Raspberry Panna Cotta

Hello!! It has been quite a long time since my last publication, but as a lot of you probably know I went on vacation. I spend some days in the beautiful Algarve, in the south of Portugal. You can check some of the pictures I took on my instagram. If you have the chance you have to go! Lovely lanscapes, amazing views, nice people and the most important delicious and cheap food almos everywhere. 

Todays I have a soft and yummy panna cotta with raspberries, and the raspberries are from my little orchard! yes! well acutally the amount you see in the picture was all I could get last weekend and I top this dessert. For the coulis in the base I used frozen ones. I would wish to have a bigger orchard.

Raspberry Panna Cotta

serves 6 
coulis:
200 g raspberries
zest and juice of half lemon
2 tablespoons sugar

panna cotta: 
250 ml heavy cream
250 ml whole milk
50 g sugar
3 gelatin sheets
5 cardamom seeds
1 vanilla stick
fresh raspberries for topping

For the coulis blend de raspberries first. Combine the sugar and the raspberries in a saucepand and bring it to boil. Add the juice and the grate of the lemon and stir until thinkens. Let it cool down for a while and divide it among the pots. Place them in the fridge while you prepare the panna cotta.

Heat the heavy cream, the milk and  sugar in a saucepan with the vanilla and the cardamom pods open. Bring it to simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover an leave to infuse for 20 minutes. In the meanwhile put the gelatin into a bowl with cold water for 5 minutes. 

Remove vanilla and cardamom and if too cold heat it for a while before you add the gelatin. 

Drain the gelatin and add it to the mixture, stir and divide the mixture among the pots.

Refrigerate until set and thoroughly chilled, 3-4 hours or better overnight.
Top with fresh raspberries.

If you like panna cotta you can check out this chocolate one.
What's about you, any special plans for the summer?

Enjoy your week
♥♥♥

Smoothie for the tan

I use to make smoothies quite often and now which summer days are coming I do smoothies even more often, almost everyday. I´m going on vacation tomorrow! yes! to Algarve, I´m really so excited, I know Portugal from Lisbon to the top of the country, but I never been in the south, so any recomendation will be welcome!

So I decided to prepare the skin for the sun. Take all your orange colour fruits and vegetables and blend them, it really helps. The experts say it is not necessary to spend money in artificial stuff from pharmacy or any other store, all we need is in the magic foods such as carrot, pumkin, mango, papaya, orange, tomato and much more all of them help to maximize the skin pigmentation, but do not forget your skin protection! Since few years ago my skin turned more sensitive, I´m not a person who gets tan, actually the other way around, I have quite a lot of freckles, so my skin could never get tan, but just to get some color, everybody looks much better with a light tan, don´t you think so?

I'm not going to give you the exactly amount of each ingredients because what I really do is mix all what I have and just ajust the ingredients at my taste.

Carrot and Mango Smoothie

frozen mango chunks (about 250 g)
carrots (about 3 or 4)
cucumber (half medium cucumber)
orange juice (2 oranges)

Blend all ingredients until smooth, you may want to add more liquid if the consistency is too thick, instead orange juice you can also use water.
Serve inmediately.

With these ingredients I did the one you can see in the pictures, but I like to include sometimes banana as well, it gives more sweetness. If you want you can add some teaspoons of honey or sweetener. 

If you like smoothies try as well with a green smoothie, I do not like to mix it milk or wather in there, instead I use juice such as lemon or orange. But a milky option which I love also are lassis.

Protect your skin and enjoy!

See you in two weeks and if you want you can follow me on instagram I will try to upload some pictures of my trip 

♥♥♥