Howdy Vegan MoFo’ers! Been a few days since I wrote. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve spent the last few weeks writing a grant at work which we just turned in. Now back to what’s way more fulfilling (unless we win this grant)…

Summer is such a great season. Sure, I could do without the extreme heat, frequent humidity, and plethora of bugs that want to suck my blood (are there vegan mosquitoes?), but the fruit in summer is amazing. From pluots to peach to watermelon to mangoes to a variety of berries… summer is never lacking in bold, fresh flavors of fruit. I like my fair share of fruit salads as well as eating whole fruit, but sometimes the lazy chewer in me gets the best of my cooking choices, so I like to whip up things like dessert soups. They’re cool, refreshing, and full of flavor.

Peach-Strawberry Dessert Soup with Tapioca Sauce

Peach-Strawberry Dessert Soup with Vanilla Tapioca Sauce

Ingredients:

• 3 cups rice milk (soy or almond milk), divided
• ⅓ cup small tapioca pearls
• 1 ½ tsp cornstarch (or 1 tsp. arrowroot)
• 3 tablespoons agave nectar or other sweetener
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 pound strawberries, washed and stemmed
• 1 pound peaches (peeled)
• agave nectar to taste
• juice from ½ a lemon
• 1 pint raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or other fruit in season, rinsed and drained

Directions:

For the tapioca sauce… place 2 1/2 cups of rice milk and the tapioca into a saucepan. Heavier is better so that it can simmer without scorching. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally to avoid scorching the liquids, and then turn down the heat to a simmer. Stir well every few minutes, scraping the bottom and sides. This is one of those recipes that you can’t just leave and come back to. If tapioca just cooks unattended, it can congeal together, and that’s really not the goal. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until the tapioca pearls are just turning translucent.

Make a slurry of the arrowroot and 1 tablespoon of rice milk. Set that mixture aside. Add the remaining rice milk to the pan along with the agave and vanilla extract. Increase heat so that the mixture gets up to a gentle boil again. Continue cooking for five minutes. Don’t forget to stir! Mix in the arrowroot slurry and cook until the liquid thickens.

Remove from heat and chill in refrigerator for about 2 hours or so. You can also use a cold water bath to chill it faster. The mixture will be thicker than water, but not as thick as a pudding.

While the sauce is cooling, prepare the fruit for the dessert soup. Cut the peaches into bite-size pieces. Cut the strawberries in quarters. For each fruit, you’ll want to follow this process… put the fruit in a food processor along with the about 1 teaspoon of agave nectar and pulse until coarsely pureed. Taste it. If it’s too tart, add another teaspoon of agave nectar. Stir in the juice from ¼ lemon to add depth of flavor and keep the color from turning. So start with the peaches. When the peaches are done, process the strawberries.

I like my fruit purees to have a little texture, so I usually don’t puree it very long. If you want an ultra-think soup, then puree longer. You can also add some apple juice to liquefy it more.

To assemble… using a pretty glass container, add about ¼ cup of the thicker fruit puree to the bottom of the glass. Follow that up with ¼ cup of the other fruit puree (for me, it was peach first then strawberry). Add about two tablespoons (or more) of the vanilla tapioca sauce and top off with a few raspberries, blueberries, or whatever fruit you’ve chosen. Serve immediately, or chill for up to ½ an hour if serving later.

If you’re the thin fruit soup type person (don’t worry, some of my best friends are thin fruit soup type people), then use a small shallow bowl and pour the fruit purees into two halves. If you’re careful, you can even do a yin yang design with them. Top with the vanilla tapioca sauce and fresh fruit. The consistency of apple sauce, or slightly thicker, is good for layering. Anything thinner is best for a shallow bowl.

Variations:

Try different fruits. In summer, there are plenty of fruits in season (like melons and other stone fruits). Mango is great too! Also, if you make the vanilla tapioca sauce thicker (like a pudding), then you can turn this into a parfait.

100% Fruit Smoothie with a Good Head of Foam

Smoothies are such great food! It seems like every restaurant, food court, and fast food place (and their grandma) offers some kind of smoothie, but one of the problems is that popular food places often add unnecessary fillers that decrease the quality and nutritional value of the smoothie. You know what I mean… sherbet, “special sweeteners,” yogurt, ice cream, and other things. Even adding ice is unnecessary as far as I’m concerned.

One thing I’ve always done is use frozen fruit instead of ice. Pair the frozen fruit with chilled juice (100% of course), and you’ve got yourself an all natural, vegan, 100% fruit smoothie. Here’s a basic recipe of sorts that I use all the time… in a lot of ways, I’d call it a structure instead of a recipe. It’s something easily modified for any fruit or juice. In experimentation, I really like the combination of a juice, a fresh fruit, and a frozen fruit.

100% Fruit Smoothie

• 2 1/2 cups chilled juice (I use a cranberry peach juice a lot because it’s got a lot of depth of flavor, but any 100% juice will do. I also often use apple or apple and pomegranate. I do stay away from citrus juices that are really strong like grapefruit or tangerine.)
• 1 banana cut into about six pieces (If you don’t like bananas, try another fresh fruit like strawberries or mango.)
• About 5 ounces of frozen berries (You can use any frozen fruit here. I often mix frozen berries with frozen mango or pineapple. You don’t have to be fanatical about the exact amount. I buy 10 oz. bags of frozen berries and use about half a bag… hence the 5 ounce measure.)

Pour the juice into a blender. Add the banana or other fresh fruit. Add the frozen fruit on top of that. Blend until smooth. Pour, drink, and enjoy! This recipe makes about 36 fluid ounces… enough for four healthy servings (unless you’re doing smoothie shots… then it’s enough for about 18 shots).

Here are some extra tips:

• Use the highest setting on the blender for the smoothest smoothie.
• Pulse a few times after the blending is basically done. This helps get all the bits blended in.
• If you don’t like seeds, strain the smoothie with a sieve (this doesn’t always work well if your smoothie is thick).
• If you need more fiber and roughage, don’t strain berry seeds out. They’re a good natural laxative.
• If you only use frozen berries, you may get a lot of tasty, tight foam. This isn’t a bad thing at all, but if you don’t want the foam, try a mix of other frozen fruit. For some reason, berries cause the most foam. If you know why, comment please! I’d love to find out. I think the foam is kind of neat. It’s all the rage in fine dining establishments, right?
• If you make a big batch to save for another day, consider adding juice from 1/4 of a lime or lemon during the blending. The citric acid helps retain the color.
• If you like smoothies a little chunky, then don’t blend it as much or blend on a lower setting. However, a chunky smoothie is kind of an oxymoron.
• Don’t be afraid of unusual combinations like apple juice with fresh white peaches and frozen cherries (don’t forget to skin and seed the peaches).