My kids love mangoes, and they like yogurt.
Grace loves cooking with me and for herself, so a mango yogurt parfait (from a mango cookbook I got a few weeks ago) made the perfect afternoon snack for all three of us. My kids used to eat all day long every day.
They're natural grazers.
Their constant grazing irritated me because they never wanted to eat at meal time.
It was also really hard for me to feed them healthy food since it generally can't sit out on the table for them to eat whenever they're ready.
Somewhere along the way, I read that six small meals is a good way to keep blood sugar steady, boost energy, and have a nice disposition, so I switched them from the eat all day plan to the eat three meals and three snacks a day plan. They didn't mind a bit.
The only snag is that I have to prepare 5 meals every day: breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, and a nighttime snack. (Joe makes our dinner daily, so I'm off the hook for that one.)
Sometimes, I run out of ideas.
Here's a picture of my favorite recipe in the book, Mango Yogurt Parfaits:
Looks amazing, doesn't it? Grace made mango yogurt parfaits all by herself, so they don't look much like that. They tasted just as good, though.
Because mangoes contain more than 20 different vitamins and minerals including vitamins A and C and lots of fiber, I'm always happy to include them in the girls' meals and snacks.
During this campaign, I've learned a lot about mangoes.
- There are 6 different varieties of mangoes available nationwide. Some have fibers; some don't. They range from yellow to red to green, and they have different shapes.
- Mangoes are available all year round, and they are grown all over the world. Those sold in the US primarily come from Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Ecuador, and Peru.
- Most of the time, you can't tell ripeness by the color of the mango's skin. The most reliable method is to give the mango a gentle squeeze. A firm mango isn't ripe; a ripe mango is slightly soft (just like a peach or an avocado). You can also smell the mango. Its stem end will smell sweet and fruity when it's ripe (just like a melon).
- Mangoes can be a pain to peel and eat if you don't know what you're doing. The National Mango Board has illustrated instructions to help you figure it out.
- Store firm mangoes at room temperature. Ripe mangoes can be stored in the refrigerator.
- You can find lots of mango recipes at the National Mango Board website.
I was supposed to include a video with this review for the National Mango Board. I intended to make a video to show you how easy it is to make a mango yogurt parfait, but - I forgot. Then it was yesterday (because I waited til the last minute to write up my post), we had already used up our mangoes, and Grace was at my mom's house. So I made a video of Allie and I talking about mangoes. It's about 30 seconds long.
Recipe
Mango Yogurt Parfait
Ingredients
- 1 ripe mango peeled pitted and cubed
- 1 ½ cups vanilla yogurt low fat
- 6 tablespoons granola low fat
- 3 wine glasses or other containers I used these old margarita glasses because I didn't care if the kids dropped and broke them while they were eating.
Instructions
- The original recipe says that you should puree half of the mango and put that in the glass first. We skipped that step because Grace made ours. I didn't want to deal with her and the blender. I think it would have made the parfaits really delicious though.
- Spoon some yogurt into your 3 dishes.
- Add some mango.
- More yogurt.
- More mango.
- Top with granola.
