Mulberry Smoothie

After my post on Mulberry Muffins few weeks ago, I had a few mulberries at hand and I had to work on them quickly. They seem to have a very short shelf life, so I had to whisk up some thing out of them before they would decay, only to end up in the thrash bin.

I generally end up making compotes & jams from fruits that don't last long. Especially, with fruits like strawberries, mulberries, figs, they seem to work fantastic. Chopped fruits are immersed in sugar and gently heated through till they thicken. I like to season them with vanilla or some spices at times. What's best is that they store well in the freezer for long. I get to use them at my disposal as per my whims and fancies. Just thaw them and they are competent enough to make great toppings on ice creams and panna cotta and provide various fruity dessert options to try.

With a good amount of mulberries at hand, they ended up in a compote again (and probably another few desserts following them ;) ) And if you have guests coming in at the drop of a hat, then they are a great rescue with smoothies like this one. I served them with my Classic Oatmeal Cookies.

The compote and the smoothie are simple, quick and easy. Here's what we need:

Mulberry Smoothie

For the compote:

15-20 large mulberries
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Bruise the mulberries gently using a the back of a fork so that the juices are released. Put the mulberries, sugar and water in a pan and heat them on gentle flame till the syrup thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove and add in the vanilla essence. Allow to cool and transfer to a clean container. You may freezer this for up to a month.

For the smoothie:

1 tbsp mulberry compote
1 cup chilled soy milk
1 tbsp crushed ice

Blend mulberry compote and the chilled soy milk till they are homogeneous. The compote has vanilla and sugar, so no flavors have been added here. Transfer to a serving glass and top with crushed ice. Serve chilled.

I love the elegant purple colors bursting from mulberries. They make it look tempting. I love using soy milk since it's thicker than regular milk. I am a HUGE fan of soy milk and soy products, so I always look for excuses to use them whenever I possibly can!

If you wish to avoid the compote, just ignore the water part in the compote and blend all the ingredients (mulberries, sugar, milk and vanilla) together. The mulberries too have water content in them. Adjust sugar as per your taste. The measurements don't really matter, since it's a choice of individual tastes.

It was strange and funny that when I started photographing this, I got deviated from my focus on the smoothie and ended up with several shots of my soft toy, Gundu (that's what we call him). It was so much fun that I got involved with shooting that guy and finally while sorting out the photographs for editing, I realized I had several shots of this guy and few with my smoothie! So don't be surprised if my Mulberry smoothie has been side lined and you end up seeing more snaps of my Gundu!!! :D I just found it so cute with the teddy pushing his nose up and drinking my smoothie or looking innocently at the camera and my classic oatmeal cookies! I couldn't take my eyes off the photographs! Hope you are not wondering what this thing is doing on a food blog! Aah, isn't he so cute?