Pink Grapefruit Cosmoplitan Smoothie

Three parts frozen Cosmopolitan. I used the cocktail in a bucket type, but any frozen cosmo would do.
One part pink grapefruit ice cream. I made a beautiful pink grapefruit ice cream late last year, but unfortunately that was in my non-blogging period, and now I can't find the recipe. I know it was custard based, and I think I may have cannibalised so other sort of citrus ice cream recipe to make it.
Blitz in the blender until smooth. The photo does not do the pinkness of this drink justice.

And the taste? Well apart from moaning, I'd say it's fruity, sweet and tart and creamy and refreshing, and not for people with sensitive teeth - the vodka doesn't freeze until it's way below zero, so this ends up super cold. Pretty strong too.
On second thoughts, perhaps I should not have written this post while I was taste testing. Meh, What's a drunken post or two between friends.

This is the drink I'm serving up for the Virtual Girls Night In. I thought I'd post it up before round up so you could all try some too. If I find that pink grapefruit ice cream recipe, I promise I'll blog it up for you. It's very delicious.

Don't forget to think (and cook!) pink for the Virtual Night In, raising money and awareness for Breast Cancer Research.

Mixed Berry Smoothies

With a forecasted top of 40°C today, I was glad it was fish and chips for dinner, especially as yesterday I well and truly overdid it with the making of soup, rolls, ice cream and cake. But yesterday was only 38°C.

Not that I had fish though, and DP thought it was too hot to eat anything salty... in fact he must think it is still too hot to eat anything, even though the cool change has come in (now).

But at the time I finished dinner, it was still 38°C. And I thought it was the perfect time to try a Mixed Berry Smoothie, as blogged by Shyamala, over at Food, In The Main... This is a fairly old recipe of hers, so click here for the pertinent post, or click on my ever so arty pic above. Her recipe was as follows:

Mixed Berry Smoothie:
1-1/2 cups mixed berries (she used strawberries, raspberries and frozen blueberries)
3 scoops low-fat vanilla icecream
2 cups milk
1 cup yogurt
a few ice cubes
Sugar to taste

Method:
Blitz all the ingredients (minus the sugar) in a blender. Taste for sweetness and add sugar as required. Blend again. Serve cold in big glasses.

Now, I didn't change much, but I feel to be honest, I should share the changes I made. I used frozen blueberries and frozen raspberries. I had no strawberries, as it's impossible to keep them in my house with Miss Two around... she can sniff them out of fridge at 5 metres away, and then she won't stop pestering till she can eat them! I also had no low-fat vanilla ice cream. I have vanilla bean ice cream I made yesterday, but that is far too good to go in a smoothie, no matter how good the smoothie! But I did have some moderately low fat strawberry ice cream that I made back in January, that was a little on the undersweet side, so we haven't been eating it. I also used wildberry flavoured yogurt, because I couldn't find a big enough single plain or vanilla when I did the shopping. Oh yeah, I didn't use ice either, because all my fruit was frozen. And I used a couple of drizzles of honey instead of sugar to sweeten.

Still, it turned out this lovely bright purple colour, and once again I find myself lamenting the lack of a real digital camera, as opposed to the dodgy one on my phone, or the 7yo one we have with no connecting to computer abilities (anymore). You really can't tell the beautiful colour this was from these photos.

Wish you could see the real colour this was

This was an entry for March's Monthly Blog Patrol, hosted by Sig at Live To Eat and originally thought up by Coffee at The Spice Cafe