3 Day Detox Diet -- Detox Smoothie Recipe

Blogging Marathon# 64: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Detox Diet

Dish: Detox Smoothie with Strawberries & Grapefruit

After a month blogging nonstop, we are back in the regular 3 days a week blogging schedule this month. I picked up an interesting theme to start the month off. After indulging on delicious Indian food for the mega marathon, I thought detoxing would be just perfect to reset my system.

I bought 'Clean Slate' cookbook couple of weeks before Valli announced this month's themes. Even though at the time, I didn't really had a chance to read about the detox diet, I went ahead and signed up for this theme. It wasn't until I was done cooking for the mega marathon that I started thinking on how to go about this whole 'detox' business.

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Eggless Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 7
Bake of the Day: Eggless Strawberry Creamcheese Cupcakes
Did you know that yesterday, December 15th, was National Cupcake day? I didn't either, but it was on my daughter's calendar and that's how I found out :-) So here's a recipe celebrating the cupcake day.

I actually made these for my mom's 60th birthday couple of months ago. We also celebrated my daughter's 3rd birthday on the same day, hence the 60 & 3 toppers on the cake. I decorated some with fresh strawberries and some with fondant toppers. Base is my favorite vegan vanilla cupcakes stuffed with a piece of cream cheese which is in turn topped with strawberry jam.

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Banana Strawberry Protein Smoothie (Sunwarrior Product Review and a Giveaway)

I posted about my new exercise routine that I started at the beginning of this year here. Recently I fell off the P90X wagon -- mostly because I was getting bored of doing 1 hour long workouts over and over again. But I didn't want to stop exercising altogether, so I started doing 30 minute cardio and aerobic workouts watching you tube videos.
After a workout I try to drink a healthy smoothie (either by adding protein powder or peanut butter or chia/ hemp seeds). Recently Sunwarrior reached out to me to do a review on their new product line -- Classic Plus.

Like all the other Sunwarrior products, Classic plus is also based on the original rice protein and has added amino acid balancing effects of peas, chia seeds, quinoa and amaranth. Read more about it here.

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Strawberry Jam (using Pectin)

With the last batch of strawberries we got from the farm, I made this Strawberry jam. I had some Pomona's Universal Pectin and I used the recipe from the instruction manual to make this jam. I bought a box of this few years ago and I've made jams using this pectin before and it always worked well for me.

Some people prefer not to add pectin, but I find adding it makes the jam hold its shape better. If you prefer not to use pectin, then feel free to leave it out. Almost all fruits have some level of natural pectin in them that will help them set to make a somewhat firm to very firm jam. Here's a good article to read more on this.

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Strawberry Crush (Strawberry Concentrate)

I wrote about the huge load of strawberries we got from strawberry picking in this post. After making those pancakes and the syrup, I still had a lot of them leftover. So I asked my blog buddies on whatsapp on how to use them up before they go bad.

Ever resourceful Vaishali gave her Strawberry crush recipe. She said it's her tried and tested recipe and I immediately set about to make the crush. Vaishali uses the crush in many different ways: as a sauce to serve chocolate desserts, to make popsicles and so on. Head over to Vaishali's blog for many more yummy ideas to use with strawberry crush.

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Strawberry-Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Strawberry Maple Syrup

Blogging Marathon# 54: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Fruits in any form

Dish: Strawberry-Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Strawberry Maple Syrup

For the second day under Kid's Delight -- fruits in any form theme, I made strawberry pancakes and served them with strawberry maple syrup. My kids love pancakes and waffles for breakfast, but I rarely make them. After a lot of nagging from them, I finally treat them with some pancakes.

Last month, we went strawberry picking and seeing all the beautiful strawberries we got too excited and picked way too much than we can really handle. Strawberries are quite fragile and need to be treated very gently. I sorted them out and put them in a single layer on paper towel lined baking sheets in the fridge.

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Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream (3 Ingredient Recipe and No Ice Cream Maker required)

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 3/ Day 3

Theme: 3 Ingredient Recipes

Dish: Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream

For the final day of this week's marathon, I made this amazing 3-ingredient Roasted Strawberry Ice cream that needs no ice cream maker. I did a happy dance when I found this recipe while looking for 3 ingredient dishes. I had all the ingredients on hand and it just sounded too good not to try right away.

I already have 2 strawberry ice cream recipes on the blog -- one with strawberry puree and the other with condensed milk, orange liquer etc. If you click on the links and see, you'll notice that the first one looks a little icy whereas the second one is quite creamy. The second recipe is very easy to make -- just mix all the ingredients and then churn in the ice cream maker.

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Shortcakes with Strawberry & Mango

Blogging Marathon# 52: Week 2/ Day 3

Theme: Seasonal Veggies & Fruits

Dish: Shortcakes with Strawberry-Mango 

For the final day of this week's marathon, I picked juicy strawberries and mangoes as my seasonal fruits. Spring brings in so many fresh and delicious produce that is very exciting to visit the farmers market or even the grocery store. So many varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables to choose, it is sometimes overwhelming. I feel like I have to buy everything because what if they are not there the next time I come to the store.

We have been enjoying strawberries a lot this season. My daughter loves them and she's been eating them for snack almost every day. She feels so disappointed when I tell her that we are out of strawberries. So strawberries have become a regular item on my grocery list now.

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Fresh Strawberry Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 21

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes --  Fresh Strawberry Cake

I first saw this strawberry cake on Siri's blog. This cake recipe was making rounds in Facebook couple of months ago. A Strawberry Winter Cake movement was also started because it was strawberry season in India. All the cakes shared looked so amazing that I had to jump on the bandwagon and make this cake right away. This cake celebrates Summer in a delicious way!!

Even though it wasn't really strawberry season then (I still remember the super cold winter -- brrrrr), I found some decent strawberries and made this cake. It is a very pretty cake with whole strawberries beautifully arranged on top. I should have put the strawberries a little closer on top -- they seemed to have drifted apart after baking.

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Strawberry Mango Salad with Balsamic Dressing

For this month's International Food Challenge, we are going to explore the Bordeaux cuisine from France. Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in southwest France. The historic part of the city is on the UNESCO World Heritage List as “an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble” of the 18th century. Bordeaux is also an upscale place- a city for luxury shopping, drinking, and eating. It sits in the center of the world famous wine region that bears its name and thus tourists come here come to eat, drink, experience wine, and be merry. 

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Strawberry Tartlets (Valentine's Day Recipe)

It is that time of the year, when love is in the air, strawberries and chocolates are highly sort after. I had plans on posting something totally different for the weeked, but then I remembered the big box of strawberries I picked up at Costco and that led me to think to look for a Valentine's day worthy recipe.

I got lucky in the second book I was browsing and found this really quick and easy to make Strawberry Tartlets. This recipe is from Costco Connection cookbook. Very few ingredients are needed for this recipe and luckily I had them all on hand. It took about 30 minutes to make the tartlets and they were all gone in less than 10 minutes.

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Mini Éclairs with Strawberries & Cream

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Bookmarked Recipes
Dish: Mini Eclairs

For Day 2 of this week's marathon, I have these cute little mini eclairs I made back in April for the Easter party at home. I was always under the impression that eclairs are very difficult to make, on the contrary these are quite easy to put together and are sure to impress the guests.
The first time I heard the word 'Éclair', I thought it the Cadbury chocolate eclairs we used to eat as kids. But this one is actually a French pastry that is made with choux dough filled with a cream and topped with icing. It is very interesting to know that the word comes from French éclair 'flash of lightning', so named because it is eaten quickly in a flash.

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France -- Whole wheat Crepês with Banana, Strawberry & Nutella filling

BM# 44: A-Z Cooking Series -- Around the World in 30 days
Country: F for France

Dish: Whole wheat Crepês with Banana, Strawberry & Nutella filling

Today we are going to France, Western European country that is definitely on my bucket list. One of my ex-colleague was from France and she has quite a few stories to tell about her country. Also I almost forgot to mention that I learnt French for about 5 years in school, but the most I can speak or understand is 'Bonjour'. What I learnt from my French friend is that French people love their language and don't like it being butchered by non-French speaking people (like me). I was ridiculed way too many times for my poor pronunciation and grammar.

French cuisine is known to be the finest in the world. It is very diverse and has exerted a major influence on other western cuisines. Traditionally, each region in France has its own distinctive cuisine.

I decided to make one of the most common and popular French dishes, Crepês. A crepê is a type of very thin pancake, usually made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour. Crepês are served with a variety of fillings, from the most simple with only sugar to flambeed crepe suzette or elaborate savory galettes. French sure have dishes with some fancy names.

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Eggless Stuffed French Toast Roll Ups

Blogging Marathon# 30: Week 2/ Day 3
Theme: Get it Rolled
Dish: Eggless Stuffed French Toast Roll Ups

Final day of Blogging marathon and today's dish was the toughest of all to select. I usually make a note of all the dishes that I want to make for the theme right after Valli announces the themes. But this week under the theme 'Get it Rolled' I had the first two dishes cooked and done (Summer Rolls & Chana Dal Kebabs) long back, but the third dish was eluding me.

I probably went through 10 different things to make--mentally, but some seemed too elaborate (no time for that) or involved deep frying (it's too hot to deep fry) or I didn't have the ingredients to make a dish. As I was quickly exhausting all my options, one morning I woke up and wanted to make French toast for breakfast and remembered seeing French Toast roll ups on Pinterest. I made them eggless following Hari Chandana's recipe from here.

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Strawberry Pink Lemonade

Summer is officially here in our neck of woods. Even though there has been more rain in the forecast than real sunny days, we are enjoying this time of the year to the maximum extent. This past weekend has been great, got to meet and spend time with some very good friends -- lots of yummy food and relaxed time. 

So if you are planning to entertain this summer, I have a great drink recipe that is sure to be a it at your next backyard/ BBQ party. It's super refreshing and can be made ahead of time.

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Strawberry Mango Gazpacho

Blogging Marathon# 29: Week 2/ Day 2
Theme: Pick 2 Ingredients & Cook from a Book
Ingredients/ Book: Strawberry & Mango/ Vegetarian Times
Dish: Strawberry Mango Gazpacho

I didn't have to look hard for today's recipe. As I was browsing through this month's Vegetarian Times magazine, I saw a very vibrant picture of this Strawberry Gazpacho and I really wanted to make it because the picture was so appealing and I had all the ingredients in hand. This was even before Valli announced this month's BM themes. So I knew right away that one of my combos was going to be Strawberry & mango.

I made this dish twice already and it is so refreshing that I can't stop myself from eating the while bowl all by myself. This is a no-cook recipe and all the ingredients go right into the blender. Lime cilantro cream topping is completely optional, gazpacho tastes great without it as well.

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Strawberry Shrikhand

Blogging Marathon# 29: Week 1/ Day 3
Theme: Cooking with Colors
Dish: Strawberry Shrikhand -- Red

For the final day of this week's BM, I made a delicious and colorful Shrikhand with Strawberries. Shrikhand  is nothing but sweetened strained yogurt that is usually made in Maharashtra and Gujarat. At one point in my life, I would have said a "BIG NO" to Shrikhand because I considered yogurt savory and it was sacrilege to add sugar to yogurt. Now that I'm older and wiser I know how tasty this combination could be.

To add some color and sweetness to plain shrikhand, I added some strawberry pulp to yogurt and then to make it even more fancy, I layered yogurt with strawberry puree. This combination was so amazing -- both in the looks department and also in the taste department.

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Pistachio Sandwich Cookies

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 1/ Day 7
Theme: Occasions/ Goodies to Blog buddies
Dish: Pistachio Sandwich Cookies

When blog buddies meet there is going to be food to eat, food to talk about and food to take home. So after our lunch at I wrote about here, I sent my buddies home with some of my homemade goodies. These pistachio sandwich cookies were one among them.

I love slice and bake icebox cookie recipes. What that means is the dough is made into a log and chilled in the ice box for 4 hours (or up to 3 days, it can even to frozen) and then sliced and baked. I don't like rolling the dough and cutting the cookie using cookie cutters. It seems to too time consuming and messy. I actually have a whole box of cookie cutters that I have never used until now. Maybe when my daughter grows a little older, I can learn with her :-)

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Chocolate Lassi

Blogging Marathon# 25: Week 3/ Day 2
Theme: Cooking with Alphabets - A, L, F
Dish: L for Lassi

Today's dish was a no brainer for me, when I thought of what to make under letter 'L', all I could think was "Lassi". Lassi is a popular and traditional Punjabi yogurt based drink that is made by blending yogurt and water with Indian spices. Lassi can be savory or sweet.

My son loves the sweet and delicious Mango lassi and we order it every time we are at an Indian restaurant. For today I wanted to make a lassi that is slightly different. Well ok, the main reason I wanted to use something strongly flavored like chocolate was because the homemade yogurt I was using had a slightly burnt taste to it (while boiling milk for the yogurt, I burnt it at the bottom making the whole yogurt get that smoky burnt flavor). No other mild flavors like mango or strawberry can disguise that taste, so I took the chocolate route.

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Strawberry Ice Cream (Eggless)

Even though it's not technically winter yet in our neck of woods, temperatures have been hovering around freezing for the past few days. I have started to think about summer already and to remind me of the hot weather I'm posting my Strawberry ice cream recipe. This post has been in my drafts since summer but I haven't had a chance to post it, I thought it's better late than never. Also it's probably summer in some part of the world and I'm sure they have strawberries in season.

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