Mint & Orange Lemonade | Cooking With Kin #9#

Online Strangers turned best buddies! :) That summarizes my friendship with Manali Shah. We met online 2 years ago and today, she's one of the closest friends in my life! I've always been paranoid of online friends. But I guess Man broke the taboo! ;) She has a superb blog titled Nothing Intellectual. And today, she is here with a cool Mint Lemonade for my CWK Series...

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It doesn't matter which part of India you live. Unless you are in some dreamy hill station, chances are, the summer makes you mad. (Kavi interrupts: I love sweaty hot summers! :D)

Counter the heat with Mint and Orange Lemonade. Sounds good? It is! Takes less than 30 minutes to make concentrate that fills up an entire 1kg ketchup bottle. Kids are bound to love it and if you entertain often, this is sure to invite a barrage of questions. ;) 

It's mint-y, lemon-y, orange-y and ginger-y. What else can you possibly want? Did I mention this beverage is super economical?  It looks no different from a nimbu pani (lemon juice), but that's because I don't believe in adding food colours. I can't think of a better summer companion. In case you can, let me know about it on my blog. ;)

Mint - Ginger - Orange Lemonade Recipe

(source: Lite Bite)

Ingredients;

1 liter water
1 kg granulated sugar
2 cups Mint leaves
A small piece of Ginger
3 Lemons
2 Navel Oranges
A pinch of Salt

Method:

• Pluck the mint leaves and wash them with clean water. 
• Scrap the ginger clean and Grate the ginger,
• Grate the Navel oranges and keep the zest safely. 
• Grind the mint leaves in a blender for a second. Do not make a paste out of it
• Take a large vessel and boil 1 liter of water in it. Add the sugar and let it boil till the sugar melts.
• Take the vessel off the flame and let it cool down completely. 
• Add the mint leaves, lemon juices, orange segments, orange zest, grated ginger and salt in the sugar syrup.

 

• Cover the vessel and keep it in refrigerator overnight for the flavors to seep in.
• Take out the mix and filter it the next day. Fill the concentrate into clean glass bottles and refrigerate.

To serve -

To serve the drink, add 2-3 tsp. of the above made Mint & Orange Lemonade in a glass and fill it with water and crushed ice cubes. 

Notes -

This concentrate stays good for several months when refrigerated.

Sopa de Ajo Castellana (Castilian Garlic Soup)

Sopa de Ajo is a Spanish soup typical of the Castilla-Leon Regional Cuisine, where winters are real cold & soups are had on a regular basis. I'm writing down my recipe here. Go to the source if you want to know the actual ingredients used. So lets begin ~~~

Sweet Lime (Mosambi / Sathukudi) Juice

Yello Bloggers & Blog-Readers!

I'm here with a short & sweet recipe (well, not exactly a recipe!).  I usually make it a point to cook 3-4 dishes during the weekend & then blog about it during the weekdays. That way, I'm secure knowing that I have a bank of recipes to post. But last week, I couldn't make anything at all. and the alarm bell in my head started ringing saying *your reserves are being depleted*. And hence, the juice is a product of such last-minute cooking (or.. should I say, squeezing? :-P)

Almond and Banana Smoothie

There aren't many drink-recipes on my blog. And that's because we don't drink anything except milk. Smoothies, juices, soups etc are a rarity at home. And so, I made this simple smoothie for the blog! :) But we loved it. Its an extremely energizing drink. Excellent post workout drink

To make 1 glass

You'll need -

Almonds - 30 grams (8-10 pieces)

Cold Milk - 120 ml

Ripe Banana - 1 small

Sugar - 1 teaspoon (optional)

Vanilla Essence - 1/4 teaspoon

Ground Cinnamon Powder - a pinch

Method -

STEP 1: In hot boiling water, soak the almonds for 1 minute.

STEP 2: Remove & peel the skin. Alternatively, you can use with the skin too.

STEP 3: In a food processor/blender, grind it finely. (a smooth paste)

STEP 4: Add banana, sugar & vanilla extract to this & blend again coarsely.

STEP 5: Add the milk & blend blend blend away~~~ until creamy!

STEP 6: Pour into the glass & sprinkle some cinnamon powder on top. Decorate with a small piece of banana!

Basic Tea / Chai

Hello there, folks!

Everyone must know how to make Tea. If you don't, then I suggest you go make yourself a cup right after reading this post. It is a basic necessity for most of us! :-D 
While it is not advisable to drink a lot of tea in a day, a small cup won't do any harm. Most people drink tea at night to keep themselves awake or in the morning to jump-start their day. Neither of the times is advisable. Tea in the morning masks your hunger {eventually leading to overeating & weight gain}. Tea at night causes acidity in the morning! However, if drunk at the right time, it can be amazing! The best time to have your tea is in the evening along with a healthy snack.

There are many ways of making tea. I'll get to the different types one by one. But in this post, I'm gonna talk about the basic ginger tea.

To make 2 cups of Tea
You'll need -
Tea Leaves - 2-3 teaspoon {Add more if you want a strong taste}
Water - 1 1/2 cups
Sugar - 2-3 teaspoons {More or Less as per your taste}
Ginger - 1 inch
Cardamom / Elaichi powder- 1 teaspoon {if you don't have the powder, either grind in a blender OR smash the cardamom roughly.}
Milk - 3/4 cup {If you want more milk, decrease the water & vice versa}

Method -
1. You don't need to peel the ginger skin. Just wash it well & smash it roughly {or cut into fine pieces}. Same goes for cardamom/elaichi (in case you don't have the powder)
2. In a saucepan, put the water, tea leaves/powder, ginger, cardamom & let it boil. (takes about 1-2 minutes)
3. Some people prefer to have their tea without the milk. In that case, just filter out the tea into a teacup, add the sugar & have it.
4. If you like your tea with milk, add the milk once the water-tea leaves mixture comes to a boil. Then, let it boil in low flame until it rises. Switch of the flame, pour into a cup, add sugar & enjoy! ☺

** Initially, add the sugar afterwards. But once you know how much sugar you take, you can add the sugar along with the tea leaves in the beginning. It dissolves completely!

P.S: Will upload pictures by tomorrow!

Pomegranate Slush

Here's another quickie drink! The Pomegranate Slush. It's just a fancy name for the pomegranate juice in a little icy form! ☺ ☻

Ingredients (for 1 glass)
Fresh Pomegranate - 1
or Pomegranate juice 1 cup
Sugar - to taste (2-3 tablespoons)
Lemon - 1 small
Blender (optinal if you're using the juice)

Method
1. Put the pomegranate seeds in the blender along with the sugar & blend/grind it for less than a minute.
 

2. Run it through a hand filter to get the juice separately. You can put all the pulp back into the blender along with some water & blend it once again to get more juice.
** If using ready made juice, skip the above steps! ☻
3.  Put some of the juice in the ice maker & keep it in the refrigerator until it freezes.

4. Keep the rest of the juice into the freezer too.
5. In a glass, squeeze half a lemon. Add the pomegranate juice ices into the glass too.

 6. Remove the bowl with the juice. (after about 1 hour) By this time, it might have a somewhat icy exterior. Crush all the ice together & pour the juice into the glass.

Decorate the glass with a small slice of lemon. Or enjoy the drink just like that! Its a perfect way to beat the heat and also get instant boost of energy! ☺

Apple-Almond Smoothie (high-protein)

Somebody had requested a healthy, high-protein drink. Well, here it is! Anybody can make this! It takes only 5 minutes to make! A smoothie is generally a blended, chilled beverage made from fresh fruit (most of the times). Read more about it here. This is just one of the innumerable number of smoothie we can make! From now on, I plan to make a smoothie every week. Its healthy, tasty & of course QUICK! That's what we all are looking for, aren't we? Quick yet tasty dishes.
If you want to read more about the various types of smoothie one can make, do buy the book The Ultimate Smoothie Book. You'll find recipes beyond your imagination! ;-) 
So, before you make a smoothie, make sure you have a blender or a mixer at home. You can make it manually too, but it is boring & again, time-consuming.

To make the Apple-Almond Smoothie, you need - 
Apple - 1
Almonds - 6-8 pieces (& any other dry fruits)
Sugar - 1-2 teaspoons
Whipping cream OR Ice Cream (optional) - 1 tablespoon
Milk OR Yogurt - 100 ml
Vanilla Essence - 1 teaspoon
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup (optional)

 Method - 
1. In a blender, add the Almonds & other dry fruits you want to use AND blend it to for a powder. Remove it in a mixing bowl.

2. Slice the apple into small pieces & add them in the blender & blend into a coarse paste

3. Add the vanilla essence, cream/ice cream & blend into a smooth paste.

4. Add the paste into the dry almond-dry fruits powder. Add some milk/yogurt & mix well.

5. If you want, you can add the chocolate syrup & mix well.

6. Pour it into a glass & decorate with more apples.

Enjoy!!!! ☺

Cold Chocolate Milk - Type 2

Last week, I wrote a simple recipe for Chocolate Milk for a delicious dessert. This week, I again made the same thing with a twist. Read on to find out the recipe for a healthy drink.

You'll need - 
Cold Milk - 1 glass
Choco-Chip Cookies - 2 or 3
Hershey's chocolate Syrup
Small bar of chocolate
Ricotta Cheese/ Paneer - Around 2 tablespoons
Cake slice (optional)

To proceed -
1. In a blender, blend the chocolate & ricotta cheese (paneer)
2. Put the mixture in the cold milk. Add Hershey's chocolate syrup & beat well until the crumbles of Ricotta Cheese fully dissolve or the crumbles are really tiny.
4. Take a glass. Crumble 2-3 chocolate chip cookies & put it at the bottom.

 5. I had some left over cake, so I added the cake layer too.

6. Finally, pour the milk in the glass.
7. Decorate it with another choco chip cookie.

Have an awesome Sunday! ☺ ☻

Cold Chocolate Milk

I read a quote somewhere - "Forget love, I'd rather fall in chocolate." Such is the power of chocolate! It is universally liked by kids, elders, men & women! Chocolate is used for facials and medicinal purposes too! Buh-uuhht!!!! Some guy said it is fattening. And we all believed it to be. And with every bite, we think of the number of calories piling up! It took me about 2 years to understand that anything taken in moderation is NEVER fattening. (yes, I say this in almost all my blog posts because I post recipes to dishes which are consider 'fattening')

So, after a humongous meal of Corn dumplings & Pasta, all my brother wanted- was to finish off a Saturday night with a delicious dessert. I couldn't go out to buy ice cream. SO I decided to make use of the banana, chocolate & left over milk! ;-)
To make the Cold Chocolate Milk, you'll need - 
Cold Milk - 1 glass
Chocolate - broken into small pieces. (I used 10 grams)
Whipped Cream - 2 scoops
Choc Ganache - 1 scoop
Banana - 3-4 slices
Dry Grapes - around 8-10
** I had left over whipped cream & chocolate Ganache. If you don't have them, you can either make them (follow the link for the recipe ) or just use Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, 2/48 oz. - CASE PACK OF 2.

Method -
1. In a blender/mixer, grind around 5-10 small pieces of chocolate. Add the milk, 1 scoop whipped cream, chocolate Ganache, 2 small banana slices & grind/blend until you get a smooth milk mixture.
2. Decorate the sides of a glass with chocolate syrup.
3. Pour the milk into the glass.
4. Add 1 scoop of whipped cream on top.
5. Decorate with banana slices, dry grapes & 2-3 chocolate pieces. Grate some chocolate on top.

sorry! no step by step pics! :-)

Enjoy! ☺ ☻