and HOOFUCKINGRAY! I tested the wodnerful machine out today with a basic vanilla ice cream with what was supposed to be blasamic cherry swirl, but it turned out a little more like cherry ice cream. I used the lazy vanilla ice cream from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise blog, except instead of creamer I used a can and abit of coconut cream. Unfortunately the shop only had light in the cheap brand, but full fat would definately have been better. This ice cream still rocks my world though!

I cooked 2 cups of pitted cherries down with 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar. This would be good on top of plain vanilla ice cream too, but I wanted something fancy for my first time use of the Wonder Machine! I'd chop the cherries up into little bits next time because I had to mash them this time and one squirted me in the eye. I thought I'd go blind. I didn't, obviously. So anyway, I let the ice cream maker do it's job for 20 minutes, and then I blobbed in this sauce (and 1/4 cup cacao nibs) and let it swirl around for a few minutes. Oooh it's good. The balsamic adds just a touch of a different flavour as an aftertaste. yum. I've had to stop myself from eating the whole lot. it's not even frozen yet!

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Happy cherry eating! I hope they stay cheap for just a little while longer...I want to freeze more for when I hibernate.

Smoothie!

It's what's for breakfast.

I find smoothie recipes to be a bit redundant, I mean, don't you just chuck in whatever you've got in the fruit bowl and hope for the best? This is essentially me doing just that but the result was so pleasent I wanted to share.

This is a good way to get some healthy avocado into your crazy avocado hating friends and family!

Ingredients (makes about 2 cups worth):

1 tiny banana (for real - mine was probably barely 100g, I buy teeny ones at the farmer's market for $8kg)

1/2 a ripe avocado (if you can't afford bananas yet, use the whole avocado)

1 cup frozen raspberries (or other frozen fruit)

1 tbsp chia seeds

1/2 tbsp pea protein isolate powder

1 cup non dairy milk (I used soy)

Put all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend. (See? Redundant.)

The result is a smooth creamy smoothie that I very much enjoyed for my breakfast and am going to have again tomorrow it was so nice. If it's not sweet enough for you, add a tbsp or so of maple syrup, agave, or molasses or whatever liquid sweetener you like. I love the tartness of raspberries so for me it was perfect.

The chia seeds are crunchy in it - if you don't like that then I reccomend making a chia gel/pudding type thing before adding them into your smoothie. Apparently this goo lasts in the fridge for ages. I couldn't be arsed.

Also, to give it more staying power, I'd add some raw oats or wheat germ or something in it, otherwise it's really just a drink!

I've always been curious about trying a protein powder. Not for any particular reason - I doubt I actually NEED any more protein, but it's always fun to try new things. Whey protein is obviously out, soy protein (which you can get at Mrs Flannery's in bulk) sounds revolting and I really don't need any more soy in my life, the other main option seems to be this pea protein, which I've only seen in huge big buckets, but while at Mrs Flannery's the other week I saw it in little packets! Hooray!

It basically smells like guinea pig food, but once you get over that it's fine. I've been mixing it into my overnight oats that I have for breakfast before work. It has no noticeable taste (though I put lots of things into my oats so that could be covering it) but I've only been using quite a scant amount because as you can see, there is no serving size on the bag I got! And I don't really want/need that much. So a half tbsp is usually what I use.