Tropical Smoothie Recipe

Starting off the week with another tasty drink!

I once worked at a local coffee joint in college – The java was okay, but the fruit smoothies we made were pretty amazing (I would always sneak one to Jim whenever he came to visit me).

With this recipe I tried to replicate my favorite tropical flavor combination.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup strawberries, frozen
• 1/2 cup mango, frozen
• 1/2 cup pineapple, frozen
• about 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (I used vanilla-flavored)
• a few splashes of milk

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender
2. Blend until smooth (add more milk if the mixture is too thick)
3. Enjoy!

I’m anxious to try more flavor combinations – What is your favorite smoothie?

Today’s Guilty Pleasure: Bubble Tea

To the unfamiliar, this drinkable concoction looks kinda gross, I know – But I found a great little cafe not too far from our apartment this weekend that serves some pretty amazing bubble tea.

All I can say is at least it’s not on my way home from work – It would be disastrous for my figure and my bank account.

I chose the Thai tea flavor:

Not sure if this is suggesting that we don’t eat children under 5 years of age … or that 5-year-olds shouldn’t have food.

Wanna sip?

What sweet treats are you indulging in this weekend?

A New Guilty Pleasure: Instant Horchata

Sometimes you just can’t deny the ease and tastiness of instant food …

In a previous post, I described how to make Easy Homemade Horchata.  In response to that post, I had a few commenters suggest that I try horchata purchased from a local Mexican market.  So when I popped in for some dried chiles, I picked up a bag of instant horchata mix:

It’s a bit sweeter than the homemade version, but boy is it good!!  Jim and I are currently on our second bag of mix and we typically finish a pitcher in 2 days – Hehe

We also picked up some other aguas frescas mixes to try!

I’m certainly not advocating that instant or ready-made is the way to go all the time (Jim and I cook dinners pretty much from scratch at least 5x per week, and come on, we all know homemade tastes better), but sometimes, pre-fab food just makes life a little sweeter.

P.S. While we’re on the subject of horchata – I made an Etsy Treasury inspired by the beverage!  Click here to visit, and browse more of the collection!

Easy Homemade Horchata

I was perusing foodgawker.com the other day (as I often do) and came across this Homemade Horchata Recipe.  I love the cinnamon-y and warm smell of horchata and, after seeing how easy it was to make, decided to give it a try!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup uncooked rice, rinsed a few times with cold water
• 4 cups hot water
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw, but table sugar would work just fine)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

In a food processor, pulverize the rinsed rice as much as possible.  It was difficult to get a smooth texture, so I processed the rice for a couple minutes, until the contents became very milky in appearance.

Blended Rice

In a large bowl, mix together the blended rice, sugar, and hot water until the sugar has dissolved completely.  Add in the vanilla extract and cinnamon and stir to combine.

Cinnamon and Vanilla Extract added to mixture, then stirred to combine

Then pour the mixture into a pitcher and keep in the refrigerator overnight.

Horchata mixture in pitcher

Then strain the mixture through cheesecloth and pour over ice (I added a sprinkle of cinnamon to top the drink off) – Enjoy!

Homemade Horchata over ice with a sprinkle of cinnamon

This drink feels good on a hot summer day – Jim and I just had a glass with breakfast – Very tasty!!

Homemade Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade

Awesome Strawberry Lemonade!!

This weekend I stumbled across a delicious-looking recipe for Strawberry Lemonade on foodgawker.  I sat there for a moment, pondering how much I wanted a glass of it when I realized … I had few-day-old strawberries chilling in the fridge!  I bookmarked the recipe from Willow Bird Baking, grabbed a tote bag and traipsed to the Farmer’s Market down the road for some lemons.  I ended up cutting the recipe in half simply because we don’t own a pitcher large enough for the full amount!  The following are the only ingredients you will need to make this wonderful drink:

Strawberries, Sugar, Water & Lemon Juice Going for a Spin!

• strawberries
• lemons (I used 4 for the recipe when cut in half)
• sugar
• water
• seltzer (I can’t live without it and always have some in the fridge, I used lime-flavored seltzer and it worked wonderfully -  You might want to try other flavors too!)

That’s it!  Please visit Willow Bird Baking’s website for the full recipe.  I didn’t tweak or change anything and it came out perfectly – Give it a try and you will have yourself a tasty, summer treat!