Strawberry Smoothie and Raw Cacao Hot Chocolate (Dairy Free)

These are the cold and warm beverages that I make up using almond butter from my previous post. My daughter is the advocate to try out my new beverage recipes.  I have been giving this strawberry smoothie to her every morning during her exam period to boost up her immune system.  While my husband and my son both get sick from the cold, she has been strong sailing through her study.

I love the raw cacao hot chocolate during cold winter days.  The almond butter has given it an extra creamy texture. I prefer to add raw sugar than honey as raw sugar make it tastes closer to the traditional hot chocolate.  After traveling to France and drinking hot chocolate from a soup bowl, my daughter prefers the traditional hot chocolate than the raw cacao one.  Surely, I understand the reason, it is very hard to beat the taste of traditional hot chocolate!

Spring is already arrived and school holiday is commencing, life is good!

Strawberry Smoothie
(serve 1)

10 small or 5 large strawberries
1 heap teaspoon chia seeds
1 small banana
1 cup sweetened almond milk
1 heap teaspoon almond butter

Put all ingredients into the blender and blend till smooth. Enjoy!

Note: You can add half of a mango and a small handful of blueberries to enhance the flavour

Raw Cacao Hot Chocolate
(serve 1)

1 cup sweetened almond milk
1 heap teaspoon raw cacao powder
1 teaspoon raw sugar or honey
1 heap teaspoon almond butter
a little cold water

Put the cacao powder, sugar and almond butter into a glass, make a smooth paste with a little water.  Heat up milk in a saucepan and pour over the mixture.

Alternatively, you can froth the milk and pour over the mixture. Enjoy!

Green Smoothie (Dairy Free)

After making the green juice, I want to make a recipe for green smoothie. Looking around at my fruit tray and the fridge, picking up all the seasonal green fruit and vegetable, this is my new addition of a healthy drink! It involves the juicer and the blender so there is a bit of washing to do, maybe a dishwasher can be my best friend after all!

Green Smoothie
(serve 1)

1 stalk of celery
1 green apple
couple of lettuce
1 kiwi fruit
1/2 small avocado
squeeze of lemon juice

Method:

1. Cut and core the apple, skin the kiwi fruit, wash the vegetable.
2. Put the first 3 ingredients into a juicer. 
3. Pour the green juice into a blender, then add the rest of the ingredients and blend till smooth. Enjoy!

Papaya Chia Seeds Smoothie and Chocolate Banana Shake (dairy free)

It is in the middle of winter and it is a bit cold to have smoothie and shake using frozen fruit.  These two drinks use fresh fruit and needless to say they are packed with goodness!  In Taiwan, papaya smoothie is a very popular drink and this is my version of a dairy free one.  It is also my first time making shake with avocado, it gives a thick shake texture and very filling as well. Raw cacao powder has more anti-oxidents than cocoa powder that you must give it a try! You are allowed to get addicted to it without guilt!

Papaya Chia Seeds Smoothie

Ingredients:
1 cup sweetened almond milk
1x 2cm thick wedge of red papaya
1 teaspoon chia seeds, soaked with 1/4 water till transparent

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend till smooth. Enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Shake

Ingredients:
1 cup sweetened almond milk
1 banana
1/4 large avocado
1 teaspoon chia seeds, soaked with 1/4 water till transparent
1 heap tablespoon raw cacao powder

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend till smooth. Enjoy!

Berry Smoothies (Dairy free)

This is another of my favourite drink in the morning, it's especially good to have after the morning walk.  Coming home with sweat and feeling thirsty, the coldness of the smoothies melt you down with goodness. I enjoy looking at the ingredients blending into thick shake and using the spoon to eat the frozen fruit.  I couldn't ask for a better life to sit down on the sofa and enjoying this!

Berry Smoothies

Ingredients:

1 kale leaf

few lettuce leaves

1 frozen banana

1 handful of frozen organic berries

1 tablespoon goji berries

1 cup organic coconut water

1-2 tablespoons lemon juice

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.  Serve straight away.

Spiced Chia Seeds Bubble Shake

This is my favourite breakfast drink which is full of goodies. It's liked the Taiwanese bubble tea but I use chai seeds instead of the tapioca balls.  I keep the left over into the fridge and drink it whenever I want it.

In cold weather, you can heat up the milk to serve warm!


Spiced Chia Seeds Bubble Shake

Ingredients:

2 cups almond milk (sweetened)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon chia seeds (soaked with 1/3 cup water until transparent)
1-2 tablespoon maple syrup

Pour all ingredients into a jar, shake well.  Keep in the fridge to keep fresh.
If you're using unsweetened almond milk, add more maple syrup.

Good Morning Green Juice

The fun of juicing and blending smoothies is that they are so colourful, the awesome green, red, purple or orange and you know that it provides you with loads of goodies! Having one in the morning helps to cleanse your body and give it a kick start. These days I don't buy bottled juice as making your own is healthier and you can be creative to create your own favourite! This is what I call FRESH!


Green Juice
(make 1 tall glass)

Ingredients:
1 cup alfalfa sprouts
1 cup lettuce
2 celery stalks
1/3 continental cucumber
1 green apple, cored
1 piece ginger

Method:
Process all ingredients in a juicer and drink right away.

Oat Milk Chai Latte

We have winter comes in late this year and it seems that we get cold all of a sudden. This winter we have lots of clouds making it quite cold during day time. I have two sicks kids within a week.  We have been missing the sun from the sunny Queensland. All I want to have the whole day is hot drinks.  I have been on hot chocolate for a while and now I am into oat milk again.  Just because I have to watch out for my cholesterol, I make up this Chai Latte using oat milk.  It keeps me warm and make me healthy, yes it has only 1% of fat!

Oat Milk Chai Latte
(make 1 tall glass)

1 cup Vitasoy Oat milk
1 ceylon tea bag
2 teaspoons of sugar
ground cinnamon
extra froth oat milk or cow's milk

Method:
Pour the oat milk into a small saucepan, place a tea bag on the side and let it simmers for about 1 minute till the milk is hot and the tea infused into the milk.  Add the sugar and sprinkle with cinnamon powder.  Leave the heat and make froth milk.  Pour the milk into a tall glass and top with froth milk.  Enjoy!

Asian Style Iced Milk Tea (中式凍奶茶)

What does summer mean to you? Hot, lazy or nothing grow in the garden?  We start the beginning of the year in the middle of summer and we have been having long hot summer this year with the temperature over 30c most of the days.  Since it has been so dry with no rain, bushfire is happening in many places.  You just want to hide yourself in the shade most of the time.  Sitting at the veranda relaxing, I enjoy this refreshing iced milk tea to help to ease the heat.  This is the type of tea you'll get at asian cafe using condensed milk and evaporated milk instead of fresh milk.  Some people like to mix the tea with coffee and called it yuen-yang (鴛鴦), a bit like the mocha only it is a mix of coffee and chocolate.

Asian Style Iced Milk Tea
(make 1 tall glass)

Put hot water into a mug about 2/3 full with a ceylon tea bag.  Let it rests till the tea is cool down a little and fully infused.  Pour 1 1/2 tablespoon of condensed milk and 1 tablespoon of evaporated milk into a tall glass, add the tea and stir till well combined.  Fill another tall glass with ice and pour the tea into the other glass and serve immediately.  Enjoy!

     

Banana Cereal Milk

Every time when we finish a package of weet-bix, I always wonder what can I do with the crumb bits.  It is a waste to throw it to the bin but that's what I have been doing!  There are some recipes of healthy slices using weet-bix but I haven't tried that yet.  I have seen a video on You Tube making cereal milk and so the idea comes!  By chopping some banana, throwing in the weet-bix with some milk and honey, a healthy breakfast is done in a minute.  It has fruit, fibre and calcium all in one.  If you're not a big breakfast eater liked me, that is just nice for a quick fix.

Banana Cereal Milk
(1 tall glass)

1 banana, peel and roughly chop into chuck
1 cup milk
1 weet-bix or 1/3 cup weet-bit crumb
1 tbsp honey

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth, pour into a glass and enjoy!

Banana Smoothies x 2

When's the last time you have a banana?  I haven't eaten banana for 9 months after Cyclone Yasi hit Queensland in January this year.  Since I've been living in Australia, this is the second time that mother nature wipes out the banana crops affecting the prices of banana that make you really treasure this tropical fruit!  The first time was Cyclone Larry in 2006 that it took nearly 4 years for the price to go back to normal then this time Cyclone Yasi brought so much rain and plus more rain on the other parts of Queensland causing the devastated Queensland flood at the beginning of 2011.  If the government hasn't allowed the farmers to sell bananas that fall from the ground to keep the supply and prices down, we would not have bananas selling at the shop.  The highest price for the banana has gone up to $15 a kg and thank goodness it has now gone down to $3.

Many people have a tough year in 2011 and I hope that 2012 will bring us good health, peace and prosperity!  And of course, many more yummy recipes!  HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!    

Tropical Banana Treat
1 banana, chopped
1/2 ripe mango, peeled and chopped
100ml fresh orange juice
1 passionfruit fruit, halved

Blend banana and mango with orange juice.  Pour into glass and add the passionfruit pulp and seeds and stir.

Banana and Berry Blast
1 banana, chopped
1/2 cup frozen mixed berries
100ml fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon honey

Blend fruit until smooth and pour into glass to serve chill.

Source: adopted and modified from the cookbook GI high-energy cookbook by Rachel Anne Hill

Fresh Fruit Salad and Strawberry Smoothie

These fruit salad and smoothie are my favourite for breakfast or snack.  The strawberry season is nearly over so I have been adding blueberry and mango into my fruit salad instead.  By having a glass of smoothies in the morning, it gives me full energy to start the day.  It has been over a month since I have started going to the gym.  I've got my nice legs back and my bum is getting shaped.  But I have put on weight!  My trainer told me that muscle actually weight 5 time more than fat.  Some of my friends started training earlier than me, they all told me that they didn't lose weight but I could see that their figure were toned.  

October is the month for fundraising for breast cancer research.  I'm holding a pink luncheon at my restaurant for the parents at my kids class.  I am busily asking for donations for door prizes and getting people to come along.  The research indicates that 1 in 8 women are affected by breast cancer and early detection and regular examinations help increase survival rate.  For more information on Pink Ribbon Day, please click here.  You may know someone suffer from this terrible disease.  Maybe you would like to hold a fund raising and hopefully this can help to find a cure!

  

Fresh Fruit Salad


Ingredients:
Apple, orange, kiwi fruit, strawberries, passionfruit pulp (or lemon juice)

Cut all fruit except passionfruit into cube, then drizzle passionfruit pulp and stir through.  Serve with yoghurt and toasted muesli.

Strawberry Smoothie
(make 1 tall glass or 2 small glasses)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup organic milk
1-2 tablespoon organic yoghurt with wildberry
1 tablespoon honey
4-5 medium strawberries, hulled

Place all ingredients into the blender and blend for 15 seconds.  Pour into glass and serve straight away.


  

Juicing with Purple Carrot

It's great to have my daring girl back from her school camp, the house is so quiet without her.  She slept 5 hours straight after she came home.  Her gift to me from the trip was loads and loads of washing!  Hahaha...

I would make some fresh juice at least once a week during winter to help boosting our immunity.  My favourite choice includes apple, orange, pear, lettuce, carrot, celery, cucumber, tomato and capsicum.  I  usually put in 4-5 varieties with half and half portions of fruit and vegetable.  I also throw in some parsley or wheatgrass if they come in handy.  I find this Dutch carrot at the supermarket and it makes a really nice colour and taste good in juicing.  In an actual fact, carrot is originally purple and it is changed to orange colour by Dutch about 300 years old.  Whether it's purple or orange, carrot is a good for our health.

I am joining the Guardian Angel Knitting Program for the first time.  Over the past 12 years, more than 2 million knitted garments have been donated to families in needs.  This year the program is supported by Variety, the children's charity to give warmth to the children in need not only in Australia but Christchurch in New Zealand where children are affected by the earthquake.  I am planning to make 2-3 garments by 31 August, that's about 6 weeks left.  My sister joins the program every year and she is so good at knitting.  For more information, visit their website Guardian Angel Knitting Program 

 My marble cake topped with profiteroles is listed in Petitchef's daily menu.  Yay!

Purple Carrot Juice

(make 2 glasses)

Ingredients:
2 small purple carrots
2 small carrots
2 stalks of celery
2 apples
2 pears
1/2 green capsicum
handful of baby spinach leaves

Method:
Cut the fruit and vegetables into small pieces and put into the juicer.  Enjoy!