Me & Michael Smith- 100 Recipes in 52 Weeks : Recipe 5- Heaven on a Plate

Recipe 5- Heaven on a Plate

Tropical Fruit Crisp with Coconut Crusted Vanilla Ice Cream

To start off this blog post, I just wanted to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that has been following along with me. It has really brightened my day opening up my inbox and seeing notifications of 'tweets', emails and blog comments! You are all fantastic!

So here we are at Recipe #5

I was watching "Chef at home" where Chef Michael prepares this recipe. I quickly snatched up my cookbook and was hoping that this recipe was in there. It looked so good and was a unique twist on the traditional 'apple crisp'.

I made my usual trek to the grocery store for my supplies. I needed 3 ripe mangos and 4 bananas.

I was really hoping the banana section was picked over and that there were going to be a few really ripe ones. For once all of the bananas at home were eaten before they were completely brown!

Of course my produce section was FULL of green yellow bananas, so I was hoping for the best when I put this all together. I am not an expert on Mangos in the slightest, all I know is that they should be somewhat soft when they are ripe. I went over and gave the ONLY 3 mangos left a squeeze.

Perfect, perfect... HARD.

NUTS.

Again, I hoped for the best with my one hard mango. As you can see in the pic, you can really tell which one was not quite ready.

So here comes my next snag... how do I cut a mango?
http://www.mango.org/how-cut-mango

Try the link above if you don't know how... I had to look it up too!

Next is the zest and the juice of one lime. Oh man did this ever smell good! I am secretly getting excited anytime I see a Chef Michael recipe that requires a citrus fruit :)
Now all the ingredients are together in the bowl and its time for some flour & brown sugar.
This was starting to smell really, really good!

The base layer is now put into a greased baking dish and we move on to the topping.
This is where I got really excited. Brown sugar & coconut in the topping?
ummm...YES PLEASE!

So in the bowl I made one brown sugar castle, does anyone else like doing this with packed brown sugar? Some butter and 1tsp of nutmeg...or one whole nut! I accidentally dropped this in while grating it! Now the topping gets evenly sprinkled over the fruit base. Then into the oven for 35-40 mins.

My recipe didn't specify if the lid of the baking dish needed to be 'on' or 'off', so I left it on until the last 15 mins and then took it off so the topping could get nice and crispy.
While my crisp was in the oven I started toasting my coconut for the ice cream.
Oh man... WONDERFUL SMELL # 1 million in this recipe!
Freshly toasted coconut is just drool worthy.

This is literally the easiest thing to do. I have no idea why I thought it would be complicated. In to a non stick pan I poured sweetened coconut. Turned my stove on to medium heat. Made a smiley face out of said coconut and then about 6 mins later... perfectly toasted coconut!

And 40 mins later, out came this beauty!
My kitchen smelled like a tropical paradise. And when I cut into the crisp with my spoon, you can see all the fruit perfectly held together. It was not gooey or runny, and all the fruit was nice and tender.
And the 'not so ripe' fruit may of been why everything held up so well.
I rolled some vanilla ice cream in the coconut and served up my first dish!

My mom got the honours of the first bite....
and all that came out of her mouth after that first bite was "YUMM"
Now if you have seen the "Julie&Julia" movie, its said that Julia Child would never say something is yummy... but guess what? THIS WAS YUMMY!

Let me just say...I savoured every last bite of this dessert. I think it would be great to serve this during the summer time. Its so fresh tasting! The flavours really complement each other and the "icing on the cake" is that delicious cold ice cream rolled in coconut and the warm crisp all together.
This truly is a slice of heaven!
Give this one a go, its gets a 5 star in my book.
Click the link below for the recipe & instructions on Chef Michael Smith's website:
http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/tropical-fruit-crisp-with-coconut-crusted-ice-cream/12881/