I am excited to tell you about a recent discovery. Set to revolutionise your baking, and more. Low Fat Gluten Free Flours. Paleo, too, if that’s your bag. And 0% calorie brown sugar and icing sugar.
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Probiotic Cream Soda - Make at home
When certain flavours hit your tongue it can be like you’ve jumped into a strobing time machine, and hit the ‘backwards’ button. Do you remember cream soda? It was a weekly fixture, alongside dandelion and burdock, in my mum’s shopping basket when I was younger. Time strode on, and I’d long forgotten about it’s creamy, sweet effervescence.
My regular readers will know I’ve been kicking up my health regime a few notches lately. Fermented foods and green juices are now imbibed daily. As are probiotic drinks. Kombucha (fermented tea) & water kefir. They are delightfully fizzy. In a good way. No tin filled, 16 spoons of sugar and umpteen calories here. The fizz comes from bacteria and cultures, doing the biz on sugar. Think natures PacMan!
Kefir is a cultured ‘grain’ that feeds on sugars. These bacteria are the good guys. They make ‘happy’ and yippee yahoo, in your gut.
It is fun and simple to make. I have gotten kind of attached to my kefir. The cultures are called grains. I guess because of a passing, gritty resemblance.
The sugar is eaten by them and not you! Making Kefir is good for diabetics. They have an ecosystem of enzymes and nutrients that are so good for you. The taste is dry, a little like mild lager (if I remember correctly…). Some call it an acquired taste. You can add flavours (fresh ginger juice, fruit etc). The bi-product of the kefir’s feast on the sugar is carbonation (natural=ok). You can see the little darlings jostling around in their sweet, watery banquet. The bubbles rush to the top. I’ve left them to their own devices for far too long a couple of times and been showered in fizz.
Simple
Use an empty glass spring water bottle to decant a heaped tablespoon or so of the kefir. Shake in some sugar (I use coconut palm sugar…it hints of caramel) about 1 tablespoon. Use a funnel to top up the bottle with spring, or filtered water. Twist on the cap and leave for roughly 8-16 hours (depending on room temperature…they like it warm..don’t we all!). If you are impatient and you try it before it is ready, the taste of sugar will be evident. Be patient.
1.pour out the bottle through a non-metal (they don’t like metal) strainer, into a jug or if you are careful, straight into a clean bottle. I pour the kefir from the jug into a funnel that is sitting in a clean bottle. Set aside to flavour.
2.Use the funnel to put the grains into a clean bottle and begin process again.
At this point I usually grate some ginger root and squeeze the juice straight into the bottle. It gives a satisfying kick to the back of your throat. You can’t help but gulp it down and then omit a satiated.. ‘ahhh’.
Last week I grabbed a bottle that was sitting on the side from beating together a batch of raw cupcakes. Mindlessly, I shook a few hearty dabs into the kefir. The bubbles frothed and shh’d as they filled a glass. Suddenly, I was 13 again and home from school, sitting at the phone table (yes…we used to have a table specially for the phone to sit on, in the days before cells/mobiles and phones came attached) talking to a friend I’d just said goodbye to from the bus, whilst phone clamped between shoulder and ear, juggling a glass and a bottle, moaning about how my ‘crush’ didn’t notice me or our make-up was confiscated..AGAIN! and slugging cream soda into my tumbler. It tasted very close to the ‘real’ thing. But HEALTHY! Ah, the memories. But now, present day, with so much more goodness (though being single is topic of the day again).
The ingredient….
Barons Vanilla Essence
It is made from vanilla essence and water..nothing else. It is far better without alcohol, glycerin or sugar etc.
Kefir is fun to make and full of ‘good’ bacteria. What flavour shall I try and recreate next? Cherry essence would be like Dr. Pepper. I’ll let you know. Or, you let me know if you’ve made a favourite concoction.
A UK stockist of the water kefir. This is where I bought my grains from in America USA Stockist
For heaps more info on the reported benefits visit here. It is a useful site about health and has lots of info about kefir.
Dumbells and dreams
When you go into fancy dancy hotel, with an ex-boyfriend you haven’t seen for years, and bump into George Clooney, something tells you know you are not in for an ordinary night. I wake this morning with a pink blush of remembrance colouring my cheeks. I have a sparkle in my eye and a feeling in my stomach….a precursor to a giggle.
You are no doubt wandering what the hell happened. I would be too. I am! What is making me feel like I’ve won the lottery and won some l.o.v.e all in the space of one night? Is it George?
OK. Well, George was in the lobby. You could of knocked me down with a pointed feather when I pushed open the heavy glass foyer door and saw him there. Yes, he is as gorgeous (ooh, my stomach flips at the memory reel playing in my mind) up close. Very close. Now, this is where it gets a little strange….r. George is leaning casually against the reception desk, wearing a grey uniform edged in black and gold, and he appears to be on staff. I approach. He flashes a knee buckling smile. He confides that Hollywood is one big scam monster and they all have in-between jobs! Yes, I was flabbergasted too. Illusions shattered like film set prop glass made out of sugar. He kind of looks at me…I thought, ‘is he flirting with his eyes’ or is he like that with bus drivers, little old ladies and …well, everyone. The next thing I know I am ditching the ex in our hotel room after dinner, and creeping around the hotel like a cat burglar. I haven’t a clue why…until I bump into him. Dear readers I can happily and breathlessly report that the glint in his soulful eyes had my name on it. Now, I am not one to kiss and tell, but let me just say this (she bites down on her lip, and blushes) he is a gentleman…a passionate gentleman!
So you may assume that this is what has me bouncing around like a spring lamb, who’s holding hands with Tigger this fine Sunday morn! Well, no. Or partly yes. I think I may be having green juice vitality hallucinations. Of course, my bodice ripping tryst with George, and comeuppance to the ex, was a rather splendid dream I had the good fortune to act in last night, probably brought on by my renewed spring-like regime.
For over week now I’ve been getting juicy….
and consuming fields upon fields of robust verde oscuro kale. In green smoothies and piles of salad. Tip….sit your kale in a vase of water until you are ready to eat it to maintain its vibrancy.
I also slashed aside large tacky hanging cobwebs, as big as dream catchers, and flaccid damp boxes and wayward screwdrivers to get to this at the back of my shed…
upon which I’ve been doing some moving and shaking. It is a rebounder. Great for improving lymphatic drainage, and according to NASA during studies way back in the day (1980) … quote un-quote
NASA - ‘exercise on a rebounder or mini trampoline is the most efficient and effective exercise yet devised by man’.
Apparently, burning more calories than jogging! The shift in gravity is said to benefit every muscle and cell in the body. Whoop Whoop!
But that is not all.. I’m sprouting little forests of food too upon my kitchen windowsill! They are nutrition powerhouses. Full of living!
I am loving them and tending to them like little green Tamagotchi (remember them?..sooo last century). Sprouting is so NOW! I get so proud when their little white shoots emerge and I know they are alive. And then I eat them.
So, is the giggle languishing in my tummy and the spring in my step down to Mr Clooney or a kick-ass regimen I’ve finally got around to revisiting? Perhaps in this world we don’t have to choose and conclude it is in all probability.. both.
Got to run. Lots to do before bedtime!
