A Lolly Vaps

Who doesn’t love a lolly? I’ve yet to find a person who doesn’t like a cold icy fruit flavoured (or milky) treat on a stick. It’s fun to eat, it cools you down and you can make them any way you like and from nearly anything you love.

 

For me, lollies mean a return to my childhood. When you were playing for hours in the hot sun and you heard that bell… you know you always found that extra burst of energy to spend running towards the lolly man to buy your cold treats. And who doesn’t remember that old Sesame Street clip with the girl and her mother making popsicles or ice pops (as they’re called in America) out of a pitcher of juice and paper cups? (I wonder if they used Kool Aid – it makes a great lolly too, especially the blue one!

I was seriously jonesing for these and to be honest, it was already night time and I didn’t want to go to the store to get one. Luckily I had a couple of lolly moulds on hand and I was determined to create something different and I didn’t want the kind of lolly you make from regular juice. A mango lolly seemed like the perfect plan.

Scanning the fridge, I looked in vain for the three mangoes I had. Sadly, just one small and lonely little mango stared pitifully at me. No worry. As they say, ‘When you doh have mammy, take granny’, so I decided to utilize some of the cantaloupe I had there. Grabbed a few limes and thought hard about how this was all going to come together.

Some simple syrup would start the jamming…

My baby saucepan went on the stove with 1 cup of water and a ½ cup of granulated sugar. I just let it heat up and stirred it until the granules disappeared and then left it to cool.

Peeled and chopped up the mango and a good slice of the cantaloupe – the flavour of the cantaloupe is pretty mild, so even though the mango is small, its own flavour won’t be lost.

Now these limes were tiny, so I squeezed about 4 of them and managed to get about a ¼ cup of lime juice.

Grabbed the blender and I poured the cooled syrup into it, and then added the mango.

Next up were the cantaloupe, lime juice, some Angostura orange bitters and a teeny pinch of salt. Yup. Salt. (It would cut the intense sweetness – take what ah telling yuh!)

Put the blender on “Liquefy” and let to do just that. WZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Assembly time! Carefully poured the juice into each lolly mould to just below the edge (ice expands so it needs room). Put in the sticks and placed them in the freezer.

But I did have some leftovers… no scene, into the backup moulds they went to join their partners to chill overnight!

 

Cue to next day when the sun was doing some major damage...

I remembered the lollies. Unfortunately, in my excitement to try one, the mould slipped out of my hand and fell, snapping the edge off. *sigh*

No matter, I put it back and turned my attention to the backup mould. To release, I simply ran it under some cold water, then spun it around and pulled gently until it came out.

Ta-daaaaah! Looks so delicious!

Mmm-hmm… definitely tasting that mango!

(Of course, I had to go grab a second round!)

I love when a vaps works out. This recipe will be getting tweaked as I go along, since cantaloupe is not something I normally have laying around in the fridge. I can suggest doing this with two good sized ripe, firm mangoes (definitely use those that don’t have many strings). Or, use one large mango and another fruit such as watermelon (minus the seeds), paw-paw or even pineapple. Just use your imagination! For a milky version, I’d probably try it with soursop or barbadine with some kind of flavoured yoghurt... or milk. (Definitely looking forward to those experiments!)

So, I’m going to continue to enjoy these lollies and think up some new ones along the way. Take care everyone, and don’t forget to mind the pot!

[P.S. - Just made a new version using ginger syrup, lime and more cantaloupe… it’s going down wickeeeeeed! Sorrel may be in the future!]

Meatballs n’ Shrimp Lime: Part 2

Confession time. A decade or more ago, I had a classic shrimp cocktail at a function in Federation Park during my Toute Bagai days. It was simply done, cooked with a hint of lime and paired well with the slightly sweet tomato dipping sauce and horseradish. But I didn’t love it enough to want to make it myself.

You see, shrimp was one of those things that I used to leave alone on purpose because it needed some extra care when preparing it, and I would often worry that I wouldn’t have cooked it enough and consequently make myself ill, which never happened, of course. My late mother and father were the ones who loved shrimp the most. Curried shrimp and Chinese style pepper shrimp were Selwyn’s favourites (forgive me, but I always called my father by his first name). My mother, however, preferred Granny’s treatments, because for her to eat shrimp, it couldn’t look like itself. So my Granny always minced it for her.

Because of that fuss, I tended to only eat it already prepared and my early shrimp purchases were always of the precooked variety. I’d simply heat and serve them with a variety of dips, which soon became, well… predictable. Fast forward to nowadays and my shrimp love knows no bounds. I boil, roast, bake and steam them (and then some). So, for our mother daughter day recently, I decided to do an easy treatment of steamed shrimp to go with the big pot of spaghetti and tomato sauce I was bubbling while waiting for my chicken meatballs to bake in the oven…

A little less than a pound of shrimp were thawed. Then I peeled off the outer shells, leaving the tails on.

Next step was to butterfly them by taking my knife and splitting their backs open. Sometimes when you do this you’ll see a little black vein; always remove it, okay?

All cleaned and ready for seasoning, which consisted of lime juice, a pinch of salt, some Chinese Five Spice Powder, ginger powder, Angostura bitters and some fresh chopped parsley. (You’ll see how it looks seasoned in the other pic.)

I poured about an inch or so of water into my pot and mixed in two crumbled maggi vegetable cubes and two cloves of garlic. Then I set my steamer in there. The seasoned shrimp went in when the water began boiling.

Closed the pot tightly and let it go for about 8 to 10 minutes.

The shrimp are done! (Wish you could have smelled this.)

To serve them up, my daughter ladled up her sauce on the spaghetti and let me arrange them how I pleased… after scarfing down a few beforehand, hahahaa!

The finished dish! And here’s the recipe:

Steamed Shrimp

1 pound raw shrimp (remove the shells, de-vein and butterfly them)

Juice of half a lime

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon Chinese Five Spice powder

Couple shakes of ginger powder

Angostura Bitters

For the steaming water:

2 vegetable Maggi Cubes

2 garlic cloves

To cook…

• Prepare your saucepan by pouring in 1½ inches water. Crumble the two Maggi cubes into it and cut the garlic cloves in half and add them to the water.
• Place to boil on a medium high flame.
• Prepare the peeled and deveined shrimp by seasoning it with the lime, salt, parsley, Five Spice powder, ginger powder and Angostura bitters; toss well to combine the seasonings and leave to marinate for a few minutes.
• Set up your steamer basket on its legs and place it into the pot, ensuring that the cover fits tightly. (If you don’t have a steamer basket, you can use a colander as a substitute.)
• Next, arrange the seasoned shrimp in your steamer basket or colander.
• Cover tightly and steam the shrimp for 8 to 10 minutes.
• When done, the shrimp tails should be a beautiful bright orange colour and the flesh nice, white and firm.

Remove from the pan and place the shrimp on to your serving dish. Use as an appetizer or enjoy them as a main dish.

And that was how it all went down. We ate. We laughed… ate some more... It was a wonderful lime and we’ve made plans to repeat it again very soon.

In the meantime, I will be working on more dishes to share with you, so keep checking in, alright? Till next time, take care, and don’t forget to mind de pot! :-)

Meatballs n’ Shrimp Lime: Part One

Even though my daughter is now 24 and has her own small circle of friends, we still enjoy each other’s company tremendously. Last week was no exception.

For the recent long holiday we decided to spend the day together at home, just chilling in my ol’ bed with our computers and cable TV. I know it's a far cry from the days when a lime meant getting dressed and going out somewhere, but with our schedules, we hardly see each other. So, we decided to just do it this way and catch up on everything instead.

As it got closer to mealtime, I knew exactly what I was feeling for, because I had been saving that nice pack of minced chicken from D Market Movers for just such an occasion. I wanted chicken meatballs. Ms Fish Eater however, would get her own special in the form of some lovely steamed shrimp (which I will share in Part two of this post).

Now I have used minced chicken in lots of ways, but with today being a special one, I felt truly inspired to create a different, lighter, yet tasty and spicy version of my traditional beef meatball, which you know I go nuts for. If you think that a chicken meatball is not going to be delicious, I beg to differ. The chicken meatball is in a class of its own and can stand up to the test with its beefier cousin easily. You don’t believe me? Take a look and see…

My thawed, minced chicken was placed into a bowl and I squeezed in a little lime juice.

Now I’m showing pictures of the seasonings I used, because my multitasking self got caught up in seeing about the spaghetti and the tomato sauce to accompany both dishes, so my brain was on overload, hahahaa! 

So, varying amounts of each of these went into the minced chicken, along with an unbeaten egg and 1 cup of dried seasoned breadcrumbs. Everything was easily mixed together with a large spoon.

I then scooped heaping tablespoons of the seasoned chicken and rolled them out to the size of a good lime (or a golf ball), then placed them into a baking dish sprayed with non stick cooking spray. The dish was then covered tightly with aluminium foil and placed in a 400°F oven to bake for 20 minutes.

When they came out, they had increased a little in size, but were still very pale in colour. So, back into the oven they went uncovered for 10 minutes.

See? They’re now a nice light brown. (Don’t worry about the brown spot on the bottom, that’s quite normal.) 

Removed them from the dish and placed them into a bowl, where I couldn’t resist taking a taste… that hot pepper tasted so nice in there!

To serve, I had my bowlful of cooked spaghetti all ready with some warm and flavoured tomato sauce. A light sprinkling of some Parmesan cheese to top it off, and voila!

Care for a bite?

This dish was so tasty… dare I say that the beef was not missed? I’m serious. And if you’d like to try it yourself, just email me for the full recipe at naiclah@gmail.com.

Thanks for letting me share this today, and you can definitely  look forward to part two of the meatballs and shrimp lime (coming very soon). Take care of yourselves my friends, and doh forget to mind de pot!