ginger – Loving Food, Fashion, & Life

Blueberry Mango Smoothie

Posted on May 16, 2014 by LFFL

Made with fresh blueberries, mango, ginger, mint, sugar, and half & half.

This was made special for me and, oh, how I loved it. Every ingredient that I was told was inside this glass of lovely—I could taste to perfection. The perfect amount of each ingredient made this an amazing drink.

Chefs are amazing. To play in the kitchen and come up with a concoction off the top of your head with the right amount of each ingredient is utterly amazing to me.

So, if you have nothing else to do today, concoct yourself a made up smoothie just for yourself to enjoy—unless you’re in a sharing-type mood.

Take-Away Life Lesson: The freshest ingredients and in the right amounts make all the difference in how your smoothie will taste.

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Spiced Breakfast Quinoa

Posted on April 12, 2014 by LFFL

Made with quinoa, milk, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, honey, vanilla extract, egg white, and raisins.

So I tried a quinoa recipe. I don’t get a chance to make quinoa very much mainly because my taste buds haven’t found a way to really like it too swell. I think you have to find the right mix of ingredients to make it taste divine.

I’m sure quinoa is lovely if you find the right way to make it. I’ve just been an unlucky soul in that department. Or maybe I don’t like quinoa like I thought I did. I do have to say that the sweetness of the raisins helped loads with the taste. Just pile on the raisins, people!

I did make a quinoa recipe a couple of years ago as a side dish for dinner. I can’t remember the ingredients mixed with it, but it was edible.

I think anyone that likes quinoa, overall, will like this recipe. I, on the other hand, have no plans to make this recipe again. But it was an interesting experiment in the kitchen, nonetheless.

Recipe for—Spiced Breakfast Quinoa

So, if you have nothing else to do today, see if you can make a dish of quinoa that will knock the socks off my taste buds.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Sometimes you have to experiment over and over to get a dish to taste just the way you like it. Or maybe quinoa just isn’t for everyone.

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Tofu Veggie Stir Fry

Posted on October 6, 2013 by LFFL

Made with extra-firm tofu, carrot chips, snap peas, onions, soy sauce, fresh chopped ginger, chopped garlic cloves, honey, rice vinegar, and olive oil; served with long grain brown rice.

Here’s something to serve up healthy.

Recipe for—Tofu Veggie Stir Fry

So, if you have nothing else to do today, try your hand at a healthy stir fry.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Always use fresh ginger rather than ground ginger whenever possible. The two flavors cannot compare.

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Sweet Potato Love

Posted on August 31, 2013 by LFFL

Made with fresh sweet potatoes, brown sugar, heavy whipping cream, butter, salt & pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla extract, brandy, and orange zest.

OH, I’ve fallen in love!! These are the BEST SWEET POTATOES EVER!! I can’t begin to tell you how delicious these are. You’ll have to try them for yourselves.

Recipe for—Candied Sweet Potatoes
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup brandy
zest of 1 orange
3 1/2 lbs medium-sized sweet potatoes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13-inch casserole dish with vegetable cooking spray.

In a saucepan, mix the first 8 ingredients with a wooden spoon and cook over medium-low heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5-7 minutes, until the mixture thickens. Add the vanilla, brandy, and orange zest. Cook another minute to thicken further. Turn off heat, cool slightly; set aside.

Peel and slice sweet potatoes into 1/2-inch circles and arrange in prepared baking dish. Pour candy sauce over the sweet potatoes, cover with foil, and bake for 40-50 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 20-30 minutes uncovered until sweet potatoes are fork-tender, basting periodically with sauce.

Makes 8 servings.

Made with canned candied yams, butter, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and miniature marshmallows.

I love the crunchy marshmallow topping on this. I love to peel the browned marshmallows off with my fingers and just eat them.

Recipe for—Whipped Sweet Potato Bake

Made with fresh sweet potatoes, olive oil, red onion, red bell pepper, green onions, chopped garlic cloves, smoked paprika, salt & pepper, and fresh parsley.

Recipe for—Sweet Potato Hash

So, if you have nothing else to do today, definitely make those LOVELY candied sweet potatoes! They are to DIE for!! And make the sweet potato bake if for no other reason than to peel those crispy brown marshmallows off with your hands and pop them in your mouth. So fun!

Take-Away Life Lesson: The sweet potato is your friend.

Juicey Juice Drinks

Posted on May 19, 2013 by LFFL

Carrot Apple Ginger Juice

Gazpacho Juice

Mean Green Juice

Citrus Inspired Green Juiice

Sunset Blend Juice

So I decided I wanted to play with my Ninja Blender/Food Processor. So I happened across a “Weekend Juice Cleanse” with Joe Cross on the Dr. Oz Show. So I figured this is as good as any to play with.

One thing I did discover—you should use an actual juicer if you plan to follow these recipes as is. I have an actual juicer—but, since it’s still in the box and I haven’t read the instructions on it yet, it just seemed quicker to use the blender.

But a blender doesn’t quite work the same like I thought it would. After blending and crushing everything to mush, it still was not drinkable through a straw or anything. It just chopped everything up finely but it was still too thick. So I did have to add some type of liquid (apple juice, lemonade, whatever) to the blending for each drink until I thought it looked drinkable-er (possibly not a real word in the dictionary, but I’m not losing any sleep over it).

Juice #1—Carrot Apple Ginger Juice

This was actually very good. I absolutely loved this drink. It was perfectly sweet with the apple and I loved the taste of ginger in it. I had never used fresh ginger before and wasn’t sure how to ‘work’ that log-looking thing in the grocery store they told me was ginger. It was tree bark, for goodness sake. What do you do with tree bark?! So, naturally, I did some research on the Internet before I screwed the whole thing up. It wasn’t as scary or as hard as it looked. Real easy. Loved the taste it gave to the drink.

Juice #2—Gazpacho Juice

Ewww. Yuck. Good luck drinking this concoction! And I put in only 1/8 of a red onion—not 1/4—and could still taste too much of the onion. I felt like I was being punished for something and that I’ve never wanted to apologize so quickly before in my life.

Juice #3—Mean Green Juice

This was more of a drinkable crunchy. Kale always does that. I was able to muster this down with no problem. I’m convinced some of the apple juice I used helped with the taste. But, nonetheless, I drank my 8 kale leaves with no problem.

Juice #4—Citrus Inspired Green Juice

This was blech! The recipe calls for only 6 clementines—but I’ve never used so many clementines in my life! I ended up throwing in at least a good 12-13 clementines into it and some extra apple juice. It’s not hard to drink your veggies if you can get the drink to mostly taste like fruit. If it tastes sweet enough, I can scarf down 8 leaves of kale and 8 leaves of Swiss chard all day long. Needless to say, I had to concoct this one to my own liking or it wasn’t gonna happen.

Juice #5—Sunset Blend Juice

This was another drink that needed some extra fruit. You can really taste the raw red bell pepper. As long as you keep the vegetables in there, concoct it with fruit and juice to your own liking so you can down it with pleasant thoughts.

Recipes for—The Weekend Juice Cleanse

Now, there are some juice drinks that are straight vegetable that I have no problem drinking straight up—but they have to be made and blended with the right kind of vegetables that I like. Otherwise, as you read above, it will be doused with fruitiness.

So, if you have nothing else to do today, get a juicer and load your body up on nothing but fruits and vegetables and see if your body feels much better than it normally does.

And don’t for a minute think I did this juice thing as instructed—all 5 drinks each day for the 3-day weekend. Pahleese! I just couldn’t. I could only attempt 2 drinks a day at most. To make up for the ones I couldn’t drink, I just doubled-up on the ones that I could. But, I will say, they kept me pretty full most of the day.

Take-Away Life Lesson: If you want to try a juice cleanse, find one you can actually tolerate—otherwise, you’re not really following that particular juice regimen at all by the time you’re done with all your personal doctoring up of it all. But pushing all the different buttons on the blender is always fun.

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