Welcome to week two of my Day Zero Challenge to cook my way through a cookbook. Today we’re making mango peach fizz.
You can find the details in the original post, Fruity Friday.

All recipes are taken from the Readers Digest Fresh Fruit and Dessert book.

Our second recipe is:

Mango Peach & Apricot Fizz

Serves 4

You will need:
1 ripe mango
1 ripe peach
2 ripe large apricots
500ml (17 fl oz) ginger ale or lemonade if preferred.
Fresh mint or lemon balm leaves to decorate (optional)

If you can’t get fresh fruit, substitute with canned fruit in juice.

1) Peel the mango and cut the flesh away from the central stone. Roughly chop the flesh and put it in a blender or food processor. Alternatively, if you’re using a hand blender, put the mango in a large tall jug.

2) Cover the peach and apricots with boiling water and leave for about 30 seconds, then drain and cool under cold running water. Slip off the skins. Roughly chop the flesh, discard the stones, and add to the mango.

3) Pour over enough of the ginger ale just to cover the fruit, then process until completely smooth. Pour in the remaining ginger ale and process again.

4) Quickly pour into tall glasses, preferably over crushed ice. Decorate with fresh mint or lemon balm leaves, if you like. Serve immediately with wide straws or drizzle sticks.

Each serving provides:
55 kcal
1g protein
0g fat
14g carbohydrate (of which sugars 13g)
2g fibre

Family verdict:

We used tinned peaches and apricots and a fresh mango. We made two batches; one with lemonade instead of ginger ale because KayCee doesn’t like ginger ale.

The girls enjoyed whizzing it all up with the hand blender and then seeing all the froth come to the surface as we added more fizz!

After tasting both versions, we all agreed that although the ginger ale one was nice, we all preferred it with lemonade.

It’s a very refreshing drink and I can see us making lots more of it in the summer and pouring it over plenty of crushed ice 🙂

Welcome to week one of my Day Zero Challenge to cook my way through a cookbook. Today we’re making a strawberry yogurt smoothie.
You can find the details in the original post, Fruity Friday.

All recipes are taken from the Readers Digest Fresh Fruit and Dessert book.

Our first recipe is:

Strawberry Yogurt Smoothie.

To make 4 servings, you will need:

450g (1 lb) ripe strawberries, hulled
Grated zest and juice of 1 large orange
150g (5 and a half oz) plain low-fat yogurt
1 tbsp caster sugar, or to taste (optional)

To Decorate (optional)
4 small strawberries
4 small slices of orange

1) Tip the strawberries into a food processor or blender and add the grated orange zest, orange juice and yogurt. Blend to a smooth puree, scraping down the sides of the container once or twice. Taste the mixture and add *sugar or powdered sweetener, if necessary.

For a really smooth consistency, press through a nylon sieve to remove the strawberry pips, although this is not essential.

2) Pour the yogurt into the blender and whiz it again until the yogurt is fully mixed in.

3) Pour into glasses. If you like, decorate with small strawberries and slices of orange, both split so they sit on the side of the glass.

*To add sweetness without using sugar, add a sliced banana. It will also thicken the mixture.

Each serving provides:
55 kcal
3g protein
0.5g fat (of which saturated fat 0.2g)
11g of carbohydrate (of which sugars 11g)
1g fibre

Family verdict:

The kids enjoyed making the smoothie and all of them said it tasted nice but the orange gave it a tangy taste.
They said it would have been nicer without the orange so next time we’re not going to use it.
While eating breakfast, they discussed what other flavour smoothies they want to make next 🙂