fruit and sesame smoothie

With the summer and good weather, surely many of you will try to refresh yourself by drinking sparkling or sugary drinks, but you will surely be aware that beside of those drinks there is a delicious and fruity alternative: we're talking about smoothies. This drink is nowadays very popular in America and Europe because it is considered to be an healthier version of the famous milkshakes. A smoothie is fresh fruit mixed with soya (or regular) milk or yogurt and ice. Occasionally it may also contains peanut butter or even chocolate. The final result is similar to a fruity granita or an italian ice, but more creamy, and that's why it's called "smoothie". It may have a milkshake-like texture, but it differentiates from it because smoothies have no ice cream in their recipe making it lightier. We published also other recipe about healthy and fresh drinks, like our carrot and lemon juice here.

Smoothies are often confused also with frappè, that is a Greek drink very popular in the Mediterranean and easter European area. Frappes are made with coffee espresso, and it is characterized by its foamy consistence, similar the one of a cappuccino.

In the lasts years, with the increasing of the interest in healthy food, smoothies have become more and more healthy, containing super light ingredients. They've become an authentic icon of healthy food lovers. We can find the word "smothee" for the first time in a 1940 advertising for a food mixer. The modern concept of smoothies has been developed in the health addicts world of 1960s California, and from then on it has been a symbol of an healthy and tasty drink without added sugar. It is now much loved by the ones who criticises the omnipresence in America of the commercial sparkling drinks containing lots of sugar.

Today we'll bring you our own version of a classical New York-style smoothie that you can change the fruit we've used according your tastes, and of course you can decide to use peanut butter. We decided to to a different and lightier version, using the tahin sauce instead of the peanut butter. The tahin sauce is made with toasted sesame, and it's very frequently used in the eastern mediterranean cultures, as it's essential to prepare the famous hummus. We decided to change the cow milk with rice milk, which makes it perfect for those with a lactose intolerance, for the vegans and so on!

C'mon, try this recipe, not only because they're so popular right now, but also because they're so healthy, simple and easy to do, and they're perfect for any time of the year too! These drinks will make your sons enjoy all the taste of the fruit and their so important vitamins. This recipe will take no longer than 5 minutes of your time, you'll see! ;)

Ingredients: 

• 1 frozen banana (better if it's a platano de Canarias)
• 250 mixed berries
• 2 spoonful of tahin
• 150 rice milk

Preparation:

Mix in a food processer all the ingredients until you obtain a mix that it's at the same time thick and soft. We suggest you to peel the banana or the platano de Canarias before you freeze it, and to wash the mixed berries or the strawberry before you freeze them.

You can use directly fresh fruit, without freezing it, but in this case you can change the half of the milk with icecubes, to keep the texture and the freshness we're looking for. If you prefer you can add also add some honey, even if the fruit it's pretty sweet anyway. It's also perfect with a couple of dates, too!

Greetings,

AnGie

Pumpkin sweet in 3 simple steps

The pumpkin cake or sweet we're talking about today is one of those recipes perfect for any time of the year, since it has to be eaten cold and without a spoon. It's perfect for celebrations, snacks or even party where guests help theirselves, everyone with a piece of this cake and happy with that!

Furthermore, it's so easy that you've no excuses! You can prepare it in a few moments and for the rest you've got your dear friend: mr. Oven! ;)

Ingredients:

• 1 Kg. of pumpkin
• 4 eggs
• 300 g. of flour
• 200 g. of sugar
• 250 ml. of milk
• 125 ml. of olive oil
• 1 drizzle of liquor (optional)
• 1 Tsp of Royal
• 1 Tsp of Vanilla extract
• 1 tin can of condensed milk ( 370 g. aproximately) 
• lemon zest

Preparation:

1- We cut, peel and cook well the pumpkin, then we let it dry well, and we shred it with a food processor.

2- We add all the remaining ingredients to the shredded pumpkin, and stir it well until we obtain an homogeneous mix. Remember to sift the flour befor adding it to the mix, in order to avoid bulks.

3-Grease with butter or with olive oil your mould (in my case, a rectangular mould of 30x18 cms), pour the mix in it and we cook it in a preheated oven at 120°C for some 75 minutes or so.

Our cake in the oven

And there you have it! Ready! Let it cool down, take it off from the mould and cut it into pieces. Once it's completely cold you can put it into the fridge to preserve it longer.

It's a very smooth and creamy sweet. If you're like me and you don't dig pumpkins, you'll surely like it anyway, as I do! Try it and it will surprise you!

Greetings!

AnGie

The Cappuccino and its history

A Cappuccino

Today we'll talk about one of the best known drink in the World, the Cappuccino. We can find it everywhere we go, more or less well done...but how was it created?

A capuchine monk drinking a
cappuccino

The Cappuccino as we know it today was born in 1901, by Luigi Bezzera, the inventor of the Espresso Machine. But lots of legends want this drink to have been invented a lot earlier, and not in Italy, but in another country: Austria. The legend says the creator of the Cappuccino was Marco d'Aviano, a capuchine monk in mission in Austria to save Europe from the 1683 invasion of the Turks. The Turks, when they renounced to Vienna, left behind many sacks of coffee powder, a drink they particularly loved.

The monk, when he tried to savour the balck drink, found it too bitter, decider to put some milk in it, obtaining a dink whose colour is similar to his capuchine dress. The drink therefore started to be called "the capuchine's drink", and then Cappuccino. Then, after century, technology permitted the creation of the creamy deliciousness we all know as Cappuccino.

Ingredients and process:

The cappuccino is obtained with an espresso coffee base (1/3 of the cup), milk (another 1/3) and the typical milk foam to top the cup. Usually you can find it with a spinkle of cinnamon or cocoa powder. It is usually served in a china pot in order to keep the liquid hot. The sugar has to be added according our tastes. For example, I like it with sugar cane.

Everyone knows the coffee shop, the caffeteria and the bar version of the Cappuccino, that they obtain through an espresso machine, but we can have our own excellent version in our homes! First step, just made a coffee with a moka coffee pot!

How we make it? Today lots of kitchen robots help us with our cooking tasks, for example in the creation of the milk foam, but the easiest way is to obtain (for example through internet) a a milk frother, or a Montalatte as is know in Italy.

The milk frother, or montalatte

It is very easy to work with it, you just should fill the frother with the milk and put it to heat, then, when the milk is hot, shake it well for some seconds and there you have it your milk foam. Do not warm the milk too much, because, if your milk is hotter than 70°C the foam will dissolve fastly. If you don't have a thermometer, just don't let the milk to reach the boiling point.

the milk frother opened

Another trick to create a perfect foam is to hit a little bit the bottom of the pot, so to addense our milk foam.
Now choose your favourite cup, put your moka coffee pot on the heat and wait for the coffee to get ready. Put the coffe in the cup and then add the milk and the milk foam. You can decide how to decorate your own cappuccino with the now very popular so called Latte Art.

A cappuccino decorated with Latte Art

Let us tell you some curiosity about Cappuccino. In Italy is considered the cornerstone of the Colazione all'Italiana, or italian breakfast, done with a Cornetto (an italian version of the croissant, made with less butter than the transalpine ones) and a Cappuccino. Yes, in Italy we almost never drink Cappuccino after 10 a.m. in the morning! In Us or elsewhere you can drink cappuccino everytime you want, and that's because in the other cultures, breakfast is not sweet-based, like for instance in Italy or France, but made with salted dishes, and therefore the Cappuccino becomes somewhat a substitution of coffee. There's nothing strange in enjoying a Cappuccino at 5 p.m. in London or New York, but if you ask for it in Florence or Rome, the waiter may just look at you arkwardly. In the case, just laugh and add to the waiter: "sorry man, I'm just foreigner!" ha ha!
In other bars or caffetterias you can also find a Cappuccino made with heavy cream. But in this case is not a proper Cappuccino. You would obtain something that in Austria is called melange and in Italy is known as caffè viennese.

That's all for today, we hope you'll try to do your own cappuccino at your house, and that it will become a domestic rite for your breakfasts!

caffeine greetings!

Angie