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Bell Pepper Juice

 From Around the world, Get your sip on  12 Responses »
Jul 132012
 
bell pepper juice

 

 Audrey Hepburn said ““If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” I must say this is something I am living by these days. I don’t break all the rules, But I don’t live by all of them either. A little dent in a rule works like magic for my sense of adventure every now and then.

 Joining the 38 power foods blog group has rekindled my sense of food adventure. I look at our weekly ingredients with an impish smile and think how to bend a few rules and do something different.

It is not hard really. Any wonderful dish is a mix of instincts, timing, proportions and a sense of adventure. In my opinion it is the sense of adventure that helps me transcend barriers and move away from  norms and classics. And the reward is always the thrill of arriving at something unique and exciting, like this bell pepper juice.

This week we had the wonderful bell peppers. Yes the very beautiful bell peppers. My favorite website to read health benefits of foods is the WHF and they have a lot to say about the health benefits of Bell peppers. One small amazing Red orange or yellow pepper gives you up to three times the daily requirement of Vitamin C and also provides Vit B6 for your immune system.

 

 

38 Power Foods blog group  focuses on one ingredient each week taking inspiration from the book ; Power Foods: 150 Delicious Recipes with the 38 Healthiest Ingredients from the editors of the whole living magazine. Each week we all  come up with recipes, stories, articles to encourage eating nourishing food.

Who is we all ? The following wonderful people who make nourishing food and talk about it on their blogs. Do check what they have come up with this week. Also, If you are a blogger and  love the idea of being part of the 38 power foods, we would love to have you join us.   Contact: Mireya(at)myhealthyeatinghabits.com for details.

Jill at Saucy Cooks;

Jeanette at jeanetteshealthyliving ;

Martha at Simply Nourished Living ;

Mireya at Myhealthyeatinghabits ;

Alyce at More time at the table ;

Sarah at everything in the kitchen sink;

Casey at BookCase foodie

Bambi at adobodownunder

Episode #5 – Bell Peppers

 

 

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Bell Pepper Juice

Total Time: 5 minutes

The main flavor of this drink is the bell pepper, and it is quite pleasant with the pineapple added in.

Its a lil sweet and tart with a nice kick in the end. I am developing a recipe to use this in a cocktail as well

Ingredients

  • 1/2 c Cucumber peeled and cut
  • 1/2 C Bell peppers diced
  • 1/4 C pineapple diced
  • 1/2 C ice cubes
  • dash of lemon

Instructions

  1. Blend them all together. Serve chilled. There is usually no need to add in sugar, but you may do so if you really want it sweet.
  2. Drink up!
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 Posted by on July 13, 2012 at 1:56 AM

Passion Fruit Cooler with Ginger and Mint

 From Around the world, Get your sip on  5 Responses »
May 102012
 
passion fruit drink

On some days, exotic is the way to eat and on most days exotic is the way to drink. What better way to have your mind take a flight to a dream destination. A glass of an exotic tasting drink and a creative imagination and you are all set to go anywhere. For most of the time I love to keep my mind from taking the flight, because the beautiful Rocky Mountains are magnetic and the fact that I can see them from my backyard makes it harder to go some place else.

But then there are days when the drink in your hand takes you some place else and you just follow. Like this passion fruit ginger cooler. A sip of this and the mind roams in the cascading waves, sunny beaches and pristine sands of Brazil or Hawaii. Now if only I had learned how to teleport myself. I should have paid more attention while watching Star Trek . I was just too busy crushing on Capt. Kirk!

Even though grown in some parts of India, Passion fruit is not widely available. These are grown for commercial export purposes and the usual fruit markets do not see them. My first taste of these was about 7 years ago when I visited a friend and her mom had brought these from their family orchard. I was told the juice that I loved so much was from a fruit called passion fruit.

Needless to say, my mind started to go in directions of the aphrodisiac kind. Have you gotten your hopes up too? Ha! It is not named a passion fruit for any such thing. It was named reportedly, by Spanish Catholic missionaries who saw in the flower, the symbolism of the Passion of Christ where ”Passus” means “suffering” and ”Flos” means “flower”. Passion fruit should more correctly be referred to as the passion flower fruit, but the trade more commonly uses passion fruit. {Sourced from Kerala Agriculture University}

 

Irrespective of whether it is a fruit to increase passion or not, it is a very aromatic, sensuous tasting fruit. The season here in landlocked Denver for this fruit is “SHORT” and then you have to hunt them down. But it is worth all the effort.
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 Posted by on May 10, 2012 at 11:37 AM

Basil Seeds and Coconut Water Drink – Bonda Sharbat – Inspirational Thursday

 Get your sip on, Inspirational Thursdays  10 Responses »
May 032012
 
Basil seed Drink

Cooking is an art and patience a virtue… Careful shopping, fresh ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing – love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things you can be an artist – not perhaps in the representational style of a Dutch master, but rather more like Gauguin, the naïve, or Van Gogh, the impressionist. Plates or pictures of sunshine taste of happiness and love. ~ Keith Floyd

The featured blogger for the month of May on Spiceroots is Shireen who writes the phenomenal blog “Ruchik Randhap”. Her blog oozes so much happiness and love – for people in her life, for the food she cooks and best of all for traditional Mangalorean cooking. She sources forgotten recipes, recreates recipes that she grew up with and blogs with pure joy.

Today’s recipe is from Shireen’s blog. I have not asked her if I could use the recipe. I wanted this blog post to be a surprise for Shireen, so taking a permission before hand would have made that impossible.

Shireen inspires you to get out of your comfort zone and try out something new. Even if it is a dish or an ingredient you had not heard of before. And she does it by simply showing you how. I can’t write enough about her delicious Mangalorean recipes, home made wines and traditional snacks. She writes about them weaving in stories and anecdotes, history and methodology and the warmth just touches you somehow.

While talking to her about a vegan biryani that I had to make for some friends, I came to know how big she was on all biryani and pulao dishes. It was an Aha moment for me. No wonder we connected. We are both Biryani buffs . Just take a look at her recipe section – an entire section devoted to Biryanis.

What really inspires me about Shireen’s work is her approach to traditional cooking. She keeps it pure, she calls the dishes by their original names and if that was not enough, she mesmerizes with great food photographs.

I could have chosen to try out any dish from her blog, so why did I choose bonda sherbet? Well, there is a story-

She used basil seeds in the recipe. And since the basil seeds soaked in water looked like something my Mom would give us in a cool drink on hot summer days, I had to set out to do some research. ( yes I know that you know I did not research, I just googled;))

There they were- basil seeds and we call them bubre byol ( BU (as in BUT ) – Re as in ritz ; be yole ) in my mother tongue Kashmiri. I was thrilled to finally realize that they had been in front of me all the time. I just had no idea that they were called basil seeds. Another Aha moment!

So I got myself a pack of these tiny little darlings and set out to make this refreshing drink that also has health benefits rooted in Ayurveda.

Need I say more?

Recipe: Basil Seed and Coconut Water Drink

Ingredients

  • 16 oz tender coconut water from about 2 tender coconuts
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 4-5 mint leaves muddled
  • 1/2 tsp basil seeds (soaked for at least 20 min in some water)
  • Sugar if you need it
  • a pinch of salt

Instructions

  1. Chill the coconut water before you make the drink.
  2. Using a spoon, scoop out the coconut cream from inside the coconuts.
  3. Give the coconut cream a rough chop and set aside
  4. Now mix all the ingredients and drink up.

Quick notes

Shireen’s notes say that you may need to add sugar based on the sweetness of the coconut water. Use it if you need to.

Variations

You can also use the prepacked coconut water like Zico or Koh. You will just not have the coconut cream for extra yumminess.

Diet type: Vegan

Diet tags: Gluten free, Raw

Number of servings (yield): 2

Culinary tradition: Indian (Southern)
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Friday Summer Fun – Cantaloupe Apple Smoothie

 Get your sip on  8 Responses »
Jun 102011
 
Cantaloupe cooler

Here is a short and sweet Method to have to this incredibly delicious drink.

  • 1 C  peeled and cut cantaloupe
  • 1/4 C Apple juice ( store bought no sugar one works well)
  • Honey to taste
  • Crushed ice
  • Blend everything together, pour, sip, close your eyes and let your mind take a flight!

Have a Happy Friday.

 

 

Chai

 Get your sip on  11 Responses »
Jun 062011
 
chai

It is 6:45 am. The battle is on. In my kitchen that is. And I manage to pull the pillow back on my head and go back to the most precious minutes of the morning sleep. There is something incredibly satisfying about waking up 10 minutes earlier than your set alarm clock time and going back to catching the most satisfying zz’s.

But the battle is on. In my kitchen that is. The pounding of the metal on the floor, the clash of metal against metal, and oh wait.. Was that stone pounding! Whoa!  And now a bang!

No.. The TV is not on this early at my home and we have blocked all TV war monsters from our home anyways. But there is one war lord who manages to get the battle on almost all days in the morning.  Even though my heart thuds at each pounding and clash and bang I close my eyes and cozy in; for these battle sounds are from the kitchen when my SO makes Chai.

The pans collide; the doors of the refrigerator close with a thud or may be that was because they were closed with a kick! The tea is stirred with a heavy metal spoon and the resulting ringing…. Something like a toooiiiiinnnnnggggg travels through the home; the spices are pound using a mortar and pestle and heavy pounding adds the drum beats to the ringing.

And then the whiff of the tea boiling away, the soft footsteps up the stairs, the gentle good morning and I smile a bright smile for he wakes me with a kiss every morning and gives me my cup of Masala tea.

 

Now I will try and tell you how he makes it for me, but as you already know I am getting my precious last minutes of sleep at the time he makes it. So this is a verbal recipe passed on. Do your thing and get your So’s to make this for you ;)

Guidelines:

Half a cup water

Half a cup milk

1 tsp Assam/Darjeeling tea

a slice of ginger .. this gets the pounding

some sugar

a couple of mint leaves

how to make the chai :

Boil the water, add the tea leaves. let it simmer for a minute or two. Add the milk and ginger. Allow it to boil. Add the sugar and stir with a spoon. Place the mint leaves in the strainer and strain the tea concoction into a cup.

Wake up! Do you smell the beautiful day?

Kehwa – Kashmiri Green Tea

 Get your sip on  4 Responses »
Apr 262011
 
kehwa

 

 

 

There are some moments that you live for just yourself. A moment with tea is just like that. It’s the essential “me” time that you get to spend with your cuppa.

Does your elixir look like a garden in a teapot? A blooming tea infusing is a sight worth watching. Spectacular! Have your girl friends over and make a statement. You are a Diva!

Or does your brew awaken the senses with the aromas of spices? And you have concocted the magical masala chai that lifts up spirits on any day . You are the high priestess of brewing!

or are you the one who waits patiently for a few leaves of green tea or herb tea to slowly infuse, sings songs and looks towards the mountains or the lake or the river or even the high rise buildings and gets dreamy eyed… oh where have you been Magical nymph!!

Whether you are the Diva or the high priestess or the nymph, the time you have with your cup of tea is pure magic. Adding another magical recipe to your secret weapon stash would be nice.. won’t it?

So presenting the recipe for the beloved Kashmiri Kehwa. Its a concoction that works wonders. Healthy green tea, sensuous saffron, nutty crunchy almonds, aromatic cardamom, hot cinnamon, fresh water and blissful sugar. Divine, mystical, sexy!

You need to make this with a pure green tea that looks something like this :

You need :

  • 1 C plus 2 tbs  Water
  • 1/4 tsp tea leaves
  • a pinch of cardamom powder
  • a pinch of cinnamon powder
  • one or two strands of  saffron
  • one almond – slivered or in kashmiri fashion crushed in a little  mortar and pestle.
  • 1/2 tsp sugar ( Add more sugar as per your taste  )

Procedure:

  1. Bring the water to a boil in a pan. We usually have a small pan to make tea and that is used to make tea only~!~ So if you have one, use that. If you don’t- use a pan that you have not fried stuff in.
  2. Once the water simmers, add the cardamom, cinnamon, saffron and sugar. Then add the tea leaves. The authentic kashmiri way to add the green tea is to rub it between the palms of your hands.
  3. This concoction should be really boiling at high. let it boil for a moment or two and then strain into the cup. add the almonds. Pick up your cup and tune into yourself!

Deep breath. Relax!
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