Or should I say strawberry drink with a splash of sprite in it??? Thinking. Either way it refreshes you to the core.

Scorching sun, sunscreens, sunglasses and chilled drinks, Yay! Summer has rolled in. Lately, more than cooking I’ve been actively indulged in creating summer drinks. I am tempted to make drinks out of almost everything that I see in my pantry and refrigerator. Hopefully I wouldn’t get too daring and try some bizarre drinks too. If I do dare, I will definitely share the recipe with you guys

Among soda pop, sprite has been my favorite. In fact I can handle any pop that doesn’t have caffeine in it and love orange flavored pop too. As grilling season starts, we always stack up a few bottles of sprite for me and caffeinated ones for my hubs. We both need pop to sip along while we chew down on grilled chicken. The other day, when I was pouring sprite into a glass, I was instantly hit by the idea of adding some fruit flavor to it. I had tons of strawberry that had been idly sitting and so strawberry flavor was my pick. The strawberry flavored sprite or sprite flavored strawberry drink tasted so amazingly good that now I can’t have sprite without flavoring it.

Happy Summer folks and don’t forget the sunscreen!!!

Strawberry Sprite

For making 1 glass

Ingredients:

• Strawberries, fresh ripe or frozen- 4 no’s
• Sugar- 1 tbsp
• Lemon juice- 1 tbsp
• Water- 1/4 cup
• Sprite, chilled- enough to make one glass

Preparation:

• In a blender, puree the strawberries along with sugar, lemon juice and water.
• Strain the strawberry juice into a glass.
• Add chilled sprite to it and if needed couple of ice cubes.
• Put a small slit on the bottom end of a strawberry and place it on the glass, serve.
• You could increase the amount of ingredients depending on how many glasses you want.

As summer hits its peak, thirst quenchers are in high demand. Summer is all about hitting the beach, outdoor fun, gardening, grilling and refreshing drinks. We have been actively doing all these as soon as we knew that the winter frost has disappeared. One of the joys of summer is that I could go for strawberry, raspberry, apple and other fruit picking. Most probably I’ll be visiting a farm over the weekend. My local farmers market is filled with almost all kinds of berries, during my last visit I bought a few boxes of raspberries and strawberries. After too much of eating the berries, I was forced to make some juices out of it. I made the juice with raspberries and now I prefer this juice rather than eating the fruit by itself. I also added lemon juice and ginger to the pureed raspberries, it was quite refreshing and we couldn’t stop with just 1 or 2 glasses.

Raspberry Lemon juice

For making 3 glasses:

Ingredients

• Raspberries, ripe- 15 no’s
• Lemon juice, freshly squeezed- 4 tbsp
• Ginger grated, fresh or ginger juice- 1 inch slice or 1 1/2 tbsp juice
• Sugar- 4 tbsp
• Water- 3 cups

Preparation:

• Combine the freshly squeezed lemon, grated ginger or ginger juice and sugar together.
• Strain it to remove any seeds and fibers.
• In a blender, puree the raspberries along with lemon/ginger/sugar and water.
• Strain the juice into a pitcher and add ice cubes.
• Pour into glasses and serve chilled.

Tips:

• You could even use carbonated water, if so don’t puree the raspberries along with the carbonated water.
• After pureeing the raspberries along with lemon juice/ginger/sugar, add the carbonated water into a pitcher and combine well.

Sapodilla or sapota or chickoo, is a fruit with exceptionally sweet malty flavor, its flavor closely resembles to that of caramel. This is widely found in India, Mexico and Central America.

In India, Chickoo shake is commonly found on the milkshake menu. With this one on the menu, I never had to think twice on which milkshake to order. In fact, there was a milkshake shop near to my house in Kerala and I was a regular customer. On my way back from college I used to buy chikoo shake almost everyday. I was literally addicted to this shake. Also, chickoo trees are commonly found in most of the houses in Kerala.

Seeing my love for this fruit, my mom planted a tree on the backyard of my Kerala house and I felt extremely happy to hear from her that it has started to yield fruits. However, in the US, this fruit is not available. Only place where this fruit is available is in Indian stores, that too frozen ones exported from India.

The fresh ripe fruits tastes incredibly sweet, it can be eaten just like that or made into milkshake. I always end up making milkshake out if it. I just blend the chikoo with milk and sugar and the shake tastes extremely delicious. Most of the milkshake shops in India add vanilla ice cream as well. This enhances the taste of the chickoo shake greatly.

Just the chickoo when blended with milk and sugar made the milkshake unbelievably creamy and sweet. You’ll be surprised to see the creamy constituency of the shake as if it has heavy cream added in it.  Now, this is my husband’s favorite milkshake too.

Where to buy chikoo in the US?

• In the US you could find frozen ripe chikoo in almost all Indian stores. You could use this to make the milkshake.

Chickoo Shake:

Ingredients:

• Chickoo, ripe – 8 slices, defrosted if using frozen or use fresh

• Milk, chilled- 2 cups
• Sugar- 3tsp
• Vanilla extract- 1/2 tsp (optional)

Preparation:

• Blend the chickoo, milk, vanilla extract and sugar in a blender until the chickoo has blended well and the shake turns creamy.
• Pour into a milkshake glass and serve immediately.
• You could even add vanilla ice cream, ice cubes etc.
• For a healthy version: avoid the ice cream, it tastes delicious even without the ice cream.

Tips:

• If using frozen chickoo, defrost the chickoo in the microwave for 10-15 seconds or until it is no longer hard or you could keep it outside for few minutes to defrost.

This tropical fruit is abundantly found in Kerala, India. There are couple of papaya trees in the backyard of my Kerala house. Due to the tropical weather in Kerala, it grows almost everywhere and the they don’t need any special pampering or care for its growth. It just grows like a weed. I am quite embarrassed to say that I had ignored this fruit while growing up. For some reason, I couldn’t stand the smell of ripe papaya. We never had to buy papaya from any stores, we just had to pluck it from the trees standing in the backyard. May be this could be the reason why I didn’t give much importance to this fruit; the more I had it, the more I ignored it. But, things got changed when I started living in a country where finding papaya is once in a blue moon thing and frequent buying of papayas will put a hole in the wallet Apparently, papaya is one of the expensive fruits here and it never tasted any closer to those papaya plucked from the backyard of my kerala house. In the US, you could see papaya trees in Hawaii and Florida. When I had visited Hawaii, this was the one fruit that I had gobbled from the fruit bars of all the restaurants I had dined.

After knowing about the amazing health benefits of papaya, how I wish I could grow papaya trees in my backyard, sigh…

Health benefits: (www.traditionaloven.com)

• Increases quality of proteins in whole organism.
• Revitalise the human body and maintain energy and vitality.
• Encourages the renewal of muscle tissue.
• Supports cardiovascular system.
• Boosts up the immune system.
• Helps with the digestive system, by breaking down the proteins and supporting production of digestive enzymes.
• Papaya can be use also externally as a treatment for skin wounds that don’t heal quickly, for this you can use papaya peel or ointments made out of papaya.
• Prevents the cataract formation.
• Due to high vitamin A, it lowers the risk of emphysema in smokers and passive smokers.
• Alleviates inflammation.
• Helps with the nausea and constipation.
• Can benefit people suffering colon cancer and other forms of cancers and aliments of cardiovascular and gastroitestinal systems.

Papaya Milkshake

Ingredients:

• Papaya, ripe, diced- 1/2 papaya
• Milk, skim milk- 2 cups
• Sugar or honey- 2-3 tbsp

Preparation:

• Wash the ripe papaya under running water.
• Cut it into half, peel off the skin and remove the seeds from it.

• Cut the papaya into small cubes.
• Put diced papaya, milk, sugar or honey in the blender and blend it into smooth milkshake.

• Pour this into a milkshake glass and enjoy.

The queen of spices and the symbol of love blended together with the nature’s perfect food, and served in a sweetheart cup…

The inspiration for this post is my new “sweetheart cup” which was gifted by my sweetheart on a perfectly casual day. How I adore this cup, it’s cute and cute. I’ve been wanting to introduce my sweetheart cup to everyone the moment I had received it. I wanted to inaugurate this cup by sipping something special from it. While thinking about the hot drinks I could make instantly, hot chocolate was the one that first flashed through my mind. Before my mind got diverted to something different, I started my hot chocolate preparation. Hot chocolate itself is rich and needs no further enhancement. Yet, I decided to add my favorite spice Cardamom to make it even more aromatic and delicious.

It turned out to be a perfect evening to sip this hot cardamom chocolate. It was a foggy and a gloomy evening. I entertained my body and mind with this aromatic, rich and chocolatey hot drink…

Hot Cardamom Chocolate

Ingredients:

• Milk- 2 cups
• Whole cardamom smashed or ground- 2
• Semi-sweet chocolate morsels or chips- 2 ounzes
• Sugar- 2 tsp
• Vanilla extract- 1/2 tsp
• Whipped cream- for topping
• Cocoa powder- for garnish (optional)

Preparation

• In a saucepan, combine milk, cardamom, semi-sweet chocolate and sugar in medium heat.

• Stir constantly to melt the chocolate.

• When it heats up, lower the flame and let it simmer for few minutes.

• As soon as the mixture starts to thicken, remove from the heat and stir in vanilla extract.
• Whip the hot chocolate with hand mixer or a whisk to make it creamy.

• Pour into your favorite cup and garnish with whipped topping and cocoa powder.
• Serve hot and sip hot with your sweetheart or your dear ones.

Tips:

• For chilled cardamom chocolate: keep this in the refrigerator and serve chilled.
• You could even try adding different spices like cinnamon, cloves etc.
• Adjust the amount of chocolate and sugar according to your needs.

Tired and exhausted? I am going to show you the cheapest and the healthiest instant-energy-boost drink that you can make at home…

Had I not been down with the flu I wouldn’t have remembered this drink, which my mom used to make me drink when I was growing up. In Kerala, India where I grew up, a day without rice for lunch is seldom seen.

The hot water from the cooked rice with a hint of salt is often shared with everyone in the house. A glass of this water provides with the needed instant energy to be active for the rest of the day.

In Kerala, cooked rice water has been the energy booster for almost all people, from the white-collar executive to the blue-collar construction worker. I am surprised to see it still is given much importance as in the olden days. This reminds me of the proverb “Old is gold”.

When I told my mom about the flu, she recommended a few things that would help me to recover fast. First, she told me to drink lots of water and as energy drink cooked rice water. Secondly, she told me to inhale steam, which helps to reduce the nasal congestion. Thirdly, she asked me to take good rest.

For the first two days, I totally ignored all of the above. I then realized I was getting weaker and weaker. On the third day, I managed to enter the kitchen slowly, took the rice from the pantry and cooked it in a pressure cooker, drained the water from it. Added salt to the piping hot rice water and sipped it gently. After I emptied the glass, I started to sweat and found my body regaining its lost momentum. I kept the cooked rice water in a flask and sipped it frequently. End of that day, I felt much better and energized.

The benefits of cooked rice water doesn’t stop just with the energy drink, it has lot more to offer:

• Cooked rice water with an extra hint of salt offers an instant remedy for Diarrhea.
• Rice water in treatment of infantile gastroenteritis: Read this
• Cooked rice water and beauty:  It provides shiny hair and a clear facial skin. Wash the hair with cold rice water and rinse it with water. Wash your face with cold rice water, helps in improving the facial skin.
• In Kerala, rice water has been used for starching white clothes. White clothes are usually soaked in rice water diluted with water for few minutes and washed, after drying it, the white clothes will turn wrinkle free and firm just like newly bought.

I feel happy for being able to share these facts with my dear readers. Flu is just a reason; the energy drink I used to drink still gets a special corner in my heart.

Cooked-Rice Water

Ingredients:

• Rosematta rice ( Kerala Matta Rice) or Ponni Rice, washed- 1 cup
• Water- 4 cups
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• Place the rice on a sieve and wash under running water.
• In a pressure cooker, add the rice and water along with the salt.
• Cook the rice until it is well done.

• After the pressure of the cooker has subsided, open the lid and drain the rice through a sieve, collecting the water in a bowl.
• Add salt if required and serve in a glass.
• For an extra kick, drink this water with pickle or any spicy side dish.

If you are using rice-cooker:

• If you are cooking rice in a rice-cooker, cook the rice until done.
• While cooking in a rice-cooker, the water added is absorbed completely by the cooked rice.
• In this scenario, take enough rice in a bowl, add hot water to it, salt and mash the rice with your hand or wooden spoon.
• The water from the mashed rice should be strained through a sieve and serve in a glass.
• You could also have the water along with the mashed rice, which is highly nutritional.

Tips:

• I prefer Rosematta Rice to Ponni Rice as the water from the cooked rosematta rice is higly nutritional and flavorful.
• Rosematta Rice is the popular rice in Kerala, which is pinkish in color, it’s available in some Indian stores. Ponni rice is available in almost all Indian stores.
• Add enough water while cooking the rice, otherwise the cooked rice will absorb all the water.
• You could also flavor your cooked rice water with Rasam or pickle for a spicy kick.

VGYO smoothies represent Violet, Green, Yellow and Orange colored healthy smoothies…

The truth: I was hoping to make VIBGYOR smoothies and ended up with VGYO. The idea of making VIBGYOR smoothies had been tuning in my mind for a while. This was not an effect of seeing a rainbow. The last time I had encountered a rainbow was during my camping trip at Starved rock, IL in the summer of 2008. Since then, I haven’t seen one. Is it because it’s banned in my place? or does this mean that I don’t look at the sky these days?

When I decided to go with this VIBGYOR idea, I never thought that I would end up making VGYO smoothies instead. My whole idea was to make healthy fruit smoothies. However, while attempting to make these, I found that it was nearly hard to achieve indigo and blue colored smoothies with the fresh fruits. I tried a few of the blue and close to blue colored fruits like blueberries, purple grapes and plums, when they were blended I didn’t get a blue color, but got more of a violet color. Hence, I dropped the indigo and blue colored smoothies. Now, you must be thinking what happened to the red color. I knew it was quite easy to make red colored fruit  smoothies with watermelon or strawberries. Without much reasons, I skipped this too.

If I had added color I could have gotten the blue and indigo color. My goal wasn’t to make artificial colored smoothies, but to make healthy and refreshing smoothies.

VGYO Smoothies: for Violet color: Pomegranate; for Green color: Kiwi and Apple; for Yellow: Mango Lassi; for Orange: Cantaloupe.

Yes, I do have a favorite among these smoothies, hands down my favorite smoothie is Mango Lassi. I doubt if there is any Indian restaurant without this. Believe me, making this in your own kitchen is easy and fast.

Fruits Used:

Pomegranate Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Pomegranate seeds- seeds from half of the pomegranate

• Milk- 1 1/2 cups
• Sugar- 3 tbsp or as required

Preparation:

• In a blender, combine all the above ingredients.
• Strain the milkshake to discard the seeds.
• Serve the drink by topping with some pomegranate seeds.

Kiwi and Apple Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Kiwi, ripe- 2

• Apple, cored, seeds removed and cut in wedges-2
• Sugar- 3 tbsp

Preparation:

• Place these ingredients in a blender and puree to a smoothie constituency which will be thick and fibre rich.
• You could also make this in a power juicer to remove the fibre and for just the juice.

Mango Lassi (My Favorite)

Ingredients:

• Fresh ripe Mango or canned mango pulp- 1 ripe mango  diced or 1/2 cup canned mango pulp
• Yogurt- 1/4 cup
• Milk- 1/2 milk
• Sugar- to taste, if you are using sweetened mango pulp, avoid adding sugar. Taste the lassi and add accordingly.

Preparation:

• Put the above mentioned ingredients into a blender.
• Blend it until smooth.
• Pour into individual glasses and enjoy.

Cantaloupe Smoothie

Ingredients:

• Cantaloupe, rind removed, seeded and cubed- 4 cups
• Lemon juice (optional)- 1 tbsp
• Sugar- according to your needs

Preparation:

• Put the cubed cantaloupes, lemon juice if using and sugar if needed into a blender.
• Blend until smooth and you will get thick and fibre rich smoothie.
• You could make this in a power juicer as well, to discard the fibre and for getting just the juice.

Tips:

Difference between Blender and Juicer:

Blenders do not separate the juice from the fibre, while Juicers do so.

Creamy, rich, delicious yet healthy, guilt free refreshing milkshake…

As you walk past the milkshake bar, when your head turns around and your eyes skim through the irresistible menu…your subconscious mind pops up to stop you from ordering your favorite deliciously unhealthy milkshake. There you will be seen conflicting with your subconscious right in front of the store. Next thing you hear will be “would you like to have something?” from the milkshake tender. Without any further pondering your answer will be- Yes, I would like to have strawberry milkshake with 2 huge scoops of ice cream, topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with shaved dark chocolates, here goes your order. Each spoonful of this milkshake will be filled with flavorful guilt and after you empty the huge glass, your subconscious would start listing the amount of calories and the saturated fat content you just sipped into your body by paying $5 from your pocket.

Do you really want to sip the milkshake with such guilt and pain? I don’t think so. We should sip the milkshake enjoying the richness, flavor and with each spoonful our mind and soul should be happy and delighted. Here is a guilt free, fat free, rich, creamy milkshake from my kitchen to yours. Sip with style and feel refreshed for the remainder of the day.

While innocently browsing through the ice cream aisle, I bumped into Organic So delicious dairy free creamy vanilla. Seeing the percentage of saturated fat it had, I couldn’t just leave it back in the shelf. It had 0% saturated fat. I must say this ice cream tasted much richer and tastier than the regular one. So, why buy the extra fat if we have better fat free choices?

Amazing health benefits of Basil seeds:

• Good remedy for constipation, indigestion and heartburn.
• It has the same effect of antibiotics eliminating bacteria.
• It helps to detoxify any toxin that might be circulating through the body via blood thereby have the property to purify blood.
• A glass of any juice with soaked basil seeds in it helps to refresh and cool our body and mind.

Fat Free Soy Ice Cream Shake:

Ingredients:

• Skim milk- 2cups
• Organic Soy vanilla ice cream or any fat free ice cream- 2 scoops  + 2 scoops while serving
• Cardamom powder- 2 pinches
• Rose Syrup or Rooh Afza- 4 tbsp
• Vermicelli, broken into 2 inch strands- 2 handful
• Basil Seed or Takmaria- 2 tbsp
• Coarsely ground Pistachios- 1 tbsp

Preparation:

• Soak basil seeds in 1/2 cup water for 20 minutes or until it is plumed up. Strain the water and keep the plumped up seeds aside.

• Cook vermicelli in water until just cooked, strain the water and keep aside.

• In a saucepan, heat the milk, add cardamom powder and rose syrup to it and let it come to a boil.
• Remove from the flame, add cooked vermicelli and stir it without any lumps.
• Add the soaked, plumped up basil seeds and 2 scoops of ice cream to the milk and combine well.

• Chill the flavored milk in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
• While serving, add 2 scoops of ice cream to the milkshake glass, pour the chilled milk over the ice cream making sure to add the vermicelli and basil seeds to the glass.

• Top the milkshake with 1 tbsp of coarsely ground pistachios.

Tips:

• Basil seeds should be always soaked in water. It can be added to any kind of  cold drinks.
• For a more colorful look, you could even add jelly to the milkshake.
• This flavorful milk can be made ahead of time and chilled, it actually tastes better the next day.

Yesterday, when I posted the Avocado Milkshake recipe, couple of my foodie friends shared more avocado recipes with me. I never thought that I could make such interesting dishes with this fruit. I would like to share those recipes with all my readers.

1. Avocado Chutney by ‘Chacko’s kitchen‘: This is a really easy chutney, you can have this with rice or rotis.
2. Avocado Drink by ‘Keep Learning Keep Smiling’: This drink is made with avocado, condensed milk and cold water.
3. Ganga, one of my good friends shared her tips to enhance the avocado milkshake that I had made. Add vanilla ice cream and vanilla extract with ripe avocados and blend along with milk.

If you know any interesting recipe with avocado, please share with me via comments.

A glass of Avocado milkshake is not enough, your taste buds will definitely beg for more…

Whenever I come across avocados in the grocery store, I ask them: Are you a fruit or a vegetable? And their answer is “I am definitely a fruit, but in some kitchen I am treated as a vegetable”. This is yet another fruit I had ignored all these years. The only dish I’ve tasted made with avocado is Guacamole, that too in restaurants. During my last grocery shopping, I invited some of these fruits to my kitchen and gave these buddies a special place in my refrigerator. Every time when I opened the refrigerator, I thought what I should make with these fruits. I was totally confused and so made them sit there for few more days.

Finally, when I felt that I am being mean to these fruits by not giving them the opportunity to be a part of my cooking, I took them out. At first, I thought I should just scoop the flesh, mash it and put some seasonings and have it as a dip. After a second thought, I felt I should put them in the blender along with milk and sugar and transform them into a milkshake. I went with my second thought.

When I had a sip of this milkshake, I felt terribly guilty for not buying these all these years. The milkshake was extremely delicious; it had a buttery and smooth finish. I didn’t think any further and gave all the avocados a milkshake makeover.

If you haven’t tried anything with avocados I would highly recommend this easy and quick milkshake, any one will fall for this the moment they take the first sip.

Not to forget the health benefits of Avocados:

• Avocado extract is good for prevention and treatment of breast cancer as well as prostate cancer.
• Avocados contain “oleic acid”, a monounsaturated fat that may help lower cholesterol.
• Just a slice of Avocado improves your body’s ability to absorb carotenoid.
• Avocados are powerhouse of vitamin E.
• Avocados are shown to maintain good cholesterol while reducing the bad cholesterol.
• Avocado is a good source of potassium, a mineral that helps regulate blood pressure.

Avocado Milkshake

Yield: 2 glasses

Ingredients:

• Ripe Avocado: 1
• Milk- 2 cups
• Sugar or honey- 2 tbsp

Preparation:

• Scoop out the flesh and put it in the blender.
• Pour milk and put the sugar to this.
• Blend it until smooth and serve in a juice glass.

Tips:

• Use ripe avocados for making the milkshake.
• How to buy ripe avocados: Avocados are relatively firm, color cannot be trusted to determine whether they are ripe or not. A ripe avocado will yield slightly to the touch when pressed, and this slight softness indicates it’s ready to eat.
• It’s usually hard to find ripe ones, get the unripe ones and place them in a paper bag or on the kitchen counter to ripen it at home.