Tropical Fruit Ice Cubes, Foodportunity, and a Vegan Smoothie

Alright, yesterday was my first day back at work after vacation, I feel like I’m back in the real world again.  Not so fun, but necessary.  Two things that can help you get through vacation rebound?  Reliving your time off through photos, and refreshingly tropical treats.  I’ll have some posts over the next couple weeks about our vacation interspersed with regular recipes.  To kick off the post vacation posts, I’ve got some photos from Foodportunity, a neat idea of freezing tropical fruit puree that I got from Kiran (Help, I saw this idea on someone’s blog who commented here recently but didn’t bookmark it you made popscicles and called them lollies, let me know so I can link to you!), and the amazing and incredible vegan smoothie I made with the fruity ice cubes.

Foodportunity was an event in Seattle put on by Keren Brown aka the Frantic Foodie.  She did such a great job with tons of awesome vendors, a fun diverse panel, and the brilliant idea for speed networking.

From left to right we have moderator Mina Williams (editor of Northwest Stir), Ronald Holden (of Cornichon), Matthew Amster-Burton (author of Hungry Monkey, blog Roots and Grubs), Rebekah Denn (James Beard winning journalist, blog Eat All About It), and Nancy Leson (Seattle Times foodwriter).  It was a pretty good discussion on the effect changes in media is having on food writing.  Ronald Holden was quite the devils advocate and started a lively debate by portraying food trucks as despicable.  Eric pointed out his reasons behind that sounded very much like the complaints against new media and technology, basically, they’re doing what I’m doing only it’s costing them way less and giving me competition so it’s wrong.

Somehow, with all the incredible food there, the only picture I took was of Tom Douglas’ roast pig.  I think it reminded me of the pa’ina I had coming up and made me wish I could afford a whole pig for my imu.  Plus, the food was so delicious I was too busy eating and socializing to remember to take photos.  I was also tired as we went to Foodportunity right after getting back from our stay at Mt. Rainier.

 Now, on to the tropical ice cubes.  I had a pineapple, mango and papaya leftover from the pa’ina and simply cut them into chunks and pureed them in a blender.  Didn’t even need to add water as they all were pretty juicy.  I poured the puree into ice cubes and froze them.  They have been such a refreshing treat on these over 100 degrees summer days.  You can suck on them, crush them up to eat like a granita, put them in water or tea instead of regular ice cubes, or use them in smoothies.  That’s my favorite way.  The first smoothie I made was such a gorgeous color I had to take photos of it.  It’s totally vegan, but I’ve also made it with milk or a spoonful of vanilla ice cream which is amazing!

Berry and Tropical Fruit Vegan Smoothie

Ingredients

4 tropical fruit ice cubes (see above paragraph)
1 cup organic blueberry juice
1 cup fresh raspberries

Instructions

Blend well in a blender, add more juice if needed.

Approximate cost/serving: The tropical fruit can be expensive, cost me about 5 dollars for a pineapple, mango and papaya, but it makes 3 ice cube trays so four cubes is about 40 cents, the juice is around 75 cents for a cup, and raspberries we pick for free!  So about 55 cents a serving.

Vegetarian/gluten free:  Yes and Yes.