Recently Rowan and I made Mango Fruit Parfait, a recipe I had forgotten about for years and am very happy to rediscover.

The recipe couldn't be much easier. If you can cut up fruit and use a blender you can make a very pretty parfait. (And everybody loves a parfait. Just ask Donkey. They're delicious!) It's meant to be a dessert, but I love it on super hot summer days when I don't feel like eating much of anything.

I've made this in plastic champagne glasses from the party store for a baby christening. Very pretty. I've made it in big wine glasses for dinner parties. Very pretty. I've made it in our regular old kitchen glasses just for us. Still very pretty. Rowan assembled ours in a trifle bowl for my parents, the Dorseys, and my Aunt Cynthia.





The recipe is from the cookbook In the Kitchen with Rosie by Rosie Daley.

Mango Fruit Parfait

2 cups cubed mangoes (2 mangoes)

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

24 strawberries, hulled

1 cup peeled and sliced kiwi (4 kiwis)

12 red raspberries

Put the mangoes and orange juice in a blender and puree until smooth.

Slice 20 of the strawberries, leaving 4 whole. Line the bottom of 4 balloon wineglasses with the sliced strawberries. Pour a thin layer of the mango puree over each to cover. Reserving 4 kiwi slices, layer the rest on top of the puree. Divide the remainder of the mango puree among the glasses. Top each with a slice of kiwi surrounded by raspberries. Make a slit in each of the whole strawberries and position 1 on the rim of each glass.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

This time Rowan and I doubled the recipe. We skipped the raspberries and added a lot of blueberries, which complemented the other flavors and the flatter shapes really well. I can't say that we've ever used fresh-squeezed oj. Maybe we'll try that next time, when, I hear, we will be giving bananas a go.