Celebrating 1st birthday with Strawberry milkshake & Strawberry Frozen Yogurt(without an ice-cream maker)

  Today is a special day for me which calls for celebration. No, it's not my birthday, anniversary or my kid's birthday. It's my 2nd Blog baby's birthday. Yes, Recipe Junction is my 2nd blogbaby. Around this week of April last year, I gave birth of this blog, after loosing my access to my 1st blogbaby "APPYAYAN". My baby has published 80 recipes so far, got a few awards and has bagged a winning recipe which made its place in the list of "30 best recipes of year 2010".

::Recipe Junction Turned One::

   I am really thankful to my all blogger friends(old and new) who didn't stop visiting me here and encouraging me with their sweet notes and comments. I thank you all from bottom of my heart, without your encouragement I couldn't complete my 3rd year of blogging. Thank you and visit me more...........
  As you see, my blog is based on Color Pink, So on this special occassion,  I thought to give it some more Pinky touch with two Strawberry recipes.

1. Strawberry-Banana Milkshake
My readers/followers already know how much my daughter loves Paneer, then you should also know the another food she cannot live without is Strawberry. It off course a good thing for me. But this is one of the fruit like Bananas who have very short self life. If you just forget for a day, then you have to throw the whole pack. It happened quite a few time and strawberries are one of the expensive fruits available in the market. I learned my lesson, so nowadays I finish my strawberry packs in one or mostly two days. I make this Strawberry milkshake for her breakfast, I add also banana in there and it tastes yumm. One glass of this milkshake will provide your child a good dose of vitamin D and calcium.

Ingredients :

Fresh Strawberries : 7-8
Ripe banana : 1
Chillled milk : 2 cups
Vanilla/strawberry ice cream : 1 scoop (optional, if available at home)

Method :

• De stalk the strawberries and slice. Peel bananas and slice. Put the fruits into blender/processor. No need to add sugar, as banana will make it sweet. 
• Add chilled milk and mix until smooth. If using ice cream, add now and mix until frothy. 
• Serve immediately.

2. Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

Pink is the color of Spring. Pink is the color of Cherry blossom. Pink is also the theme color of Akila's event, Food Palatte Series. After I saw her theme color, I decided to try Strawberry Frozen yogurt at home. I don't have any ice-cream maker. So I googled a lot and found this awesome guide of making homemade Ice-cream. I made Ice-cream before at home with mix with the same churning method, so had little idea about it. I thought to give it a try and tried this Fro yo last month. It really works. Try out sometime and have an guilt-free, healthy  dessert with bit of your time spent.

Ingredients : 

Strawberry : 450 gm. (rinsed and hulled, i.e., cut the green stalk)
Greek yogurt : 300 gm. (greek style yogurt works better than whole-milk/low-fat yogurt)
Sugar : 2/3 cup
Lemon juice : 1 tsp.

Method : 

• Slice the strawberries into small pieces. Toss in a bowl with the sugar until the sugar begins to dissolve. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours, stirring every now and then.
• Transfer the strawberries and their juice to a blender or food processor. Add the yogurt and fresh lemon juice. Blend until the mixture is smooth and creamy.You can strain this mixture through a strainer to remove the seeds. 

Churning Process :

• Take a wide big bowl and carefully pour the yogurt mixture into the bowl, then chill in the fridge for up to 2 hours.
• Take the bowl out of the fridge and transfer to the freezer for about half an hour. Then check just how much the mixture has frozen. Ideally, it should have started to freeze at the edges but not fully through to the centre. 
• Take the bowl out of the freezer and  beat the yogurt mixture until it’s creamy once again (to break up the ice crystals that have formed). Put it back in the freezer for another half hour, then remove and once again beat with a whisk. Do this again so that you have beaten the mixture a total of 3 times whilst freezing in between. 
• Put the mixture back into the freezer for a final time until it’s ready to eat. This can take anything from 30 minutes upwards, depending upon the quantity and type of ice cream you’re making and also how you like the consistency of your yogurt. 

Enjoy your handmade gulit-free Pinky beauty any time of the day in this Summer......
Sending both the Pinky beauties to Food palatte Series : Pink, hosted by Torview
And to HRH : Healthy Summer, event by Kurinji 
And to Fun N Sun event, @ Tickling Palates