Pineapple meringue

Yesterday we celebrated woman’s day in South-Africa. It was a glorious sunny day! We had a family braai, and made some chicken burgers and salad. The culinary star of the day? Pineapple meringues. 

I found this recipe on weighless facebook page, thank you weighless!! I must admit, if been on weighless for a few months now, and just by eating a healthy programme I’ve already lost 6kg. I’m taking it slow, and really trying to incorporate the vallues I learn on this programme into my lifestyle.

As you can see, it was a great success! It looked so pretty, and tasted divine.  I tweaked the recipe a bit, because I don’t like sugar replacements. This recipe made about 12 small meringues.

Yes I used Pink, it was woman's day :)

Pineapple meringue

1/4 cup Castor Sugar
1 tbsp butter
3 eggs (separated)
1/2 cup corn starch
2 tsp vanilla essence
225g Canned Crushed Pineapples with juice (weighless has a nice range of products, check it out)
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
6 tbsp castor sugar

Pinch of salt

1. Cream together the sugar, butter and egg yolks. Add 1 tsp of vanilla essence, salt, the corn starch and stir well. Now add the pineapple. Wisk the ingredients in a pot over a low heat until the mixture thickens.
2. Cup the mixture into 12 brightly coloured cupcake holders. Set aside to cool.
3. Next take your egg whites (make sure there is no yolk in this otherwise it won’t work), whisk with an electric whisk until the whites start to foam.
4. Now add the cream of tartar and castor sugar slowly while whisking.
5. Whisk until soft peaks form (do not over whisk your egg whites)
6. Spoon over the cooled pineapple and bake in a 200 degree oven for about 5-7 minutes or until the meringues start to brown.

As you can see it is easy and simple to make. It was cheerful and beautiful, just what we needed on such a lovely public holiday.

I hope you enjoy making these.

Yoghurt Pudding

So maybe I have a bit of a sweet tooth, I love desserts! As a kid I never used to eat chocolates or sweets, my mom always tell people about how I once threw a tantrum in the grocery store because I wanted an apple. If only it stayed this way.

Over the years I’ve fell in love with desserts especially cheese cake. This weekend I tried to be a bit adventurous and my family was the food critics. I was a bit uncertain if my idea would work, and I must admit I was very nervous!

My dad loves pudding and has very high standards when it comes to his beloved dessert. What happened? It was a great success! YAY!

I created a yummy, cheese cake inspired pudding. It tasted so good, and it is so healthy. The combinations can be endless, and I hope you have fun creating your own combinations. I’m even considering using this as a breakfast in summer.

Yoghurt Pudding

Yoghurt Pudding 
Ingredients:
Plain Yoghurt
Honey
Lemon Juice
Dried cranberries
Dried cling peaches
Tennis biscuit


Directions: 

1. First dice the dried cranberries and peaches in to smaller pieces. Put it in a pot with just enough boiling water to cover the pieces. Stew the fruit until all the water has cooked away, this will release the natural sweetness of the dried fruit and allow the flavours to marry. 
2. Now take 2 cups of plain yoghurt, add 2 tablespoons of honey and 1 teaspoon of lemon (obviously you can flavour it to your taste). Put the yoghurt in the microwave on high for 1 minute, take it out and stir. Put it back in for another minute, again stir and set it aside. 
3. Now comes the easy part. Crush the tennis biscuits and put it at the bottom of your ramekins. 
4. Put a layer of the stewed fruit over the tennis biscuits followed by the warm yoghurt. 
5. Leave in the fridge to cool and set for at least 2 hours. 

Layers before adding the warm yoghurt

As you can see this is a super easy and very versatile recipe. You can try different ingredients, yoghurts, even add spices like cinnamon. This could also make a nice breakfast if you use oats or muesli instead of tennis biscuit. Definitely a keeper in my recipe book.

I hope this recipe inspires you to try something different this week!