![Strawberry Lemonade]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Aug 9, 2014 | Drinks, Summer
Lemonade is the quintessential summer time drink in America, isn’t it? I absolutely love it and it will always remind me of my childhood days when I had my own lemonade stand outside of my house where I grew up. I set up a small table with my mom’s pitcher full of lemonade made from Country Time® lemonade packets, paper cups and napkins for every customer. Each cup was a quarter and my best customer was always our regular postman. Do kids still do this today?
Nowadays I don’t care for lemonade out of a packet, at most restaurants or from a bottle bought at the store. It is so super easy to make at home, but you just need to be patient about preparing a lot of lemons, of course.
As well as fresh mint.
To use lemons, you can add strawberries and make strawberry lemonade, like I made here.
What I do during this project of a recipe is to save all the lemon peels and dry them. They are so wonderful dried because you can use add them to hot boiling water to make tea or add them to soups and stews. You can even candy them, if you like.
To make the lemonade, add ice to a blender first. That’s sort of the rule of thumb when blending- get the iciest or frozen things at the bottom so the blades can start breaking those down first. If they’re on top, it’s nearly impossible for the blades and can actually ruin the motor of your blender if it works too hard like that.
Then add frozen strawberries, or fresh if that’s what you have.
Next, some cane sugar. I don’t like sweet drinks, so I go easy on the sugar but you can always add more if you prefer it sweeter.
Next some cool water.
Now squeeze all those lemons. I like to use my handy citrus press that I got from a local Mexican store.
Next, blend it all up in the blender for about 30 seconds to a minute and it’ll froth like this. But that will settle. 
Just pour into serving pitcher or glasses directly.
Then add a sprig of fresh mint to flavor it even more.
That’s it- just a refreshing taste of summer every time.
[yumprint-recipe id=’32’]
![Strawberry & Watermelon Zipzicles®]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Aug 5, 2014 | Dessert, Summer
As a kid I remember having popsicles from those thin and vertical ziploc-like bag almost every day of the summer. My mom used to buy them from the grocery store and many times they weren’t frozen until you put them in the freezer; instead they had some sort of colored juice or syrup in each bag. I loved the various colors and definitely had my favorites- strawberry and grape. Who knows what in the world kind of ingredients were in those things to make their shelf-life practically eternal!
I’m not really sure how I came across the brand Zipzicles® last year, but I did and was fascinated that the average consumer could now purchase those little freezer bags and make our very own and very healthy sort of ‘popsicles’ just like we had from childhood, but this time knowing exactly what’s inside of each one. Each packet of Zipzicles® comes with enough to make 12 popsicles, so that’s great. I would stock up on these for summer, especially since you can make them so easily with the recipe I’ll show you here. This isn’t the only recipe and in the comments section I’d love to hear what fruity/veggie combo you would make with these!
I start and finish with a few simple ingredients- fresh or frozen strawberries, cut watermelon, mint leaves, and vanilla flavored Monin syrup (which is halal-certified by IFANCA).
Use a food processor or blender to grind up the fruit and everything else. If you’re using frozen strawberries, make sure they go in first so that the blades can get to them first.
Next add the watermelon.
And mint.
Syrup or sugar (please not both).
Give it a whirl. It does not have to be thick. It should not be thick, otherwise it will not pour easily into the Zipzicle® bag.
Use a funnel to get the juices into the bag.
Use a scoop to pour it into the funnel if you’re using a food processor, otherwise it gets messy. Believe me.
This is so much cleaner.
Don’t fill it all the way to the top. Zipsicles has a nice little ‘fill line’ for you so that you don’t over do it. Remember, these have to freeze, which means the liquid will expand.
Be sure to label the bags ahead of time- see the first one? We didn’t label it until after the liquid went in and because it was cold and wet, the market didn’t work. The others were labeled before anything went it. Nice difference.
Stick them in the freezer and let them be frozen. Overnight is best. Then, simply enjoy it like the summer should be enjoyed! And you don’t have to be a kid to eat them!
Which flavors would you like to combine when making your own Zipzicle®?
*Note: I received a packet of Zipzicles® and the Monin syrup free of charge, without request for review or payment. All opinions expressed are my own.
[yumprint-recipe id=’33’]
![Sweet Greens Energy Smoothie]()
by Yvonne Maffei | Jul 1, 2014 | Drinks, Suhoor
I’m not really sure where I got the inspiration for this ‘green smoothie’ recipe, but I think it was the multitude of magazines and sites online talking about detoxing. I am not big on fad diets or any kind of dieting at all, really- just overall healthy eating as a lifestyle and something that is committed to through a definite change in habits.
And the detox regiment that comes with Ramadan with full instruction: fast from dusk until dawn, not even a sip of water. If that’s not giving the body’s digestive system a rest, i don’t know what is.
Combine that with eating super healthy real food when you actually are eating, and you’re giving your body a whole lot of TLC. That’s why I love this smoothie and would have it either for suhoor or iftar as a starter. Either time of day when you’re fasting for about 17 hours, as we are now, is going to be really nice.
Here are some of the super healthy ingredients I used:
I use frozen strawberries, but you can use fresh strawberries and then some ice. I also use fresh spinach, fresh pineapple, mango and banana.
First add the most difficult to break apart- whether it’s ice or something frozen, in this case the strawberries. You technically could also use frozen pineapple, banana, spinach, etc. Just adjust the ingredients amount a bit because if more than one item is frozen, it’ll be a lot more watery than this recipe.
So, in go the strawberries first. Aren’t they beautiful?
I love them also because they’re organic (thank you, Costco).
Next add the second most difficult to break up, the pineapple.
The pineapple should be diced, to make it easier. It’s such a fibrous fruit, subhanAllah. And oh, so good for you since it has all those wonderful digestive enzymes. Great for a fasting person since it aids in the digestion of other foods you’ll have during non-fasting hours, insha’Allah.
Add the mango, which should be chopped or diced. We’re getting to the softer ingredients, as you can see.
Next the bananas. I love how they just slide right in…
They are there for the taste and texture, making it sort of thick.
Add the spinach leaves are last, but not least. It’s what makes this drink so…special. I know you might not want to put spinach in this, but you must. Seriously, you have to try it if you’ve never done this before. I promise you it won’t taste like you’re eating grass.
Doesn’t it all look so pretty in the blender? That makes it more appealing, for sure. And the leafy greens are just hiding innocently at the top hoping you don’t take them out at the last minute.
Blend away, blend away. It gets greener…it does. I just wanted to show you the pretty pink color first.
Because this is the final result. Definitely a green smoothie.
[yumprint-recipe id=’20’]
