Dragon Fruit

Last week I tried Dragon Fruit for the first time!

Although commonly called dragon fruit, its proper name is pitaya. Its the fruit of a type of cactus called Hylocereus. They contain vitamin C, calcium & fibre.

I was quite surprised when I cut into the dragon fruit to find that the flesh was red!
I had never seen red flesh in pictures before - only white. To be quite honest, I did wonder if it wasn't ripe yet or something?!?!? Then upon further investigation I discovered that its just another variety of dragon fruit. There is also yellow skinned dragon fruit available!

I spooned out the soft flesh (the skin is not edible) and was expecting a massive flavour hit to accompany the amazing vibrant colour...... and yet found it to be very plain to taste. It was quite a delicate taste and only mildly sweet. The texture is quite smooth and the seeds were not disturbing at all, quite small and a bit crunchy like the black seeds found in kiwis.

I didn't really enjoy eating it plain so I decided to turn it into a smoothie.
It made an amazing colour that any little girl would surely love to have at a princess party ;-)
I added a frozen banana, frozen strawberry pieces & soymilk.
Delicious.

Question of the day:

Have you tried any exotic fruit lately?
Have you tried dragon fruit? What did you think?

A Vegan Tea Party

The day of the tea-party finally arrived!
All my hard work was well worth it! All the girls had a wonderful time.
We painted mini tea cups and played "pour the tea" blindfolded! We had a jewellery hunt instead of a treasure hunt (that's for boys!!!).
I won't post pictures of the girls to respect their privacy - but check out the AWESOME food & activities that we had at the tea party....

Making oreo pops - strong toothpick to hold the oreo dipped in melted chocolate and a few sprinkles on top!

A twist on pass the parcel! We had a talk about making sure we share presents around and think of people who haven't had something yet! It was so lovely to see the girls caring about others and thinking through the clue!

Tea pot bags - inside was a mini tea-cup to paint (as shown below).

Gotta love the craft store! So many good finds!

The girls had so much fun watching each other pour a cup-of-tea blindfolded!

Tea bag crackers!

Tea pot cookies

Fruit flowers!

I honestly wondered if the girls would enjoy the fruit or just go for the cookies and other more appealing food, but they ate all the fruit treats also!

I guess it really does help to make healthy food look appealing!

Kiwi flowers

 Date, raisin & seed balls, okara-coconut cookies, teapot cookies.

Oreo pops and more chocolate date balls (loved by them all!).

These date balls broke my food processor!!!! DEVO! Lucky they tasted so good!

And of course a teapot cake!

The girls enjoyed a range of different punches made from green tea, black tea & various flavoured teas mixed with apple & orange juice & soda water!

 Tea for the mums! (How cool is my teapot set!!!!)

No party is complete without party bags!!!!!
Tea stained ones seemed perfect for a tea party!!!!

Leftover cake makes for great cake pops to take the school!

And a special little treat for the boy who eats 'gluten free' in her class! No-one misses out when I cook!

Ok so I know that technically this isn't what-i-ate-on-wednesday but I finally got around to posting all about our great day on Saturday on Wednesday!!!!
Join in the WIAW fun at the peasandcrayons blog :-)

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL!

"You're worth more than gold" xxx