very easy clear apple beetroot carrot (ABC) soup (vegetarian)

This soup has been inspired from the apple beetroot carrot juice which has been promoted in relation to the "treatment of lung cancer and several other diseases."



While it is best to consult experts (e.g. medical practitioners, doctors, specialists), we can also do our parts by improving our diets to stay healthy and get better in our health.

Since I am going to serve the delicious apple, beetroot and carrot to baby Ren, I prefer to cook them so that the water content inside these inexpensive vegetables and fruit is boiled (to kill any germ).

For Dear and myself, I alternate between raw juices and soups.

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Serving an apple a day to the apple of our eyes - our little one(s) is as magical as the classic story of Snow White and a ministory about it.




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Beetroot is known to help in the treatment of anemia. I love th imagine how our mother nature endows us with beetroot that 'bleeds' its natural bloody red liquid when we peel and cut it.

Please do not worry if you have a slight pinkish urine after consuming beetroot.

Beetroot can reduce blood pressure (PMID: 23596162), so it is good for people with high blood pressure. If you have low blood pressure like me, please consume beetroot moderately. I try not to eat more than one beetroot weekly. There are so many other delicious vegetables to savor, thankfully!

Since beetroot releases slight salty taste, I do not add any salt to the soup.



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The soup tastes mildly sour with slight sweetness, and it goes well for baby Ren who loves sweet sour fruits!

Upon drinking the soup, baby Ren's lips turn pinkish - like lipstick-adorned ones. He playfully laughs and sticks his tiny tongue out to slurp joyfully. Your heart surely melts when your little ones do so.



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Servings: 2
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 1 green apple (苹果)
♥ 1 beetroot (甜菜根)
♥ 1 carrot (红萝卜)
♥ 6 red dates (红枣), pitted
♥ 1 honey date (蜜枣)
♥ 800 ml - 1 liter water

Directions:
1. Wash the produce thoroughly. I wash both organic and non-organic products, and wash more carefully for non-organic ones.
2. Peel carrot, beetroot, apple. Remove the core and seeds of the apple.
3. Add all ingredients to boiled water. Simmer over low heat for 60 minutes.

Tips:
♥ To make the soup more flavorful, use soup stock (e.g. gratitude soup stock, which is non-vegetarian). Next time, I will share vegetarian soup stock recipe.
♥ Beetroot stains. Please be careful especially if you are wearing light color clothes or preparing beetroot in the morning in your professional attire. I normally prepare and consume beetroot first before getting changed.

Other recipes that I love:
♥ apple beetroot carrot juice by Blessed Homemaker @ Singapore
♥ cucumber, celery, pear and lemon juice by Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy) @ Zesty South Indian Kitchen
♥ celery pear kale juice by Whitney Bond @ Little Leopard Book

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.
   
With love,
ServicefromHeart

celery apple mandarin (CAM) juice

Sometimes, I do snack once in a while. Perhaps it is an easy access to a vending machine selling relatively inexpensive snacks.

An afternoon in this week, my choice was Made-in-Singapore Combe Snack of BBQ Chicken & Cheese flavour, because it has a Healthier Choice Symbol on its packaging.

After enjoying few bites, I read that it contains tartrazine (E102) -  a synthetic lemon yellow azo dye - which is banned in Norway and Austria.

***

In the evening, Garima and Mohan gave me a bowl of chocolate ice cream. How can we resist such a delicious treat?

***

At the end of the day, what I want next is to detox and cleanse my body. How is about a glass of refreshing celery apple mandarin (CAM) juice?



A lot of fiber... tastes refreshingly sweet salty 



Serving: 200 ml (for 1 person)
Preparation time: 3 + 2 minutes

Ingredients:
♥ 1 green Granny Smith apple (青苹果), peeled & cored
♥ 1 Mandarin Murcott (茂谷柑), peeled & deseeded
♥ 2 stalks celery (芹菜)
♥ 1 tbsp honey(蜜糖)
♥ 100 ml boiled ginger water OR 1 tsp minced ginger (姜) + water

Directions:
1. Soak celery with vinegared-salted water* for a minimum of 2. 10 minutes to remove pesticides, if any. Rinse and dry.
3. Squeeze Mandarin.
4. Blend apple, Mandarin juice, celery, ginger until smooth.
5. Stir in honey. Enjoy!

*Vinegared-salted water: 100 ml vinegar, 1 tbsp salt, 200 ml water.



Other recipes that I love:
♥ cucumber apple celery ginger juice
♥ homemade sprays for fruits and vegetables
♥ Green Apple Ice Pop with lime, sugar & cinnamon stick
♥ yogurt salad with green apple accompanied by onion, Japanese cucumber, carrot, nuts (e.g. walnut / pistachio / peanut)

Check also our other #5minutemeal recipes.

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140328

easy apple pear soup recipe

Fruits like apple and pear are suitable to cook clear and refreshing soup, especially for hot summer or dry spell (kemarau) such as an extreme one that we had in Singapore in February-March 2014. It is the driest one since 1869 for Singapore!

The apple pear soup (苹果雪梨汤) is good to soothe throat and clear phlegm.



Snow pear is known for its cooling and thirst-quenching properties.

The benefits of apple have been epitomized in a saying that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

 ***

Ministory 1:

Once, a little girl shared to me that she dislikes apples because Snow White died after having a bite of a poisonous apple. I was inspired by how her mother, instead of lecturing her on the goodness of apples and forcing her to eat apples, asked the little girl a thought-provoking question.

"Darling, do you think the Prince will be allowed to kiss Snow White if she has not eaten the apple?"

"If there is no kiss from the Prince, do you feel that Snow White will immediately fall in love to the Prince once she opens her eyes?"

While it is essential to guide our children to be prudent - not to accept food from a stranger without an approval of parents / teachers, I found that it is also equally meaningful to reflect if our past encounters are blessings in disguise. What do you think?




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Ministory 2:

A man whom I have been greatly grateful to is Sir Isaac Newton,  an English physicist, mathematician and great thinker.

On a windy afternoon in a colorful autumn, Newton walked at a beautiful garden. * Taking a rest under an apple tree, Newton saw a ripen apple fell to the ground.

He did not reach out to eat the crunchy red apple, as what some of us might do. However, his mind was searching for the possible explanations why apple always fall perpendicularly to the ground.

"Why not fall sideways? Why not upwards?"

After meandering, thinking, and pondering, Newton explains:

"Every object draws every other object toward it.
The more matter an object contains the harder it draws. The nearer an object is to another the harder it draws.
The harder an object draws other objects, the heavier it is said to be.
The earth is many millions of times heavier than an apple;
so it draws the apple toward it millions and millions of times harder than the apple can draw the other way."

Thanks to a humble event that nature offered Newton a glimpse of (the falling of an apple), Newton described the effect of gravity and defined the law of universal gravitation.


* I remember the excitement of seeing the descendants of the Newton's apple tree at Cambridge University Botanic Garden!

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Chinese almond kernels (南北杏）can strengthen our respiratory systems. Before I left to live in England, Agnes lovingly packed me some Chinese almond kernels to make soups. Thank you! I'm blessed.

Serving: 3
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 65 minutes



Ingredients:
♥ 1 apple (苹果), peeled, cored & quartered
♥ 1 snow pear (雪梨), peeled, cored & quartered
♥ 1 honey date ((蜜枣）, washed
♥ 8 red dates ((红枣）, washed & pitted
♥ 1 tbsp dried scallops (干贝)
♥ 1 tbsp Chinese almond kernels (南北杏）
♥ 200g meat (骨) & bone (肉), e.g. pork ribs
♥ 1 liter water

Directions:
1. Blanch bones and meats in boiling water for ~5 minutes. Drain and wash. 
2. Add all ingredients to boiled water.
3. Simmer over low heat for 1 hour.



Enjoy this soup with our other #5minutemeal recipes, that are fast and easy to prepare.

Other recipes that I love:
♥ Fong's Kitchen Journal also uses dried figs as an ingredient.
♥ Snow pear soup recipe @ Nobcook & the tips on not to over consume bitter almond (北杏).

With love,
ServicefromHeart
20140315