Want to know the health benefits of this drink? I refer you to the comprehensive ingredient write-ups on BBC Good Food and WH Foods: beetroot, watermelon, pomegranate.

You Need:

[per glass]

• Watermelon – 250 grams*
• Pomegranate – 1/2
• Beetroot – 1/2

*You’ll probably need to carve out a chunk from a whole watermelon for a glass of juice.

How To Make Watermelon Pomegranate Beetroot Juice:

Cut the watermelon into sizes large enough to fit into your juicer. Remove the green rind**. You need not deseed if you are using a juicer designed to handle the seeds. Keep 2-inch high watermelon wedge(s) aside for garnishing.

Scrape the beetroot and cut into sizes large enough to fit into your juicer.

Pluck out the pomegranate arils.

Place beetroot, pomegranate in the juicer funnel, and stack over them watermelon slices if the funnel has room. Activate the juicer. Continue adding more watermelon slices till you have juiced everything.

To Serve:

Add a few ice cubes to the glass. Pour in freshly extracted watermelon pomegranate beetroot juice. Fix a watermelon wedge on the rim of the glass.

Serve immediately.

Tips:

**Some juicing tutorials recommend leaving the rind on watermelon while juicing as it has precious nutrients that a powerful juicer can extract. I usually juice the skin sparingly as it tends to make the juice bitter. While I want to drink up nutrients, I don’t want to torture myself in the process. Try leaving the skin on, and see if you can take to it. If you can, excellent! Remember to wash the skin very well before juicing it, and it’s safer if you’re using organic watermelon.

Likewise, instead of plucking out the pomegranate arils, you can peel the pomegranate’s outer skin only and juicing the inside whole. As with watermelon, this is going to add some bitterness to the juice, and also alter its color, but you’re getting maximum health benefits of the fruit this way.

Notes:

If you like beetroots, try out our delicious savory beetroot recipes: beetroot rice with peanuts and coconut, chukandar ka raita, beetroot parathas.

The post Watermelon Pomegranate Beetroot Juice appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

Traditional rabri can be pretty heavy with its high content of sugar and condensed milk. Its usual pairing with malpua and jalebi (while delicious!) doesn’t help either if you’re watching your weight. Enter my recipe of fresh fruit rabri – a dessert that satiates your sweet tooth even while keeping things light and healthy. No refined sugar, no tinned condensed milk – this rabri is sweetened only with natural nutrient-rich dates and apricots. No canned fruit either – only fresh seasonal produce.

This recipe is a broad template, not a dictum – experimentation is encouraged! Notch up the amount of rabri or down, as you please. Use any fresh seasonal fruit in any proportion you like. Keep in mind to:

• Avoid very watery fruits like watermelon
• Avoid very sour fruits like sweet lime or China orange

Fruits like papaya, pomegranate, apple, strawberry, mango, banana, pineapple, grapes work very well. Try other combinations and see what rocks your boat.

Here’s my spread of fruits for fresh fruit rabri, ready to be peeled and chopped:

Clockwise from the top: orange, mango, apple, banana, musk melon

Ingredients:

[for 4 servings]

• Orange – 1
• Mango – 1
• Apple – 1
• Banana – 1
• Musk melon – 200 grams

For the rabri:

• Milk – 1/2 liter
• Dates – 4 (more if you want the rabri sweeter)
• Apricots – 4
• Cinanamon stick – 1
• Cardamom – 2 pods

For garnishing:

• Roasted almond slivers/walnut kernels
• Dry strawberries/apricots (optional)

How To Make Fresh Fruit Rabri:

1. Prepare the rabri

Crush cinnamon and cardamom. Add them to half a liter of milk.

Chop dates and apricots, keep aside for later use.

Clockwise from the top: cinnamon, cardamom, dates, apricots

Place the flavored milk in a wide thick-bottomed pan. Bring the milk to a boil, then simmer. Every 3-4 minutes, use a spatula to scrape the bottom of the pan and give the simmering milk a swirl.

Continue till the milk has reduced to half its original quantity. At this stage, chop dates and add them to the simmering pan. For 5 minutes, let the dates cook and sweeten the thickened milk. Take the pan off the heat if you prefer a rabri with pouring consistency (I do that). If you want dense rabri, continue to simmer till the rabri has thickened to your liking.

Chop apricots and add them to the rabri. Let the rabri cool to room temperature. Put the rabri in the coldest part of the refrigerator and let it chill before use.

2. Chop the fruits

Peel and cut each orange segment into 2-3 pieces. Remove the seeds carefully from the sides, without squishing the oranges.

Peel and cut mango and melon into small cubes.

Cut the apple into similar-sized cubes, and dip the cubes immediately into water to prevent apples from discoloring.

Just before serving, slice the banana into four lengthwise and then into slices. [Cut banana tends to discolor and the dip-in-water trick doesn’t work as well with this fruit as it does with apple. So, keep the banana-slicing for the end.]

3. Assemble the final dish

Take the chilled rabri out of the refrigerator. Keep the garnishing handy (almond slivers, walnut kernels, dried apricots or berries).

Layer fresh fruit rabri parfait style.

In individual glasses, place cut fruits to 1/3rd the depth. Pour in a tablespoon of rabri per glass and sprinkle some garnishing. Make another layer of cut fruits to 2/3rd the depth, top with another tablespoon of rabri and a sprinkling of garnishing. Finish off to fill each glass with rabri, fruits and garnishing.

Serve fresh fruit rabri cold as dessert or snack.

Notes:

Add apricots to rabri only after it’s cooked – the slight sourness of apricots might curdle the milk if added earlier.

Looking for more ways to include fruits in your diet? Try mango raita, pineapple sweet corn rice or apple cucumber mint juice.

The post Fresh Fruit Rabri (No Refined Sugar) appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

In yellow-amber hues of happy sunshine, this juice is as much a delight to the eye as it is to your health.

This juice is ready in a matter of minutes once you have the fruit peeled and deseeded. You could keep orange segments and chopped melon pieces prepared and refrigerated, so that you could put them to quick use when the time comes for juicing.

You Need:

[per glass]

• Musk melon – 1/2*
• Orange – 1
• Ginger – a thin slice

*Any variety of melon with orange flesh will work. The sweetness of the juice might vary according to the melon used. In the pics you see, I have used Thai musk melon.

How To Make Melon Orange Juice:

Peel and core the musk melon.

Peel the oranges. You need not skin and deseed the orange segments if your juicer takes care of it. If your juicer doesn’t separate out the seeds, deseed the oranges before juicing.

Place the ginger, orange segments and musk melon into the juicer funnel. Activate the juicer.

Melon orange juice is ready.

To serve melon orange juice:

Add ice cubes to the glass. Pour melon orange juice over the ice. Serve immediately.

To garnish, prop a melon wedge or orange segment on the rim of the glass.

Notes:

For more juicing ideas, see grapefruit beetroot basil juice, pineapple grapefruit juice, watermelon pomegranate beetroot juice.

The post Melon Orange Juice appeared first on The Steaming Pot.