Category: Non – Alcoholic


Sep
2023

Beauty Bean Salad and a Herb S(w)izzle

categories: 1970's recipes, Beans, Drinks, Eat Your Way To Love and Beauty, Non - Alcoholic, Salad, Vegetables

Hello Yogis and retro food lovers. Today we are revisiting “Eat Your Way To Love and Beauty”  by Swami Saravati.  Today we are focussing on the beauty side with a Beauty Bean Salad.  There is no indication as to what the Herb S(w)izzle is good for.  Let’s say hydration and move on.  As with last time, before we get to the recipes, let’s take a moment to marvel at the cover of this book.  

 

eat-for-love-and-beauty-001.jpg

This is probably one of my all favourite covers of any book I own.  The swami looks young and gorgeous, she has perfect skin, is lithe and limber and is rocking an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow flowered bikini.  Seeing that cover and how great she looks, who wouldn’t want to get her recipes?  I will add that nowadays doing the camel pose over over glass containers probably breaks all sorts of OHS laws but back in the freewheeling days of 1971…you could do what you wanted!  Just on that, and how good she looks?  There was no photoshop back in 1971.  She actually looked like that!  

Hmm…maybe I need to cook a few more recipes from this book

Beauty Bean Salad

Beauty Bean Salad

This was really tasty!  And it also looked very pretty with the different shades of green and then pops of purple from the red onion.  I ate this for dinner one night and made enough to have for lunch the following day.  One of the great things about this salad is that the ingredients are all fairly robust so will not wilt overnight.  Good thing really because after I had taken the photos from the night, I realised I had left out a key ingredient.  

I used green beans, edamame and sugar snap beans for my fresh ingredients.  However, the recipe also calls for some dried beans.  I had a can of chickpeas in the cupboard so when I had these for lunch, I threw in some chickpeas.

Beauty Bean Salad3

 

The chickpeas changed this from a side salad to a more filling meal. I’m not sure if the Swami would entirely agree with this but if you wanted to bulk this out even more, some feta or goat’s cheese or a can of tuna or some grilled salmon would be great with this!

Beauty Bean Salad – The Recipe

Beauty Bean Salad

I used lemon juice and olive oil as my dressing and dill as my herb.

Beauty Bean Salad4

I find it really interesting to see the differences between night light and daylight and the passage of time on the color of this salad.


Beauty Bean Salad5

The Herb S(w)izzle

This drink is actually called a Herb Sizzle.  There is nothing sizzled in it so in my head it is the Herb Swizzle as you have to stir the ingredients together!  Whatever you call it, it is a fancy and very tasty apple juice!  I used Rosemary as my herb but you could use your favourite herb instead.  

Herb Swizzle 2 (1)

The Herb S(w)izzle Recipe


Herb Sizzle Recipe

 

Herb Swizzle 3

This was really refreshing and went very nicely with the salad!

It was really fun revisiting Eat Your Way To Love and Beauty.  I also still want to go to the Swami’s Yoga Retreat!  Sadly Swami herself passed away in 2009.  I have a candleholder very much like the one by her left knee on the book cover.  So let’s light a candle and raise a Herb Swizzle toast to the Swami and her legacy of eating our way to love and beauty!

CandleHave a great week!

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Oct
2021

Lemon Barley Water

categories: Drinks, Lemon, Non - Alcoholic

When life gives some people lemons, they make lemonade.  We, here at Retro Food For Modern Times never like to follow the crowd so we made lemon barley water.  As previously mentioned, our backyard lemon tree is laden and because we are now in our sixty-fifth year of lockdown (or our 240th day – which feels like 65 years) we can go nowhere nor can anyone visit us so the opportunities for giving away our lemon crop are few.  Other people in the area have cornered the market in setting  boxes of lemons on the pavement for walkers by to pick up so we can’t even give ours away to strangers.

Lemon Barley Water 1

 

I was contemplating setting up my own Lucy Van Pelt-esque lemonade stand.  And then, as if we don’t have enough to contend with, on top of the 240 days of lockdown already mentioned, we also had an earthquake!  I now think the idea of the psychiatric stand is a better option. I mean how much more are we expected to put up with?

If you would like to see the most Australian response to the earthquake watch this.  If you are offended by profanity and you watch it, that’s on you.  I gave you fair warning.

Anyhoo, we were talking about Lemon barley water.  It is a very old-fashioned drink.  They used to serve it at tennis tournaments when I played as a teenager and I remember it as being refreshing and not too sweet.   It is also the perfect drink to serve in this delightful fruit-inspired jug and glasses that I found the last time I went antiquing.

Lemon Barley Water 2

Benefits of Lemon Barley Water

You might be wondering why make lemon barley water and not just good old-fashioned lemonade?  Well, I had some barley that had been sitting in the pantry for a while….

Also, according to healthline.com barley water may:

  • Lower cholesterol
  • Control blood sugar
  • Promote weightloss
  • Improve digestion
  • Lower the risk of cancer
  • Support the immune system and,
  • it is rich in vitamins and antioxidants.

I suspect that some of these benefits are not as prevalent in this version which contains quite an amount of sugar but it is also probably no worse for you than many sweet drinks.  The slight nutty barley flavour with the lemon is very pleasant.

Lemon Barley Water 3

I used the recipe for Lemon Barley water that was on the back of the pack of barley.  You can also find it here.    I added the juice of an extra lemon juice into my mixture to give it a bit more zing as I thought the initial end product was a bit bland.

What to do with the leftover barley

The making of lemon barley water does cause one issue – what to do with the barley.  Some other recipes I looked at suggested it could be served unstrained in which case you would get more of the health benefits of the barley.  I was not in the mood for a lemon barley bubble tea so I rinsed the lemon and sugar off the strained cooked barley and made a tabbouleh-like salad with more lemon juice, a heap of parsley and some tomatoes with some of it.  I also mixed the rest of the rinsed barley with the dogs’ food so none of it went to waste!  And we were all pretty happy!

Holly

Have a great week!

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Oct
2019

Old Fashioned Lemonade

categories: Drinks, Lemon, Non - Alcoholic

So, what do you do when life gives you lemons?  Make lemonade of course!  

Old Fashioned Lemonade1

 

And oh boy has life given me lemons!  We came home from holidays to find a tree that was so laden with lemons that the branches were nearly lying on the ground!

Lemon Tree

Poor tree!!!!  

Emergency lemon measures were called for!  Friends and family were called.  However, friends and family were either having their own too many lemon dilemmas or were already hooked up with other peoples too many lemon dilemmas. So, unable to give them away, I started thinking about how to deal with the lemon glut of 2019 on my own!  
Lemonade5

My old fashioned lemonade is a total classic. It’s the kind of lemonade you can imagine kids selling from a homemade stand, Lucy Van Pelt style back in the day.  Or the kind that these kids gave away to marchers during the 1963 March on Washington led by Martin Luther King, Jr.  Bless their non-capitalist hearts!

Old Fashioned lemonade is also incredibly easy to make!  It has just three ingredients –  Lemon juice, sugar and sparkling water.  Garnishes of lemon wedges, mint leaves and ice cubes are optional. 

But if you also wanted to add a little splash of booze, well, I won’t judge you.  😉

Print

Old Fashioned Lemonade

Print Recipe

A simple and refreshing drink.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 375mls of freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 200grm caster sugar
  • sparkling water
  • Ice cubes, lemon wedges and mint leaves to garnis

Instructions

  1. Stir the sugar into the lemon juice until it has completelty melted.
  2. When ready to serve, fill a glass to about a third with the lemon and sugar mixture.
  3. Add icecubes.
  4. Top with sparkling water.
  5. Garnish with lemon wedges and mint leaves.

Notes

  • The lemon and sugar mixture will keep for about a week in a bottle in the fridge.

I’m sure I will have many more lemony dishes in the coming months including a much more fancy lemonade and a super sounding pickle that was in a book I got for my birthday. 

Let me know what you would make if you had a million lemons – I need all the inspiration I can get. 

Have a great week!

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