Summer Cheesecake Smoothie

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Summer Cheesecake Smoothie

My Summer Cheesecake Smoothie is smooth, sweet, nourishing and creamy.  It’s packed with paw paw, banana and ruby grapefruit and blended with cashews for a gorgeous creamy texture. Vegan smoothies are just as creamy as their dairy counterparts, so don’t be afraid to leave the cow’s milk out because you won’t even know the difference.

 

YOU NEED

¼ cup of raw cashews

½ cup of fresh ruby grapefruit juice

1 large, super ripe frozen banana

¾ cup of papaya

# Would be gorgeous with the addition of lime zest/lime juice and/or fresh ginger too.

 

YOU DO

Blend until velvety smooth.

Enjoy

 

Time: 5 – 10 minutes

Yields: 1 serve

Notes: If you have a high powered blender your smoothie should be smooth and creamy with no gritty unprocessed cashew bits.

If you soak the cashews over night it softness them and makes them easier to blend.

Tropical Chia & Almond Smoothie

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YOU NEED

1 teaspoon chia seeds

½ a ripe banana (roughly half a cup)

¼ cup paw paw

1 generous cup ripe pineapple

1 cup almond milk

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Fresh ginger to taste

2 tablespoons coconut milk

 
YOU DO

Soak the chia seeds in water for 10 minutes. Drain and discard the water.

Place the chia seeds, along with the rest of  the ingredients into a blender (I used my Nutri Bullet). Blend everything till smooth

 

Yields: 1 large serve

Time: 5-10 minutes for preparation and blending. Plus the soaking time for the chia.

Bandung (Rose Water Milk)

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Bandung is a popular drink found at the street stalls in Malaysia and served at weddings with dishes like rending. It’s extremely refreshing on a hot day and is a gorgeous, fragrant accompaniment for a hot, spicy meal.

YOU NEED

½ cup of fresh pitted dates, roughly chopped

¼ cup of water

Plus 200ml of cold water

400ml of Bonsoy organic soy milk

½ – ¾ teaspoon of rosewater essence

Natural pink food colouring

 

YOU DO

Put the dates and the 1/4 cup of water into a small bowl for an hour to soak. Once the dates have softened, blend them with the soaking water, then strain the liquid so that it is smooth. Put aside any date mixture that is too thick to strain and use it in another recipe, (eg: a smoothie)

Put the remaining ingredients, the date sweetened water and a few drops of natural food colouring together into a jug and whisk to combine. Place the jug in the freezer until the milk is chilled.

Serve in chilled glasses with lots of ice.

 

Yields: 2 large or 4 small serves

Time: 5 minutes preparation. 1 hour soaking time. 2 hours for chilling.

Notes:  Bandung is traditionally made using sugar syrup. But by sweetening it with dates instead of castor sugar, you gain vital vitamins, minerals and fibre and still end up with a very sweet, refreshing Bandung style beverage.

I use a brand of food colour called Hopper which contains fruits and vegetables. It is available in select health food stores.

Creamy Cinnamon Banana Smoothie

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YOU NEED

2 bananas

1 cup of Bonsoy Soymilk

brown rice syrup to taste

Ground cinnamon

 

YOU DO

Blend the banana, Bonsoy and brown rice syrup until smooth and creamy.

Pour in a glass and dust liberally with the cinnamon.

 

Yields: 1 serve for a hungry person or 2 smaller serves for 2 not so hungry people.

Time: 2 minutes

“Ponche” Mexican Christmas Fruit Punch

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YOU NEED

2 litres of water

1/3 cup of agave syrup

2 cloves

1 star anise

1 large cinnamon quill

1 mango, peeled and seed removed

1 green apple, core removed

1 pear, core removed

½ a small pineapple, core removed

1 orange

3 prickly pears, peeled

Handful  of walnuts

Handful  of raisins

4 hibiscus flowers

Soda water to taste

#optional – rum or tequila to taste

#optional – fresh sugar cane

Handful of fresh washed mint

 

YOU DO

Place the first 5 ingredients into a large pot and bring them to the boil. Then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for 10 minutes and turn off the heat.

Chop all the fruit into any shape you wish and add them all to the pot. Add the walnuts, raisins and hibiscus flowers. Allow the punch to cool and refrigerate until chilled.

Ladle chilled punch into serving glasses. Add a splash of soda water and some rum or tequila, to taste (if you are using alcohol).

Very carefully cut the fresh sugar cane into sticks. Garnish the serving glasses with fresh sugar cane sticks and fresh mint leaves.

 

Notes: Ponche is traditionally made by cooking the syrup along with all the fruit for a much longer period of time and then served warm. This recipe has been created to suit hot summers day with chilled punch and firmer fruits.

If you don’t have agave you can use pure maple syrup.

You can purchase prickly pear from specialty fruit and vegetable stores. Otherwise simply substitute for another tropical fruit.

You can purchase hibiscus flowers in syrup at liquor shops and specialty supermarkets. If you cannot find it, simply omit it from the recipe.

You can purchase fresh sugar cane from Asian fruit and vegetable grocers.

Sun in a Glass

This was breakfast today and it was gorgeous. Winter has hit and it’s freezing out side but this was like drinking the sun in a glass <3

 

YOU NEED

2 large oranges

1 over flowing cup of fresh pineapple chunks

¼ cup of coconut yoghurt

 

YOU DO

Juice the oranges and pineapple. Blend the coconut into the juice.

DRINK & LOVE IT!

 

Serves: 1

Time: 5 minutes

Freeze: N/A

Notes: If you are allergic to coconut just use alternative dairy free yoghurt. It will change the flavour but you will still get the stunning natural sweetness of the fruits and a satin creamy finish to your juice.

Juicepresso Review

Juicepresso approached me recently to review their product and I have never used a juice presser before so I was keen to review their product for them.

The juicer arrived promptly via mail with a manual and recipes. (There are also a number of recipes online.)

The first thing that struck me was how small/compact the Juicepresso is and how light the machine is compared to some juicers! I had a little trouble putting it together but that was simply because I am a technically challenged cook land I always refuses to refer to a manual – which I had.  It was also easier to pull apart (for someone who doesn’t read manuals) and cleaning was easy too. The only section that sometimes needed a bit more elbow grease was the small feeder into the output jug. Having said that though there is a small brush provided that has a pointy end you can use to push any backlog out. Like any juicer, rinsing in hot water straight after use and washing immediately means for a much easier clean.

The feeder took some getting use to because it is quite small compared to my juicer. This just meant that I had to get use to cutting my fruit and veg smaller and feed it through a little slower. The motor cut out on a couple of occasions but that seemed to only coincide with me being clumsy and impatient and not cutting ingredients small enough and placing too many ingredients in the feeder too fast.

The output jugs both go to the front which I really liked. I liked that I could not only see the juice/milk but also the fibrous output. It gave me more of an awareness of what I wasn’t consuming and potential wastage so I found myself making chocolate truffles with the almond skins from my almond milk and throwing the fibre from my juices into vegetable burgers and soups instead of just tossing nutrient rich food in the bin as wastage. I was really impressed too with the sheer quantity of basil juice that fed into the juice jug when I was doing my Basil and Pineapple Pops.

There were recipe examples online such as juicing corn to make corn milk which I had never heard of before and  would just never have thought of doing myself so that alone was pretty exciting to a foodie like me. I have made a number of granitas in my time too but would never have thought of using some of the fruits they suggested in their recipes so in the warmer months I had a freezer full of varying flavoured ices with gorgeous colours showing through Tupperware tops. Some of the recipes don’t stipulate quantities of ingredients though which I like when first trialling a recipe but I contacted Juicepresso and they were really helpful and gave me some direction on how much of each ingredient I should be aiming at.

Over all my experience with my Juicepresso and the company was really pleasant and made for some gorgeous new recipes on the site so I am really appreciative that they gave me this opportunity.

For more info on Juicepresso:

Their website: www.juicepresso.com.au

Their recipes: resources.andatech.com.au/recipes/juicepresso/high_resolution.pdf

FB page http://facebook.com/juicepresso

Blog http://www.andatech.com.au/blog/tag/juice-recipes/ for recipe ideas.

You can also check out their YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/juicepresso for videos on the Juicepresso and its features.

Almond Milk

YOU NEED

½ cup of raw almonds

water for soaking

1 cup of water

2 medjool dates

 

YOU DO

Put the almonds in a bowl and enough water to cover them. Pop in the fridge and leave them to soak overnight.

Discard the soaking water and rinse the almonds. Place the nuts, the 1 cup of water and the 2 medjool dates in a blender and blend well for a few minutes.

Pour the milk into a nut bag a strain out all the milk. Put the almond roughage aside. #See notes.

Chill the milk and serve over cereal, make a smoothie, flavour it with cacao or use however you would like.

EASY, raw, beautiful.

 

Yeilds: Just over a cup

Time: Less than 10 minutes, after soaking

Notes: Use more water if you wish, I started off with 1 part almonds to 3 parts water, but much prefer the creamier result I achieve from doing 1 part almonds to 2 parts water

If you don’t have a nut bag, you can use a chux or cheesecloth.

Don’t discard the almond roughage. You can make simple and delicious raw almond chocolates with it. I must post that recipe one day!

If you are not using it straight away, use it within a few days. Remember to also give it a stir before using, because it will separate.

Corn & Orange Juice

 

I have been playing with the “Juicepresso” that I have been asked to review. They have a Corn and Orange Juice among their recipes so I had a play with that today. This is what I love about being exposed to new things. I would never have thought of juicing corn! It has quite an earthy flavour and there are no quantities on the recipe though so I just juiced until the taste seemed balanced. I also added ginger and fresh lime to give the flavour a lift.

 

YOU NEED

the kernels of 3 cobs of corn (I used organic)

3 oranges, peeled and cut into quarters

1-2 cms of fresh ginger

1/2 fresh lime, peeled

 

YOU DO

Make sure your ingredients are chilled before you make your juice.

Then simply pop them through the juicer.

 

Serves: Serves 1-2.

Time: Took me about 5 minutes.

Freeze: Is preferable to drink straight away.

Sour Cherry..ade

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This is so refreshing for long hot days out on the deck. My passion for food has very much extended itself to a passion for creating drinks. I adore making drinks that are served loaded with the fragrance of herbs and/or fruit. Nothing accompanies beautiful food more than a beautiful beverage. Don’t overlook the entirety of a food event, if you want to make an impression.

I am not normally a sour or a cherry fan but when I spotted some sour cherry juice recently I had to try it. If unlike me you are a sour fan, you may wish to add less pure maple syrup and if you are after an even quicker recipe you could just add lemonade. I just prefer knowing how much sweetener I am drinking and also prefer pure maple syrup.

 

YOU NEED

100mls of sour cherry juice

1 tablespoon of pure maple syrup

100mls of soda water

ice

cherries for garnish

#optional – a splash of vodka

 

YOU DO

Mix the sour cherry juice, maple syrup and soda water. Fill a glass ½ to ¾ with ice. Pour in your cherry soda mix, Garnish with some fresh cherries and serve.

Yields: 1 serve

#Next time I may even freeze some cherries into my ice blocks <3