Easy Cold Desserts

After the cooling winter-like breezy days, the weather here has slowly gone back to the usual hot and stuffy summer-like times… L

The best way to chase away the heat is eating sweet cold desserts! Matcha Jelly, Mango Sago and Avocado Smoothie are the desserts that my family enjoys a lot. They are yummy, healthy and easy to make.

  

This Matcha Jelly is very refreshing, chewy and full of green tea goodness. The recipe is adapted from The Modern Vegetarian but I made slight adjustments and also added Nata De Coco as my daughters love them.

Matcha Jelly with Nata De Coco

Ingredients:

• 1 packet (10g) konnyaku jelly powder
• 100g fruit sugar
•  900ml water
• Matcha mixture (4 teaspoons green tea powder, mixed with 100ml warm water)
• Some Nata De Coco

Method:

1. Mix the konnyaku jelly powder with sugar and set aside
2. Bring water to a boil in a pot. Stir in the jelly powder mixture; continue stirring to dissolve the mixture
3. Remove pot from heat and continue to stir until bubbles disappear and mixture becomes clear
4. Sift the liquid mixture into a bowl, and then sift in the green tea mixture too. Stir to combine the two
5. Pour the matcha jelly mixture into the jelly mould and add in 2-3 small cubes of Nata De Coco
6. Leave the jelly to cool before refrigerating until chilled.
7. Enjoy the chilled jellies

Many people stay away from avocado because of its un-appetizing appearance, relatively bland taste and high fat content. However, the fruit actually has tones of benefit for our health. (I’ve extracted some nutritional goodness of avocado and posted then at the end of this post).

Avocado Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 125ml low fat milk (or more for a more watery version)
• About 6 ice cubes
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1-2 teaspoons gula malacca syrup (or more)

Method:

1. Cut Avocado into halve, peel away the skin and the seed
2. Blend the avocado in a blender, together with milk, ice cubes and honey
3. Pour out the smoothie to a bowl/glass
4. Drizzle with gula Malacca syrup on top of the smoothie
5. Stir and enjoy the goodness

Mango is many people’s favourite fruit. I did not add any sugar and it still tastes so sweet. Thanks to the fruit’s natural sweetness.

Mango Sago

Ingredients:

• 2 big and ripe mangoes (I used Australia mangoes)
• 250ml Fresh Milk
• 50g Sago
• Some ice cubes

Method:

1. In a pot with water, boil the sago in low heat. Stir constantly to prevent them from sticking
2. Once all the sago turns opaque, strain and rinse them with cold tap water. Set aside
3. Remove the mango skin, cut them into cubes. Set aside about 4 tablespoons and blend the rest in a blender into puree
4. Add in the milk, ice cubes and sugar syrup (if using) and blend to combine
5. Stir in the sago to combine
6. Pour into 4 bowls and top each bowl with one tablespoon of mango cubes
7. Serve chilled

Note: Can omit the ice cubes and place the mango sago dessert in the fridge to chill before serving.

Some good to know nutritional facts about Avocado:

1. Avocado is rich in magnesium that reduces risk of excess belly fat, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood sugar.
2. Avocado is a good source of dietary fiber. One Avocado delivers a whooping 11 grams of fiber. It is also rich in vitamin A, vitamin K, Vitamin C, Foliate, Iron and calcium.
3. It is a good source of antioxidant too. The antioxidants in avocados are believed to help in the prevention of cancer, arthritis, heart disease, and eye cataracts; the fruit may also delay the aging process.
4. The fat content in avocado is believed to make you feel full quicker and thus help you to eat less saturated fats and sugar. Hence, it offers a good option for those on diet to shed some weight.
5. One avocado of 201 grams has 322 calories, 29 grams of fat, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 14 milligrams of sodium and 4 grams of protein.