Fruity Friday – Week 8 Spicy date, apple and ricotta dip
Welcome to week eight of my Day Zero Challenge to cook my way through a cookbook. You can find the details on the original post, Fruity Friday.
All recipes are taken from Readers Digest Fresh Fruit and Dessert book.
Our eighth recipe is:
Spicy date, apple and ricotta dip.
Serves 4
3 green cardamom pods
1 Bramley’s cooking apple, about 225g (8oz), peeled and roughly chopped
half tsp ground cinnamon
250g (9oz) ricotta cheese
To Serve
crudites such as wedges of red and green skinned apples, carrot, celery and cucumber sticks,
wedges of pineapple, seedless grapes and slices of carambola
Preparation time: 15-20 mins, plus cooling
1) Lightly crush the cardamom pods with the flat side of a chefs knife to split them open, then remove the seeds. Discard the pods and crush the seeds with the side of a knife or in a pestle and mortar.
2) Put the apple, dates, crushed cardamom seeds and cinnamon in a saucepan with 200ml (7 fl oz) water. Bring to a boil over a moderate heat, stirring occasionally.
Turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until the apples are cooked and the dates are pulpy. Stir the mixture occasionally during cooking.
3) Remove from the heat and leave to cool. When the apple mixture is cold, beat in the ricotta cheese.Keep covered in the fridge until needed. It will keep for 3-4 days.
4) Serve in a shallow bowl or dish surrounded by an assortment of fruit and vegetable crudites.
Each serving (dip alone) provides
195 kcals
7g protein
7g fat (of which saturated fat 4g)
27g carbohydrate (of which sugars 27g)
2g fibre
Family verdict:
I have to be frank and say it was horrible! The texture after adding the ricotta was terrible and made me a feel a little ill.
Aiden said he liked it so it looks like he’ll be the one eating it because I don’t think the girls will even try it. KayCee said the picture in the book looked horrible before we even bought the ingredients and that she didn’t want to try it!
The next 2 recipes are for muesli and granola. As none of us really care for either of those, I’m missing them out because we don’t want to waste money and food.
