Creamy Mango Dessert Cups Recipe (6 PointsPlus)

There is a store where I grew up in Illinois called Valli Produce. I am envious of my mother who gets to shop there on a regular basis. This store has the most amazing selection of produce for outstanding prices. The bakery has all kinds of decadent desserts and the deli has a wide selection of unique foods. Not to mention, they also sell international foods and that makes shopping there a lot of fun. I love to try new things and especially enjoy the chocolate from Europe.

How did I get from produce to chocolate? Ha! Can’t say I’m surprised!

Anyways, my lovely mother almost always brings us fresh produce when she comes to visit—she asks me what I want but really, we will eat anything. Whatever is on sale! I love it when she arrives and my refrigerator becomes the home of a rainbow of produce.

When my parents visited for baby girl’s 1st birthday party, they brought along pineapple, papaya, a crate of mangos (only $4.99 for the whole thing), blueberries, raspberries, limes, pears, kiwi, strawberries, and sweet peppers. I am probably forgetting something here—but we used the deliciousness at baby girl’s party.

Tropical fruit is most definitely my favorite. It tasted like Mexico.

My dad cut up the mango & pineapple and I cut up the papaya (while hubby sucked the juicy fruit left on the skin). We had plenty for the fruit salad and also plenty left over! I froze some of the mango and papaya and we’re enjoying it this week. There is nothing better than juicy gold mango.

I had about six more mangos left that weren’t quite ripe yet. I let them ripen and then cut them up. We had a TON more mango—which made hubby and I pretty happy! I looked up recipes for mango and came upon this mango pie recipe and decided to tweak it and make it my own.

This is the perfect dessert for summer time. It’s light and refreshing. I served it for hubby’s parents and they had nothing but good things to say. Hubby’s only complaint was that there wasn’t more for seconds!

Creamy Mango Dessert Cups

Serves: 4

Serving Size: ~1/2 cup

PointsPlus Per Serving: 6

Ingredients:

• Two cups Mango puree (cut up mango and put it in the blender until smooth)
• 1/2 cup water
• One packet of Knox Gelatine (unflavored)
• 8 oz. package of Neufchatel at room temperature (1/3 less fat than regular cream cheese)
• 5 doonks of pure stevia extract or to taste (or sweetener of choice)

Directions:

1. Heat 1/2 cup of water on the stove. Once boiling, slowly pour the packet of Knox Gelatine into the water, stirring continuously until dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. It will become like jelly when it has cooled.
2. Pour the mango puree and Neufchatel into a mixing bowl. Mix well. Add the cooled gelatin and mix. If you have lumps of cream cheese/gelatin, pour the mixture into the blender until smooth. Add sweetener to taste. (if you have a good strong blender, you could bypass the mixing bowl step and use the blender instead).
3. Pour the mixture into four serving dishes. Place into the refrigerator to set. When serving, top with a little whipped cream.

 

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did! Let me know what you think!

A Day Trip to the Pella Tulip Festival

Hubby suggested that we take a weekend trip for Mother’s Day but the hotel in Minnesota we wanted to go was booked…as were almost all of the other places we looked into!

So we decided to take a day trip to Pella, IA to see the Tulip Festival instead. It worked out perfectly because we got to feel like we were on vacation but were still able to rest our weary heads in our own beds at the end of the day.

I’ve heard of acres and acres of colorful tulips during the Tulip Festival and I was excited to see them. I don’t know if we just didn’t know where to look or what, but we didn’t see nearly as many tulips as I had imagined. It was still fun though.

Pella is a unique and beautiful town. It is known as “America’s Dutch Treasure” and features numerous Dutch windmills, including the largest working grain windmill in the United States.

I didn’t feel like I was in Iowa while walking through the town—the architecture was more European and the beautiful city square reminded me of something from a metropolitan area.

We sat on the grass under the shade of a tree in the city square and enjoyed a hot dog from a food vendor at the festival. I could imagine having picnics here every weekend—it was gorgeous!

There were numerous people walking the streets in traditional Dutch clothing—including wooden shoes!

We enjoyed some Dutch treats & ice cream. I let baby girl have a few little bites of ice cream and she kept going “MMMMMMM” really loud—my goodness she loved it. It was so funny.

It was a lot of fun just walking around and looking at the scenery. There were so many people there—at some points it was a little too crowded for me.

After that, we decided to head over to West Des Moines for a little shopping. I found the perfect outfit for baby girl’s 1 year photos on clearance at Gymboree. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything for myself! Even my favorite head bands (Bani Bands) are no longer sold at the Scheel’s there! I was so disappointed. I guess I will have to order online.

The best part—hubby and I really racked up the steps!! I hit a new personal record.

 

I was supposed to pick a restaurant for supper so I picked Jethro’s BBQ. I have been wanting to eat at this place forever. We tried two locations and they were super packed. Since baby was very fussy, we decided to just go to Perkins. It was delicious anyways—but I still want to try Jethro’s!

I hope you had a Happy Mother’s Day!