I don’t really believe in New Year’s Resolutions though I do like the idea of change with a clean start. It just takes me a bit to get around to it. I need to clean up my eating habits and once I get through Super Bowl, Fat Tuesday (known as Paczki Day in these parts) and Valentine’s Day, I figure it’s a good time to start. A regular meal schedule is needed, one with more protein, less sugar, less carbohydrates – the usual directives. In the past I’ve roughly followed and enjoyed “The Food Lovers Cleanse” published years ago in Bon and have started it up again this year. It’s a two week plan of healthy, flavorful food cooked fresh daily, includes uses for leftovers and is vegetable heavy, low carb and low dairy. It is easy for me to follow and I especially like that there is something sweet, mostly fruit based, to end each day. Realism. Thank you!
I’ve also taken a fancy to those little juice shots, the tubes of immunity boosters with ginger and turmeric. They’re great for cold and flu season, full of anti-inflammatory and immunity properties and good-for-you types of stuff. The main issue is they are rather pricey – 3 or 4 bucks a pop. It adds up. I thought about this while standing in a Korean market recently, staring at a $3 tray of fresh turmeric rhizomes. Could I make something similar to those shots myself? Probably. They seem pretty straight forward. I bought that turmeric and a big handful of fresh ginger and set off to find out.
Turns out, it’s very easy. I found a recipe from Eating Well that worked pretty well. Ginger, turmeric, honey, lemon juice and pepper are thrown into a blender and the pulp strained out. The juice is then frozen in an ice cube tray. Combine a frozen cube in a mug with hot water and you have a pretty tasty beverage with many of the health benefits of those purchased shots. I had everything but the ginger and turmeric on hand so it was relatively inexpensive though to cost out a batch, I estimate it’d run around $5 total for 9 cubes (versus over $30 for the purchased shots.) I can work with this.
While I liked the original formulation, I wanted it a touch sweeter and more gingery so I increased those ingredients along with the black pepper and I added a little coconut oil because I read it improves energy and endurance and I really need that. I’m not much of a breakfast first thing kind of person but have drank a mug of this every morning of the last week. It might be all psychological but I feel pretty good and it’s been a great start to my days. Worth keeping up, certainly.
STRESS THERAPY BAKING FACTOR: ZING! These are bright, tasty and a great wake up drink in the morning. I used to take a daily turmeric pill for its anti-inflammatory properties and this will slide in nicely instead with an added boost of vitamin C and antioxidants. I wonder how many different flavor directions I can take this idea. Definitely worth experimenting!
LEMON GINGER TURMERIC CUBES
serves 8-9
The original recipe said 2 teaspoons of ground fresh turmeric can be substituted for the fresh but I like using the fresh rhizomes and find them relatively inexpensive in Asian markets. For longer storage, I peel the extras and freeze.
1 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 4 lemons)
¾ cup peeled chopped fresh ginger (about 3.5oz)
2 tablespoons peeled chopped fresh turmeric (around 2 pcs)
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons coconut oil
¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
- Combine all the ingredients in a blender; process until smooth, about 1 minute. (Note: a high powered blender like a VitaMix works extremely well though a regular blender does the job too.)
- Strain the juice through a fine-mesh strainer into a large measuring cup, pressing solids to extract the juice; you should have about 1 cup of juice. Discard the solids.
- Pour the juice into a silicone ice cube tray (my tray hold 2 ½ tablespoons per cube and makes 9 total).
- Freeze until solid, at least 1 hour.
- Once frozen solid, transfer to a labeled ziploc bag with the serving instructions written on the outside and store in the freezer up to 2 months.
- To make 1 serving: place a cube in a heatproof mug and stir in 8oz of boiling water. Depending on your cube size, you may have to experiment with the cube to water ratio to find what tastes best.
