GLOW

When I was in high school, my best friend and I both decided to eliminate soda from our diets. I wasn't particularly conscious about my diet at the time, but it seemed like a good idea given the scary stories I'd heard about all of the ingredients in Coke and Pepsi that  purportedly they don't legally have to  list. 11 years later, I still haven't really indulged in those drinks, but I still crave a fancy beverage now and then, especially since I can't buy the sugar or agave-sweetened drinks at local markets. Enter sparkling water. It's really easy to create homemade sodas, even without an expensive soda maker. I sweeten a bottle or cup with stevia (liquid or powdered), and usually just add fresh lemon juice.  Delicious! I've also made homemade Jamaica soda (pronounced huh-my-kuh, a common refreshment in Latin America) by simply adding dried hibiscus flowers to a bottle of sparkling water and allowing it to steep overnight in the fridge, straining it and adding stevia the next day. For a recent party, I also poured a bunch of bottles into a large mason jar, and put some fresh mint, raspberries & stevia in to steep. If I'm feeling particularly lazy, I'll just add a few drops of liquid vanilla stevia to a cup for a homemade vanilla soda. 

But if you really want to appease that part of you that gets supreme satisfaction by using obscure (yet easily accessible) ingredients and adding "infused" to the name of whatever is on the table, try this recipe. (Also, you know, it tastes really good.)

I MEDIUM JICAMA (usually found next to the plantains & yucca in the produce section)

1/2 OF A LIME OR 1 KEY LIME

3/4 CUP SPARKLING MINERAL WATER

1/2 TBS BASIL LEAVES

STEVIA TO TASTE

PEEL THE SKIN OFF OF THE JICAMA, AND USING A FINE GRATER, GRATE OVER CHEESECLOTH LAID OVER A BOWL. ONCE GRATED, RIGOROUSLY SQUEEZE THE JUICE OUT INTO A BOWL. ADD THE LIME JUICE TO THE JICAMA JUICE, AND THEN BARELY BRING JUICE TO A BOIL ON THE STOVETOP. PLACE BASIL LEAVES IN A HEAT-RESISTANT GLASS JAR, AND POUR THE HEATED LIQUID INTO THE JAR. CHILL IN THE REFRIGERATOR. ONCE CHILLED, STRAIN AND ADD SPARKLING WATER.

When Ricki & Kim said that they would make special mention of anyone who submitted a sweet recipe to this month's SOS Challenge, I guess I took it as a personal dare. This month's challenge ingredient is asparagus, and I figured that it must be possible, especially given that raw asparagus does have a subtle sweetness to it. I do admit that I'd hoped to come up with something a bit more decadent and challenging than a smoothie, and had thoughts of turning this into a sorbet, but honestly, I've been feeling like shite the past few weeks, and ambitious culinary pursuits just haven't been in the cards. Can I confess that making and drinking this recipe, which includes fruit that I don't tolerate, didn't really help my plight? Sometimes when I'm feeling crummy, I kind of pull this idiotic psychological trick of telling myself that, "Well, I feel like crap anyway, I might as well indulge myself." Somewhere in my brain there's a thought that it can't really get any worse, but of course, that's incredibly naive of me to assume.  It definitely got worse. However dear readers, this mistake is to your advantage, as not only did this experiment yield two recipes in one, it also prompted me to create a wonderfully soothing broth the next morning that helped my gut to heal, which I will also share with you within the next week.

Did you know that for many people, the adage "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," is a painful fallacy? For those with fructose malabsorption or fructose intolerance, apples are about the worst food they can consume. Fructose levels in apples in relation to their glucose levels are so high that it cripples their systems, causing anything from extreme gastrointestinal discomfort to violent mood swings and depression, and in the case of fructose malabsorption, it can be lethal. There are two types of tests for FM, a hydrogen breath test and a methane breath test. My insurance doesn't cover the doctors in Boston that offer the methane breath test, and I tested negative to the hydrogen test, but my elimination diet with a nutritionist found that I am nonetheless quite sensitive to fructose, so it has largely been eliminated in my diet. In addition to this smoothie being a light, sweet juice with incredible nutrition, with modifications it can serve as an applesauce alternative that would surely curb your or your child's cravings for a popular but forbidden snack. I will include the modifications after the lovely purple smoothie recipe. 

I'd never tried acai before, and picked up these frozen smoothie packs on sale at the store mainly because it was purple, and I wanted to showcase that color to compliment the sweeter purple asparagus that I zoned in on. I was surprised at how mild a flavor it had, expecting to to be a bit sour or tart like a cranberry for some reason. The apple cider vinegar and sauerkraut in the smoothie, paired with the lime juice help to boost that tart palate that I was looking for in addition to giving you some potent probiotics and B vitamins. For anyone who is apprehensive about the ingredients of the smoothie, I beseech you to trust me; your taste buds won't detect the more unexpected ones, and for most of you, your body will thank you.*  (Anyone with FM should exclude the asparagus and sauerkraut.)

1 MEDIUM JICAMA

4 LARGE PURPLE ASPARAGUS STALKS OR 6-8 THIN STALKS

1 SAMBAZON FROZEN UNSWEETENED ACAI SMOOTHIE PACK

JUICE OF 2-3 LIMES

1-2 TBS PACKED BASIL LEAVES

1 TBS SAUERKRAUT (ONE WITHOUT DILL, CARAWAY & GARLIC!)

2 TSP APPLE CIDER VINEGAR

1 TSP PURPLE DULSE FLAKES (OPTIONAL)

3/4 TSP LEMON OR LIME FLAVOR

1 1/2-2 CUPS WATER OR COCONUT WATER

LOTS 'O' STEVIA TO TASTE

PEEL THE SKIN OFF OF THE JICAMA AND CHOP, AND LOP THE DRY ENDS OFF OF THE ASPARAGUS STALKS. RUN THE SMOOTHIE PACK UNDER WARM WATER UNTIL IT BEGINS TO THAW, BUT IS STILL LARGELY FROZEN. COMBINE INGREDIENTS IN BLENDER AND BLEND UNTIL SMOOTH.

1 MEDIUM JICAMA

1 SAMBAZON UNSWEETENED ACAI SMOOTHIE PACK

JUICE OF 1-2 LIMES OR LEMONS

STEVIA TO TASTE

3/4-1 CUP WATER

PEEL SKIN OFF OF JICAMA AND CHOP, AND RUN THE SMOOTHIE PACK UNDER WARM WATER UNTIL IT BEGINS TO THAW A BIT. COMBINE INGREDIENTS IN BLENDER AND BLEND UNTIL SMOOTH.