waterfalls and coconut tapioca with mango and banana verrines

yesterday i had quite an interesting Memorial Day; i went hiking with my cousin and my aunt at a place in Rancho Cucamonga, and the trail led to a waterfall! and it wasn't like those pansy trickles of water they call waterfalls at the parks here, it was an ACTUAL FREAKIN' WATERFALL, with ropes tied to the rocks on the top so you can climb up and jump off. it actually wasn't even a trail; there was a path cleared off in the beginning, and when we were getting closer to the water there was a lot of climbing rocks and walking across logs over the water. dangerous stuff! and i suppose if we had been more cautious people we would have brought first aid kits, because by the end of the hike my aunt had scraped her knee and i had scratches all over my shins from climbing the rocks and sliding down. but oh wells! i guess we like to live dangerously ;) later when we went home i went on GoogleMaps to see if that waterfall had an actual name or if it was a landmark of some sort, but i guess no one really knows about it because that whole trail was just a grey area on the map! it's crazy how we can have these things so close to us but never even know it's there!


today is my first official day of summer break, and i spent the morning starting the 6-week program on Wii's EA Active workout. hopefully i will begin to see results soon! this will probably be kind of hard to detect though, seeing as how i can't seem to find my weighing scale anywhere... since i was practically trapped at home today (my sister took my car to school -___-), after taking a bath and doing some laundry, i decided to spend some time relaxing and cooking with a few of the ripening fruit we have in our kitchen.

these tasted SOOO GOOD. OMG. you don't even understand. i know that the recipe said to chill them, but when it was warm it tasted a lot like the ginataan my grandma made a few years ago, which happens to be my favorite filipino dessert, so i decided it was best to leave it warm. also, i recall from my Pantry class that food loses flavor when it's colder, and i couldn't possibly do that to these babies!

this was my first time ever working with tapioca, and i have to say it was pretty easy :) i never realized how much starch is coating these things though; after boiling it once to remove the excess starch, it still managed to make the coconut cream nice and thick once it cooled down.

i garnished the mango verrine with mango slices and a raspberry, and the banana verrine with a triangle tuile and mint leaves.

a close-up of the layers of mango compote and coconut tapioca. the recipe i used said it only made 2 servings, so i doubled it thinking it would make 4. WRONG. instead i ended up with enough of the coconut tapioca to make 8 servings, but only enough mango compote for 5... and since i'm not one to just let it go to waste, i decided to use a couple of the ripe bananas we had as the base of the verrine instead. turned out to be a pretty good idea :)