Watermelon & Strawberry Juice

Looking for healthy way to quench your thirst on a hot summer day. Try this easy, breezy delicious juice. With the goodness of vitamin C & A rich watermelon and few strawberries. This juice not only tastes great but is good for you too. Both the strawberries and watermelon I used were very sweet so I added some lime juice and a dash of salt and black pepper. Perfect accompaniment to the park or good to go along with a bike ride on a hot summer day.



But once again even though this fruit juice is all natural and rich in vitamins, this is not recommended for people with diabetes because of the high fructose content.



Preparation Time - 5 Minutes

Cooking Time - Nil

Serves - 2 





Ingredients



Watermelon pieces - 3 Cups

Strawberry - 2 ( I just 2 over ripe strawberries, just added it to the juice to give a nice color)

Lemon Juice - 1/2 Tsp or to taste

Salt - 1/4 Tsp

Fresh Ground Black pepper - 1/4 Tsp or to taste

Ice Cubes - 1/2 Cup (optional)

Xylitol - 2 Tbsp (Optional - depending on the sweetness of the watermelon. I didn't add anything because the fruits itself were over sweet)



Method



1) Place the cut watermelon pieces, strawberry  in a blender and blend till smooth.



2) Add the ice cubes and blend one more time and then add salt, lemon juice and black pepper powder and serve immediately.

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Orange Ginger & Honey Juice

 The weather is warm outside and the kids are on a vacation from school. So many places to visit and lot of things to explore. No time to cook an elaborate meal, but lot of quick healthy snacks, juices, smoothies and shakes and that's how things go. So you will see lot of simple and quick healthy beverage ideas in the coming posts. A few weeks back, my elder one wanted to make a banana milk shake all by himself and tried to search for the recipe in my site. That's when I decided to post these simple juice, shakes and smoothie recipes which will be helpful for kids and novice cooks. Stay hydrated and have a happy, healthy summer.



Preparation Time - 5 Minutes

Cooking Time - Nil

Serves - 1





Ingredients



Orange - 1

Ginger - 1/2 inch piece (skin peeled)

Honey - 1 Tsp or to taste

Water - 1/2 Cup

Ice cubes - few optional

Method



1) Cut the orange into half. Then cut each half into two pieces. Peel them and cut once again to remove the seeds and the thick white pith. (I do  not remove the soft white skin)



2) Place the orange pieces, ginger, honey and water in your blender and blend till smooth. Add the ice cubes and blend once again and enjoy.



Note - I used vitamix, so there was no need to filter and discard the fiber. The fiber in the juice makes you full for a longer time so do not strain and throw them away. Also if you are diabetic, do not go for fruit juices. Go for vegetable juices (excluding carrots & beets).

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Hello Chennai my first restaurant review & a Happy Winner of Sukham Coolers event

 Hello friends and my readers, I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. I am back in home town and enjoying every bit of it. With all the travel scheduled for next 3-4 weeks, I don't know how much time I will be able to visit all my favorite blogs or do the likes in face book. I have scheduled couple of posts to be automatically published, so don't be surprised when you see my posts but not visiting your blogs.



Now coming to this post, I normally don't do any restaurant review in my site. But just wanted to share the information about this very interesting and healthy Naturopathic style restaurant(Sanjeevanam) located in heart of Chennai, India. If you are looking for a very healthy spread of balanced food with lot of vegetables, protein, complex carbohydrates and fat you should definitely visit this place.



The meal starts with 1) Ripe Banana Slices with grated coconut 2) 5 Kinds of juices 3) Few types of salads with raw vegetables 4) Few dishes with half cooked vegetables 5) Few dishes of full cooked vegetables 6) Choice of Whole Red Rice or White Rice 7) Few typical Indian Side dishes 8) Meal ends with a Tbsp of honey to aid digestion.



The food is served in the order listed above and below and will be served only after finishing an order. With all the vegetables filling up once you come to the main course or the item 6) you will barely eat 3-4 tbsp of rice. The food is all gluten free, cooked with coconut oil and you get to have good serving of Ghee(clarified butter-fat is a very important part of the meal because it helps you to feel full for a longer time and curbs cravings and of course the source should be good fat). There is also a dessert in the meal which is made using jaggery (panela) and no refined sugars or flours are used.

 I just tried to capture the juices alone and  stunned at the healthy spread before my eyes totally forgot to click next arrays of spread served. So if you get a chance to be in the city or visit Chennai don't forget to pay a visit to this restaurant.

Now coming to the end of this post, I am happy to share the good news that my entry Cucumber Celery Cilantro Cooler won the Healing Foods - Sukham coolers event. The best part is as soon as I got the email from Jigyasa & Prathibha about the good news and send them my mailing address, I got the book delivered at my door steps within few hours. Thanks guys the book is so good and there are lot of lovely recipes to be tried out. 

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Chocolate Truffle Shake

 Craving for some cold chocolate shake but are scared about the sugar in it. If you are like me and count the carbs and sugar in the milk shakes then this drink is definitely for you. Made with no cavity causing xylitol, unsweetened 100% Cacao dark chocolate and raw milk. These are much better choice than the sugary chocolate drinks. Try it out and I am sure you will like it.



Preparation Time - None

Cooking Time - None

Serves - 2





Ingredients



Raw Milk - 1 1/2 Cups (Chilled)

Chocolate Truffles - 3

Xylitol - 1 Tbsp or per taste

Ice cubes - few (optional)



Method



Blend the raw milk, truffles, xylitol till smooth. Add few pieces of ice and give another whiz and pour into tall glasses and enjoy.

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Coconut Chocolate Truffle and a Vacation

It's almost midnight, really feeling tired after all the packing. Yes heading back home for the summer vacation tomorrow. Will catch up with my blogger buddies in a few days. If you see posts being published and I am not visiting your blogs don't be surprised because I have scheduled couple of automatic posts. So good bye and will be back in action soon. Now getting on to this post.



Are you a chocolate lover and then you should be happy to know about this. Chocolate contains flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries).  Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Made with 100% unsweetened dark chocolate and sweetened with xylitol and with the added nuts and coconut these surely are better than the sugary truffles.



Preparation Time - 5 Minutes

Cooking Time - 10 Minutes

Serves - Makes around 12 to 18 Truffles



Ingredients





Unsweetened baker's chocolate - 1 bar(4 oz - broken into pieces)

Organic Heavy Cream - 1/2 Cup

Xylitol - 1/3 Cup or 1/2 Cup for a sweeter truffle

Coarsely chopped almonds - 1/2 Cup

Grated Coconut - 4 Tbsp

Vanilla extract - 1/2 Tsp

Salt - pinch



Method



1)  Combine the chocolate pieces, xylitol, salt, heavy cream and simmer on medium heat till the chocolate pieces melt. Add the vanilla extract, the coarsely ground nuts to this mixture and set this aside to cool.



2) Once cool enough to handle, take a small amount of this and roll them between your palms to make a uniform shape. Roll these balls in grated coconut and place them in small cup cake liners. Refrigerate for few hours and then enjoy!!!!

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Mini Ragi, Mung & Kala Channa Sevai/Idiyappam( Finger Millet & Bean String Hopper)

Are you looking for more ways to loose weight. Then try to cut down on your Grain, Sugar, Starchy vegetable & fruit consumption and slightly go towards pseudo grains like Ragi, Quinoa etc. Both these are seeds but actually used as grain and are gluten free. Ragi  is very rich in calcium and iron. Dark brown in color and with a sweet taste, nutty flavor and with complex carbohydrates. Gluten free and easy to digest ragi is good from Infants to Old aged people. Here I have used Ragi flour along with protein rich Black Chick Pea flour and green mung  bean flour. Both these beans are rich in protein, iron and very low in glycemic index. I served this with Tomato Kurma (Tomato & Coconut Curry with Spices). An unbeatable combination, try this out and let me know, what you think about this recipe. Made into small mini string hoppers my elder one loves this.



Preparation Time - Nil

Cooking Time - 45 Minutes

Serves - 3 to 4





Ingredients



Ragi Flour - 12 oz ( 1 1/2 Cups)

Green Mung Flour - 4 oz (1/2 Cup)

Kala Channa Flour - 4 oz (1/2 Cup)

Salt - 3/4 Tsp

Coconut Oil - 1 Tbsp

Water - 4 Cups



Method



1) Take all the three flours, combine evenly and set it aside.



2)  Boil the water in a wide mouthed vessel, once it starts boiling add the salt and the oil and slowly add the combined flours little by little stirring with a heavy spoon continuously so that there are no lumps formed. Switch of the stove and combine thoroughly so that there are no dry spots or the water is evenly mixed with the flours. Cover it and keep it aside for 5-10 minutes and then take out and spread them in wide plate for around 20 minutes to cool down.



3) Grease your hand and as well as the Idli plates. Take a string hopper maker (Idiyappam press), roll out balls of dough and place them in the Idiyappam press and press them in the greased Idli plates.  Now steam the idli plates for around 10 minutes. Repeat the same process till all the dough is exhausted.

Event Participation

This goes to Champa's Kids delight mini bytes an event started by Srivalli.

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Almond flour Pancake (Egg free, Gluten free, Grain free, Sugar free but not Taste free) & Blueberry strawberry syrup

My husband is gluten free and kind of grain free. He is on diet where Quinoa & Ragi (pseudo grains) are the staple and rest of them are made up by legumes, nuts, vegetables, dairy etc. Even though me and my kids don't have any restriction, we are slowly moving towards this diet because how many different kinds of food will I cook and this kind of diet is good for every one even though it is little difficult to follow. In our house almond flour has taken over the gluten flours for making cookies, crackers etc. So when my elder one asked for Pancake, I had only almond flour in hand. I set out in search of recipes for pancakes.

There are so many innovative recipes I came across but most of them had eggs in them. But we neither include eggs, so the recipe had to be egg free, gluten free, and of course should be low carb one too. So the use of potato flour had to be eliminated. If you notice in gluten free baking, potato flour or tapioca flours are extensively used as a binder for gluten free flours and also bean flours. I have couple of bean flour mixes lying in my basement pantry because I neither like the smell nor the taste of these bean flours.  Since besan (chick pea flour) is used extensively in Indian Cuisine in a variety of sweets without any after taste or weird smell, the addition of besan worked very well as a binder and tasted great too in this pancake recipe. Almond flour and besan flour combo works great and I will post a cookie recipe also using this combination. Now getting on to this recipe. 

Preparation Time - 5 Minutes

Cooking Time - 15 to 20 Minutes

Makes - 5 to 6 Small Pan Cakes

Ingredients

Almond Flour - 1/2 Cup

Ground Chia Powder -1 heaped Tbsp

Split Chick Pea Flour(Besan) - 1/3 Cup

Powdered Xylitol - 1 Tbsp

Buttermilk - 3/4 Cup

Baking Soda - 1/4 Tsp

Baking Powder - 1/2 Tsp

Vanilla extract few drops

Orange Juice - 1 Tbsp

Salt - pinch

Method

1) Add the almond flour, ground chia powder, besan, xylitol powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt in a wide bowl.

2) Heat a cast iron skillet in medium heat and add all the wet ingredients orange juice, butter milk, vanilla extract to the flour and combine with a egg beater without any lumps.

3) Pour a ladle full in the skillet and gently press it down (not too much like with a gluten based flours). Pour a tsp of ghee(clarified butter) and cover and cook for 2 to 3 minutes in small to medium heat.

4) Flip and cook the other side and add more ghee if required and then remove from the heat.

For the blueberry, strawberry syrup

Blueberry - Handful

Strawberry - Handful

Water - 1 to 2 Tbsp

Stevia - 1/8 Tsp 

Method

In a blender blend blueberry, strawberry, water into a smooth paste. Boil for 3-5 minutes till the mixture thickens and then add stevia and combine well. Pour the syrup on top of the pancake and enjoy.

Note- I am just trying to make use of stevia sitting in my pantry and I was able to taste the after taste of stevia but the kids didn't notice anything. So you can substitute the sweetener of your choice for this purpose.

Events

This goes to Champa's Kids delight mini bytes an event started by Srivalli.

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