Mangosteen Juice Drink

What is a mangosteen??? Why it's the "Queen of Fruit!" How could you not know of this wonderful tasting, wonderful smelling, royal fruit? How could I not know?

I am amazed at how many fruits and vegetables I have never heard of. I see how limited we are growing up in North America, shopping at the typical grocery stores.

I know I do not eat as many fruits/vegetables as I should, and it has helped me to find access and information to a wider variety of produce from around the world. If I don't want to each spinach I can now eat bok choy. Not only does it taste great - but it has a very cool sounding name.

The CDC has a website with some interesting features...recipe cards for children, recipe cards for adults and for each month of the year they feature a fruit and vegetable of the month. Go ahead and print out a recipe or two and try them this week with your children or just try them yourself.

Well now back to the old mangosteen....

In spite of it's name - it is not a type of mango. It is a tropical fruit from Asia, about the size of a small orange - with a thick rind. The inside is white and creamy.

Here is a great picture of a mangosteen. Additional information about mangosteens are found here.

I read an article about someone purchasing mangosteens in Brooklyn for $11 a piece! At a price like that I'll have to settle for the juice drink.

The Mangosteen Juice Drink - 11.8 fl oz for under $2.00, is a product of Thailand.

The smell and flavor reminds me of Passionfruit. It is a cloudy, whitish liquid and it is the consistency of nectar.

This juice drink lists the ingredients as follows: water, mangosteen juice (30% sugar, citric acid). Even though I typed it as written - I'm thinking they mean that it contains 30% juice - not 30% sugar.

I like the flavor - but I don't like the consistency.

The kids didn't like it. Dd dislikes all juice except apple juice (which is fine by me b/c she is a big fruit eater and I'd rather have her eat her fruit than drink it). Ds loves juice - but isn't crazy about fruit. My dd thought it tasted like a mango, but then added "well not exactly." Ds said "Kind of sweet...don't like it...kind of a vegetably strange flavor in it."

I think this beverage would be better mixed into some type of punch. As is, it is overly sweet.

Elderflower Presse Beverage

I have to admit the cute bottle was effectively marketed to me.

The bottle was about 7 inches tall and the labeling was primarily black/white and was written in a fancy script. Belovoir Fruit Farms in the U.K. is the company that makes these drinks.

I generally do not buy bottled water or bottled juice...if I'm going to buy a bottled beverage it's got to be Coke (or Pepsi)...or it has to have some form of carbonation. The Elderflower met with one of the criteria - the label said "gently bubbling".

With the elderberry, which is a kind of shrub - you can use the flowers or the berries. One thing I read was interesting, "The berries are best not eaten raw as they are mildly poisonous, causing vomiting, particularly if eaten unripe...all green parts of the plant are poisonous, containing cyanogenic gycosides" (whatever those are). Why do they just say "best not eaten raw", if they are a bit poisonous and cause you to vomit??

The flavor reminds me of a freshly squeezed grapefruit - minus any of the grapefruit bitterness...even smelled grapefruitish.

On the top there was a little sticker that read "drink me chilled"...that kind of worried me...the only time I have been told to specifically drink a beverage cold was when I was pregnant and needing to take the blood sugar test. I think you fast overnight and then need to drink some concoction - "drink it cold, it tastes better", I was advised.

No need to fear. It was tasty. The kids did not like it...though they agreed it tasted like grapefruit (I noticed the ingredients include lemon juice).

It's not going to make me give up Coke - but I think for a picnic or party, these would be fun to have. It would look lovely in a gift basket along with some cheeses and crackers and fresh fruit.

Ginger Beer and Ginger Bread

Ginger Beer

I have always wanted to taste ginger beer...I remember reading about it in some of the Enid Blyton books as a girl...sounded much nicer than ginger ale - though I guess the name concept is the same.

It might have been in the "Sea of Adventure" where the kids go exploring some islands to get out of the way of the bad guys and of course meet up with the bad guys anyway. The children loved adventures, and eating of out of doors, and consuming ginger beer.

I came across some Jamaican ginger beer and figured this was the time for the taste test. For some reason I was thinking it would taste like root beer...which is pretty silly because the operative word was "ginger".

Of course to make children (or teetotaler folks like myself) want to try it, it is packaged in a bottle that looks very much like a beer bottle. I did look at the label closely to make sure it did not contain any alcohol before serving it to the kids. The bottle clearly stated it was SODA. There is an alcohol and non-alcohol version of ginger beer.

We each had a small fizzling bit in a glass and even though it was OVERPOWERINGLY gingerful, we still enjoyed it. I wouldn't compare the flavor at all to gingerale which is a much, much milder flavor...this kind of tasted like you'd expect it to taste if a large knobby ginger root was left to steep in some 7-up for about a month. After swallowing it - there was a slight burning in the throat that made me wonder if the labeling was incorrect :)

I don't think I'll switch from coke to ginger beer but it was fun to finally taste it and to realize I'm definitely not missing out on anything.

Gingerbread


These look and smell so delicious but I would not allow the kids to taste them. Sound cruel? They are tempting little treats but they contain white glue - and though I want my kids to expand their taste buds - I don't think they need to get a glue addiction.

The other day we made some apple cinnamon gingerbread type ornaments to hang on the tree.

We had made some about 3 yrs ago and still have about 3 left, the rest having broken. This time I searched around and found a recipe that included glue and baking them in the oven (our old ones had to sit out and dry and that took forever!).

I kind of combined some recipes but this is basically what it contains:

1 Cup cinnamon
1 TBS ground cloves
1 TBS nutmeg
3/4 cup applesauce
2 TBS white (Elmer's) glue

You mix it all together, roll, cut out and use a straw to make a hole so you can thread a ribbon through it. Then then pop in the oven at 200 degrees for about 2.5 hourss. Once I took them out I let them dry about a day longer on a cookie rack and then we painted them. They did shrink a bit and the hole for the ribbon sometimes closed over - so once they were out of the oven but a little soft I used a nail to clear out the holes a bit. I almost doubled the recipe too to make sure there was enough dough for everyone to make at least 1/2 dozen ornaments.

I think they turned out great - they do look like you just want to start munching on them (though less so the ones with paint). My dd said she'd try one if it was not for the glue in them...well I would say something with that much cinnamon would not be a tasty treat!

We used model paints to paint the ornaments and then plan to put some colored year or thread or ribbon through the holes.