Pomegranate Milkshake | Pomegranate Juice

Pomegranate Milkshake, delicious drink made from pomegranate seeds and milk.In general, i like to eat fruits as it is, making juices/smoothies/milkshakes with fruits excepts citric fruits are very rare at my home. Only make them when there are in bulk or need something to drink along with my morning sandwiches. I would like to document such a rare thing here  for future reference. Nothing special in the recipe, regular milkshake with fruits, milk and sweetener. 
In my opinion, all kinds of edible fruits are good to our health in one way or another unless we're prone to anything in particular, so adding lot of sugar in fruit juice seems as crime to me for making the healthy food as unhealthy. No offense !!! just my thoughts, therefore i'm always using natural sugar like honey or maple syrup in moderation for my drinks. Those who knew me personally could laugh by the lines i had said before, because i have such a strong sweet tooth, but somehow i can't withstand the idea of drinking juices/smoothies with lot of sugar. Ok, now let's see how i have made this pomegranate milkshake.

Pomegranate Milkshake

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 1 
Recipe Category: Milkshake | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Pomegranate Juice,Pomegranate Milkshake,Pomegranate Smoothie,Summer drinls, Pomegranate Milkshake, delicious drink made from pomegranate seeds and milk.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Pomegranate - 1 small
Milk - 1 cup
Honey/Maple Syrup - as needed

Procedure

Put everything in a blender and grind them into smooth. Drain the juice to remove the seeds.That's it, Pomegranate Milkshake is ready.

Notes:

• Depends on the sourness of the pomegranate, add more or less of sweetener
• Use chilled milk for great taste.
  

Continue Reading »

Sugarcane Juice/Karumbu Saru , a freshly squeezed juice from the sugarcane. Sugarcane is one of the must ingredient we used to offer on Pongal festival. During pongal, the fresh sugarcane is available throughout Tamilnadu, India and i love to have them as it is and also throughout the year, the sugarcane juice is easily available from road side vendors in Tamilnadu.  Also seen elder people(who can't bite the sugarcane) at my home town bring the sugar cane to the near by sugar cane juice vendor to squeeze the juice at nominal rate. So never thought of making juice from it at home.
Now coming to making juice at home, last year, i had seen recipes from fellow bloggers making sugar cane juice at their home using mixie, since then i wanna give this method a  try and for this pongal luckily we're in India, so just for the sake of making juice, i reserved few sugarcanes otherwise i would have finished them earlier. Making juice at home was way easier than i had expected, if you have good heavy duty indian mixie, then you can make them in secs. Now let's check how i squeezed the juice from sugarcane.

Home made Sugarcane Juice | Karumbu Saru | Karumbu Juice

Preparation Time : 20 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Juice | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients
Sugarcane - 1/2 
Ginger - a small piece
Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Procedure

First cut the sugarcane into slits using aruval or sharp butcher knife. Then it will be easy to break into pieces. While breaking them into pieces, the dark skin will be peeled off, discard them and use only the sugarcane flesh.Do the same for the whole sugarcane. Peel the skin of ginger and add it into the mixie jar, then add the sugarcane.Grind them into paste and then strain the juice using the strainer, discard the residue. Then squeeze the lemon into it and mix well.Pour into the serving glass. Homemade Sugarcane Juice is ready to serve.
Notes:

• If you want them to serve chill, refrigerate few hours before serving, don't add ice cubes, it will dilute the juice.
•  Heavy duty Indian mixie required for making this juice.
• Ginger and lemon juice is purely optional, but adding them enhancing the taste, so highly recommend it.
  

Continue Reading »

Cucumber Juice | Cucumber Lemon Juice | Summer Drinks

Cucumber lemon juice, a perfect thirst quencher on summer days. It's one of my recent favorite juices to have on hot summer days. 

Cucumber has more than 95% water hence it's perfect to include in your diet on summer days to keep you hydrated. Mostly we like to have them sliced or used in raita as a side dish. 

But when i browsed through pinterest a while ago, i came across this cucumber juice and really like the idea of making  juice with cucumber, so later whenever i have bulk cucumbers in hand, without second thought, i made this juice. 

Here in the juice, i have used salt to season it, but instead of salt, you can add sugar/honey too. It's really up to your preference whether you want salty or sweet juice.

Cucumber Juice | Cucumber Lemon Juice

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 1 
Recipe Category: Juice | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients
Cucumber - 1 
Lemon - 1/2
Salt - 2 pinch
Pepper - to taste
Water - as needed

Procedure

First peel the cucumber and slice them roughly, put the cucumber slices into the blender.

Add enough water and grind them into smooth puree. Strain the cucumber puree.

Squeeze the lemon juice and add salt and pepper as per your taste. 

Stir well and it's ready to serve. Tasty and cool Cucumber Juice is ready.

Related:How to make pineapple raita

Notes:

• You can have this juice as it is without any straining too.
• If you like mint flavor, add few mint leaves while grinding the cucumber.
• Serve fresh for better taste.  
  

Continue Reading »

ABC Juice | Apple Beet Carrot Juice | Juice Recipe

ABC Juice , a delicious juice made from the  equal amount of apple, beetroot & carrot. Many people in the online world call this juice as "Miracle Drink"  and also claim that it detoxes your body if you have them in an empty stomach every morning and some even call this juice  as "Vitamin Booster". 

Honestly I don't know whether all those claims are true or not, but all I can say is it's one of the delicious and healthy juices without any artificial sweetener. We both like this juice a lot so often I make this for breakfast. 

I had started to make this juice when we were in hosur. As I already mentioned in my many posts, I used to buy vegetables from the farmer's market at hosur and the beetroot was very cheap there and the seller would give at least 6 to 7 numbers of beetroot for 5 rupees. Yep, just for 5 bucks, I can get a minimum of  6 small beet roots. 

After a while , I got bored of my regular beetroot curry and poriyal, so i tried beetroot juice and i couldn't drink the juice because of the strong earthy smell of beetroot.

Later when i searched online i came to know about this juice & tried immediately and we both love this juice a lot and the good thing is it doesn't have  that earthy smell of beetroot. After that whenever I have extra beetroot, I make this juice and relish to the core. 

Nowadays, I purposely buy the beetroot to make this juice ! 

ABC Juice

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Juice | Recipe Cuisine: General
ABC Juice, Apple Beet Carrot Juice, ABC Juice , a delicious juice made from the equal amount of apple, beetroot & carrot.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Apple - 1
Beetroot - 1
Carrot - 2 
Water - 1 cup
Lemon Juice -1 tsp

Procedure

Peel the carrot and beetroot.  Roughly chop all of them into small chunks.Put into blender along with water.

Grind them into smooth paste. Strain the juice in the strainer, discard the residue and finally squeeze the lemon into the juice and serve.

Tasty & healthy ABC Juice is ready.

Related: More Juices and Popsicles 

Notes:

• I didn't peel the apple, but if you prefer you can peel them too.
• As the juice is already sweet enough for us, so i didn't add any sweetener. If needed,add some honey.
• Use roughly equal amount of Apple,beetroot & carrot. 

Continue Reading »

Strawberry Lemonade | Strawberry Juice | Summer Drinks

Strawberry lemonade, an easy summer drink made from strawberries and lemon.It's the recent favorite drink of us. For the past one month, i have been making this for every other day either for our breakfast or as a drink in between meals on weekends.Seriously we are kind of addicted to this drink, while drinking, the flavors of strawberries burst out over your mouth and wanting it more.

When coming to take photos of drinks, really i'm struck. After reading lot of articles on net and watching  videos on youtube, still i couldn't get the knack of taking photographs of drinks.Somehow i managed to click few pictures to share here and i'm really feel sorry for not doing justice to this gorgeous looking lemonade.

Strawberry lemonade

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 4 to 5  
Recipe Category: Drinks | Recipe Cuisine: General
Strawberry Lemonade, Strawberry Juice Strawberry lemonade, an easy summer drink made from strawberries and lemon.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Strawberries - 1 lb
Lemon - 1 
Honey or sugar - as needed.
Chilled water - as needed

Procedure

Wash the strawberries well, take a strawberry,trim the leafy edge and cut into small pieces.

Do the same for the remaining strawberries and add into the mixie/blender jar. Squeeze lemon juice into it.

Then add honey and grind into thick pulp,then add water as needed and again grind till it becomes frothy.

Serve chilled.

Related : How to make Strawberry Sorbet 

Related : How to make Strawberry Smoothie 

Notes:

• Depends on sweetness of strawberries, add more or less honey or sugar.
• Base on the tartness of berries, add more or less lemon juice.
• If preferred, add ice cubes while serving.
• For smooth lemonade, filter the juice after grinding.
  

Continue Reading »

Mango Lemonade | Mango with lemon Juice | Summer Drinks

Mango Lemonade, a delicious and refreshing summer drink made from the fresh mangoes and lemon. Now, here in Texas, it's already feel like summer, for the past one week, the temperature is above 80F during day time.But i love this season because of all seasonal fruits available during this time, out of all fruits, my favorite is Mango. I love to have them as it is, so hardly i make any juices/lemonade/lassi with it.

But when i make any drink with mango, my first choice is Mango Lemonade. Mango and lemon goes very well together and it's really a great thirst quencher for summer. Here in the ingredients list, the mentioned quantities are based on our liking, you can add more or less as per your liking and also remember depends on the sourness and sweetness of the mango, you may need more or less of the sweetener  and water. So use this as guidance and make this delicious drink when mangoes are in season.

Mango Lemonade

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 2 to 3 
Recipe Category: Drinks | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Mango lemonade, Mango Juice, Summer Drinks Mango Lemonade, a delicious and refreshing summer drink made from the fresh mangoes and lemon.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Mango - 2 
Lemon -1
Cold Water - as needed
Honey/Sugar - as needed
Ice cubes - for serving
Mint leaves - for serving(optional)

Procedure

Peel the mangoes and cut the flesh into small pieces.

Put all the mango pieces into mixie/blender jar, squeeze the lemon juice and then add honey/sugar.

Grind into smooth paste, then add enough water and again grind till it becomes frothy.

That's it, Homemade Mango Lemonade is ready to serve. Serve it with few ice cubes and mint leaves.

Related : How to make Mango Falooda

Notes:

• Depends on the sweetness of the mango,you can add more or less honey/sugar.
• If the mangoes have more sourness ,then you may need more sugar/honey.
• Add more or less water as per the consistency you preferred.
• If you like dominant mint flavor, add few leaves while blend the juice itself.
• As i like mango flavor more, i just add few leaves of mint while serving.
• Add ice cubes just before serving,otherwise the lemonade will be diluted and it becomes bland.
  

Continue Reading »

Orange Juice with sabja seeds | Orange lemon juice with basil seeds

Basil Seeds is commonly known as "Sabja Seeds" or "Takmaria" in India and it's used extensively in drinks like Falooda/Sherbet especially during summer days.It acts as natural coolant for our body and prevent from excess heat related diseases during summer. After soaked in water, it expands its size upto 20-30 times and it has good amount of dieteray fibre,so after having, it makes you to feel full for longer time,therefore now a days it's extensively used in weight loss. 
Also these seeds have good amount of vitamin k,iron and protein,these nutrients are essential for your skin and hair,so include this in your diet regularly to make your hair and skin shine.After knowing the nutritional benefits of these seed, i'm trying to include at least once in a week.You can add it in any juices, sometimes when i'm lazy to prepare any juice,i just soak the basil seeds and add it in store brought juice.
This Orange lemon juice is our family favorite and i have made them very often.It's so refreshing and thirst quencher in the summer.The quantity mentioned in the "Ingredients" list is based on our liking,so just use this as an idea and you can add more or less as per your liking. 

Orange Juice with Basil Seeds

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 0 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Drinks | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients
Orange - 2 
Lemon - 1/2 
Honey - to taste
Basil Seed/Sabja Seed/Takmaria - 1 tsp
Water - 1/4 cup approx
Mint leaves - for garnishing

Procedure

Soak the basil in water for 30 mins. Cut the oranges and squeeze the juices from it .Then squeeze 1/2 lemon into it.Add 1/4 cup of water, soaked basil seed into juice mixture.Finally add honey as per your taste.Mix it well, that's it, Orange juice with basil seeds is ready.
Serve it with some fresh mint leaves.

Notes:

• You can add more or less of the quantity mentioned above as per your liking.
• Adjust water as per the  sourness of the juice.
• Soak sabja seed at least 1/2 hr before using it.
  

Continue Reading »