Blackberry Smoothie

Its always a joy to slurp over a smoothie on a hot afternoon. I consider it as a fun activity during my summer while I catch up on some movie :). And unlike having too many dishes to do after a whole lot of cooking, this is pretty simple and filling too. And I love smoothie because these are the most disguised way of making some fruits or berries go into my toddler....Shhh It's a secret. I cannot let that get revealed to him.

These blackberry smoothies look so pretty and taste amazing. We have been into too much smoothie lately, as the temperature rise and drink it as is, or may be even have it with cereals or oats. They are good.

Watermelon Juice

I dislike Summer. Its hot. Its dusty. It drains away energy from me. Mangoes and watermelons are what makes me love it a bit. When you get back from a days outing, all tired, a glass of mango shake/ mango lassi or plain lassi or watermelon juice could just refresh me up and help me gain back the energy.

I used to love the way they arrange the watermelons and mangoes underneath a stall roofed with palm leaves, during summer. And its so strategically placed at the entrance of the store, that you just can't miss picking them up even though you might have forgotten to write it down on your grocery list. So we ended up buying it on every grocery shopping.

Aam panna - Spiced Raw Mango Drink !

Have you seen the ad of Paperboat? Their ad with the tune of Malgudi days would make anyone go nostalgic about those good old days and go buy one of their drinks. Atleast it worked on me, esp. when the cashier keeps repeating everytime I am there, saying there is an offer on it and I am eligible for it. Ahh, I fell for it one day and then the next day and then the next..

That was last year. And that's when the Maggi tragedy happened. I decided to give up packaged items as much as possible. But by then I was addicted to Aam Panna. So the next grocery shopping I got mangoes to make it at home myself. And when the cashier offered it again, it was hard to refuse, but I did.

Sweet Lassi

Sweet Lassi was one of my favorite while I was pregnant. I survived the first trimester, having lassi and dosa, made by one of the restaurants. We were so frequent there, that once, they didn't even take our order but brought us masala dosas and lassi. Well the server was a rude one too and was trying to make fun of us I suppose.

My hormones were so active that I wanted to just send back that plate of dosa and lassi saying I never ordered for them. But Jacob somehow calmed me down saying, afterall this is what we wanted to order and that this was the only place he could source dosa for me. I couldn't make it myself as it would make me sick. Well, that was the last time we were there at that restaurant because I hunted down another restaurant the very next day which turned out to be serving awesome menu.

Sambharam / Morum Vellam / Spiced Buttermilk / Pacha Moru

It is getting hotter day by day. All you want is to drink water and juice. If we go out for few minutes, we return all tired and burnt. The first thing then to have is something cold to gulp down. The thoughts would have options of lime soda, juice, sambharam/moru etc. 

Liking towards Sambharam is one common thing between me and Jacob. On a lazy/busy day if I don't make any charu to go with rice then making a sambharam is all what I do, because yogurt is always there at home.

Arabian grape juice

Arabian grape juice reminds me of Oasis, a hotel that had opened up just next to our college. We used to looove the Arabian grape juice served there. We being a huge gang of friends, every month there would be one or two birthdays that we would celebrate. With Oasis having come up so close, we changed the birthday cake cuttings from cafeteria's or parks to Oasis. We(the noisy bunch of college students) could cut the cake as well as get a glass of this juice (which was super filling) so the restaurant guys also could not say no to us. Later we overheard a server nicknaming us as 'The juice gang'. So we had to put a full stop to our birthdays celebrations to be held there but used to still go there in small bunch to drink this juice.

I have no idea if the same restaurant does exist there but I would so love to go back and enjoy that chilled glass of juice to refresh old memories. But for now, as an alternative I am just going to drink this homemade juice sitting at home and pretend I am with that same noisy gang back there in Oasis :). Even though you may not have nostalgic moments attached to this grape juice, you should try it. It is so good and filling that you are sure to make this quite often.

Mango Shake / Mango Milkshake

Summer is almost here. Do you have any plans for this summer? Well, with the past year's experience I think we would keep ourselves locked inside rather than going out. Last year, we kept running away from sun. It was pretty hot. Atleast, we felt so. Five minutes in the sun was like sedative for me. I would fall off to sleep as soon as we would be back home, all tanned and burnt. I wonder how harsh it would be this time. If at all there was a weather moderate enough and remained the same all through out the year. Ahh, but then again, we would complain...human nature.

Now that mangoes are in season, I thought I should do this post. I must admit, I really miss the taste and smell of mangoes back home. The mangoes that we get here are no way close to comparison what we get there.

Iced Lemon Tea ~ A substitute for hot tea for this boiling summer !

The temperature hit 120 F over this weekend. Oh boy, it is so hot and they say the summer has just begun :(. I could literally feel being placed in an oven. Lots of buttermilk, cool drinks, chilled desserts is all what we want to have.

Evening tea time is never spared without a cup of hot coffee, at our home. But with the heat here, we loved sipping this iced tea. Every gulp of it felt heavenly :). Would you like to try some?

Strawberry Smoothie

It has been a long time since I posted something here. Not that I didn't want to, but was left with no choice. I got few warts removed from my fingers on my right hand. All I was left with was my little finger without bandages. Like how we say in malayalam Vellukan thechathe pande ayi - I now see that saying coming true. I shouldn't have messed with the painless/harmless warts, else it would have been so easy to type out this post using both hands. I did not think that through !

                            

Last week when I got so hungry and figured out that it is gonna take me a lot of time to serve and have food with my left hand, I chose to have this strawberry smoothie to calm down my hunger a little before I go for lunch. Surprisingly, these were so filling and refreshing that I was left with no room for lunch.