cocktail – pure2raw

Time for some coconut kefir

Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 06:54 PM

Hello everyone,

How is every one’s Saturday going? Good I hope. Michelle and I’s has been a good one. Both had great times at the markets this morning despite the nasty, humid, rainy weather. Our afternoons were productive… well mine was Michelle went to go visit a friend. I stayed here and got some orders ready. Gold star to me.

Coconut kefir is the topic for today. We started  the fermentation a few days ago for our first batch of coconut kefir (as many of you already know this is our first time making it). You may have seen our sneak peak of what our coconut kefir was looking like last night.  We did our water based kefir a few days ago and really enjoyed it.  And got inspired to try making coconut kefir next from seeing Averie, Anthony, and Heather all do it and been successful.  Love getting in the kitchen and playing around with new ingredients. Don’t you?

First off what is coconut kefir:

Coconut kefir from our research can be made with from dairy or dairy free versions by using coconut water, coconut meat, and/or coconut milk. There seems to be a variety of ways to make it, all depends on your preference!  Since Michelle and I are allergic to dairy and are vegans we decided to use our water kefir grains to make coconut kefir (a dairy free version)

* If you are just getting started with water kefir here or here are good sites to get you started

You basically want to ferment the water or milk by using a kefir packet, milk kefir grains or water kefir grain. You are creating a drink that is filled with benefical bacteria!  Typically, one thinks of bacteria as something to avoid. But for fermented foods, good bacteria are a blessing. And we believe that we all can all benefit from by incorporating more good bacteria into our diets.

Here are just a few of the benefits of coconut kefir:

• improve digestion
• control cravings
• alkaine and cleansing for the body
• enhance the immune system
• increase in energy

Now who doesn’t want to enjoy  some all of those benefits!  We do!!!  As you can tell we have been a little crazy with fermenting foods lately! Well, we have realized our bodies really need the good bacteria to help get us healthy again.

How to make coconut kefir:

*now this is how we made our dairy free version- they are plenty of other versions of making this.

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk
• coconut water – to get you to about 3 cups of liquid
• water kefir grains
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 date, pitted
• we added some fresh ginger (we love our ginger)

Directions:

• Warm up the coconut water and milk. Do not over heat. Just want to warm. Mix in sugar and let dissolve.
• Next add your water kefir grains, ginger and date.
• Close jar. And let sit for at least 18 -24 hours.

You want to place in a warm place. (some people even put their kefir in their dehydrator – not us though) Our kitchen was warm enough from all the baking that we do

And That’s it. You leave it alone till time to check on it about 18 hours. We let ours ferment for 24 hours.

Warning it may explode!!

Here is what our looked like about a few hours before we strained out the grains.

Our grains after being strained from liquid

Now for our final coconut kefir

Here is what we decided to do with ours. We made a chocolate coconut kefir cocktail

We added some more coconut water, stevia, 1 date, carob powder, cacao powder, bee pollen, and maca. Blend in vita-mix and cocktail is ready.

Our final thoughts from making coconut kefir is that the recipe is easy to make and turned out delicious.  We are going to try to make it again! We will continue to play around with both  coconut and water kefir. Although, next time we make coconut kefir we may do more coconut milk and less coconut water to see if it gets a thicker consistency. It was a little watery, the taste was a little sour, which we assume that is what it is supposed to be like?? It was our first time having it let alone making it, so we were not sure exactly how it was supposed to be. We did enjoy it though : )

Twin Questions: Have you had coconut kefir before? If so did you make your own or have one from the store? What are your thoughts on coconut kefir? Do you like fermented drinks/foods?

I must say this is a whole new experience for us. We have never really liked sour/fermented foods before. Though our journey into a more high raw lifestyle our taste buds have changed. And we are really liking new foods, especially fermented ones. Plus, knowing how beneficial fermented foods are helps with incorporating them more into our diets.

We wanted to leave you with a little food porn as most food bloggies would call it!

Here is are gluten free vegan, low glycemic – Gingerbread bundt cake with lemon coconut drizzle that we made for our farmers market!!! And we treated ourselves to one…. out of this world I must say!!!

Must say this has become one of mine favorite desserts this fall season ….  so moist, flavoful, and mouth watering.

Till next time,

Not sure what our next lesson will be…. only time can tell.

Have a fantastic night.

Lori and Michelle

Posted by: Pure2 14 comments

Posted in: Health, Raw Recipes

Tags: cocktail, coconut kefir, fermentation, gingerbread, gluten free vegan desserts, water kefir

Homemade kombucha and coconut yogurt

Friday, October 23, 2009 at 02:02 PM

Happy Friday Friends,

I am glad to see that everyone enjoyed our water kefir lesson yesterday! If there are any more questions just email us twins@pure2raw.com, and we be glad to answer any more questions.

Last nights dinner was a new recipe idea that we thought of last minute. Here is the final results:

Michelle’s on left and Lori’s on right….. so who plates better???

After staring at our dinner plates we realized it just needed something else….

Lori’s plate…. black sesame seeds did the trick

Michelle’s plate.Can you guess what the meal is?

Creamy wilted down spinach with avocado, lime juice, and nutritional yeast!

The beets on the creamy spinach salad are roasted. This is the one ‘cooked’ food we decided to have today. And yes when we cooked food these days it has been at our last meal “dinner”. By eating all raw during the day and come cooked at night gives us the energy we need to perform our best during the day.

Don’t worry we still had room for dessert. I guess our run early in the day got our metabolisms going.

Our dessert cocktail

This little dessert cocktail was rockin!! We used our clean un-cleaned leftover coconut yogurt blender to mix up a little something special. Again we just threw ingredients into the blender and volia…. perfection! *More on the coconut yogurt recipe later.

Twins Dessert Cocktail:

• 2 cups coconut water
• about 1 tbsp carob powder
• 1 packet stevia
• very small drop of mint extract (optional) we just love mint!
• - leftover coconut yogurt (what was left inside from trying to clean out our vita-mix blender) * if had yogurt already made than I would suggest putting about 1-2 tbsp worth of yogurt into blender.

Blend and enjoy!

Our  Friday morning started off with some warm lemon water followed by our first cup of our homemade Kombucha. * And we try to recycle as much as we can in our house so you can see our re-used Kombucha glass bottles that we bought in the store. So clever… like no one else has already thought of this before

Not bad we must say Though it was not has fizzy as the bottled ones in the store :/

Next was finally breakfast…. can you guess what it is?

Yep Green smoothie. This was filled with apples, water, lemon zest and juice, half banana, 2 bunches of watercress. Key is to blend till smooth. Than drink with a must have item— glass straw!

Ok… now time for coconut yogurt making 101 lesson.

How to make coconut yogurt  101:

* this is our second time making it… we have tried a few new things to make it better than the last one and still nut free. If you missed our first time making it you can check it out here. This is Michelle trying to recreate and modify the cashew coconut yogurt she learned at school.

Tools needed: blender, measuring cups, spoons and/or spatula

Ingredients:

• 4 cups coconut meat (it took about 8 coconuts to get this amount of meat)
• 1 cup coconut water
• 1/4 cup lucuma
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 tsp pro-biotic powder (we used powder from opening up capsules)

Place all in blender

This is how we use pill form probiotic in our yogurt….our drugs HAHA

Blend in blender till smooth.

Now time to pour into bowl to let sit overnight and cover lightly with a towel in warm place.

And the next morning here is what you get

Now we just took a few bites of it to see if it has improved since our first attempt…. much better. Love making progress in the kitchen.

What to do with your yogurt?

Use it in smoothies, granola/cereal, or use it as ’sour cream’ or ‘mayo’ in more savory dishes, the choices are endless…Here is what we did

In honor of all the other bloggies who have been enjoying lost of pumpkin creations. We took some roasted pumpkin, pureed it and stirred it with our yogurt.

We stirred in chia seeds and drizzled with yacon  syrup (or any favorite sweetener) We like yacon because it is low glycemic and reminds us of molasses. : )

Pure- Simple- And Delicious! Are you drooling yet… I am haha!

Don’t worry about the coconut kefir…. it is almost done fermenting. We will show more of that tomorrow. I know you are all so excited…

But here is what it looks like so far…. we are scared….

It is exploding…yikes this will be interesting. Check back in tomorrow to see how we did.

Till next time,

Lori and Michelle

Posted by: Pure2 10 comments

Posted in: Raw Recipes

Tags: cocktail, coconut yogurt, dinner, green smoothie, Kombucha tea, raw creamy spinach