Revamping the Thick Shake with Alex 😏: Bananas B' Slippin'

For our final installment here, we went back to our roots, or should I say tree because bananas grow on trees and roots have trees-I mean trees have roots so it can work there right hehe cool. Anyhow, back on our second blog, we did that Banana-Orange Thick Shake so I'm coming back to it and doing the Banana Thick Shake! The author says, "You don't need ice cream to make a thick, cold shake" (Pinkwater 49). I kind of went out of sequence so I already know that this thick cold shake can roll out well. The book calls for:

1 banana, peeled and sliced

1 cup milk

1 tsp. honey

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 cup cracked ice cubes

We also need a blender like the last thick shake called for:

I'm gonna miss making these cute setup photos

As you'd think, you have to throw it all in the blender, minus the nutmeg and it looks scrumptious:

Nutmeg is expensive and can be lethal in large doses

So you blend that for 30 seconds and hey look at that you have the Banana Thick Shake as advertised! I forgot to show the final product and me sprinkling the nutmeg in like the steak guy meme with the salt but if it truly puzzles you, go to my second post and imagine the drink a little less orange. But yeah, the thick shake was very banana-y and a bit more crisp in my opinion which I think is due to the crushed ice cubes. Anyhow, that's it. We went through the cyclic mind of big hopes, losing those hopes, and compromising with what we can. How beautiful. Along the way, I also learned how to mix well, what kinds of bowls to use, adding a little more of the variable ingredients, and how some things are gross by nature. Thank you guys up an hour before the due date who understand the struggle of procrastination. See ya fellers around and remember, stay chill 😎.

Question: Why can we buy things that can kill us in slightly large amounts i.e. nutmeg?

Pinkwater, Jill. The Natural Snack Cookbook: 151 Good Things to Eat. New York: Four Winds,   
    1975. Print.

The Delectable Orange Milk Drink Extravaganza with Alex 😃: Orange You Glad It's Not Lemon?

Welcome back to Alex giving up on other things and just making drinks. Today we're going to make the orange milk drink, one I've been looking forward to mainly because the author says, "If you like the way milk sherbet tastes, you'll like this and the following drink" (Pinkwater 46). She had me at sherbet. Anyhow we're going to need:

1/2 cup orange juice

3/4 cup ice cold milk

That and our favorite equipment of a bowl, mixer, and measuring utensils:

I also had Donald Duck orange juice

So first, the book calls for us to throw it all into the mixing bowl surprisingly and I feel you guys can just picture an orangey milk so I didn't capture the moment. Next we need to mix that good-good until it's nice and fluffy. Milk and OJ can only get so fluffy by themselves so the process went over pretty quick. Then bam!That's all. This is why I love these drinks from the book because while I'm not the most successful with making an amazing one, they're made quite quick. Some things this has taught me is man, I can get down on a mixer and mix some stuff up which I feel is a great skill. That and I was innovative and took off the foam from the top of the drink and it was a lot better. This drink was really just a milk that tasted a little more orangey for fun but it was pretty bomb. I'm glad this one fulfilled what little I believed in it. Anyhow, my last drink is going to be another thick shake and I hope we can finish this off strong. See ya next time fellers!

Dad approved this one

Question: Do you like sherbet, especially the green, pink, and orange stuff you buy by the quart.

Pinkwater, Jill. The Natural Snack Cookbook: 151 Good Things to Eat. New York: Four Winds,   
    1975. Print.

The Super Fun Lemon Milk Drink with Alex 😔: Sour Power

I'm not sure entirely why I decided to put lemon and milk together but if this book hasn't brought me fantastically delicious natural snacks as advertised, I would've never. After my 1 am trip to the grocery store for the ingredients I'll need for the next three rapid-fire posts, I was ready to get lemony fresh and also milky fresh I guess. Jill Pinkwater didn't give a little detail or fun caption to this recipe so in the passage for the "Beverages" section, she says, "Unfortunately, with the exception of dietetic drinks, that are loaded with chemicals, all flavored sodas and most fruit drinks available are full of sugar" (Pinkwater 41). The sentence still holds true today and nothing really gets more straightforward and healthy with said ingredients:

1 tbs. of lemon juice

1 tbs. of honey

1 cup of ice cold milk

Surprising I got all those things and set them up super nice:

Wow I got it all!

We also need the basics of a bowl, a mixer, and some measuring utensils of course. To get started, I threw (and dripped for the honey) into the bowl as delicately shown here:

I hate how slow honey drips

Next I mixed the ingredients until it's fluffy as the book calls for. My whipping skills are obsolete these days to it was a matter of no time until my beautiful milky lemony drink was ready:

I can't wait...

Mmm tasty mmm mmm. I poured it into a measuring cup and then a cup (because bowls are hard to pour into a cup) and took a sip. Can you guess how amazing this foam tasted!?!?!? It scars my taste buds to this day. I had my father (the only one brave enough to say yes) try it and he promptly said drank a Powerade afterwards. Shows just how exhilarating and pumped you can get off such a refreshing drink. One thing I took away from this experience is how if a product doesn't sound good, it probably isn't good. Another things is that the drink is more concentrated than the foam it also has so in my next drink I made, I took that into consideration and it was a lot better. Luckily, my next blog will tell you all about that drink! See you next time fellers and don't forget to bring mouthwash.

The final product

Question: How much honey does it take for you before things actually start tasting better/sweeter than before? 

Pinkwater, Jill. The Natural Snack Cookbook: 151 Good Things to Eat. New York: Four Winds,   
    1975. Print.

Baking, Cooking, Cooling, and Chilling with Alex 😎: Exhausting Frosting

Who doesn't love honey? Who doesn't love frosting? I'm not sure but they won't be too excited with a blog about how I made honey frosting. As my natural cookbook tells, "this light, sweet, fluffy frosting is enough for a two-layer cake including the center, the sides, and the top" (Pinkwater 216) so I'm hyped to see how much we'll end up with. I choose honey frosting because out of this cookbook, it seemed to be the most appetizing thing. To get things started, you need:

2 egg whites

¼ tsp. salt
1 cup warm honey

½ tsp. almond extract
(you can substitute ½ tsp. of lemon extract or vanilla extract for the almond extract)

Material wise, you'll need:

1 small saucepan

1 medium-sized mixing bowl

egg beater or electric mixer

measuring cup

measuring spoons

1 table knife and one spoon for spreading on frosting

There's not too many steps to make frosting in general. To start off, you have to warm up that honey over the stove on very low for about a minute. After that, remove it from the stove and set it to the side (Pinkwater 217).

Enthralling activity

The next thing you'll want to do is get those egg whites into the mixing bowl with the salt and you'll want to beat that with the egg beater or electric mixer until stiff but not dry (Pinkwater 217).

Tasty

The third step is to gradually add honey and the extract (I substituted in vanilla extract instead) to the egg whites while beating constantly (Pinkwater 217).

(Imagine me beating the eggs vigorously while multitasking in the honey)

The last step, probably the best part, is to beat the mix until the frosting holds its shape which is about 2½ minutes with the electric mixer or 4 minutes with the egg beater (Pinkwater 217).

My arms are ruined

My final result, similar to frosting, tasted quite terrible. The smell of it as well just didn't seem right either. So in my last step, I told that frosting to chill 😎

"That's straight embarrassing" -My older sister/photographer, Haelee

In summary, despite my attempts to make the best natural honey frosting, I feel I learned a little. Life is very alike with cooking. Like for instance, I substituted vanilla extract instead of almond extract and stuff like that is done all the time in baking and cooking. Transferring that to the real world, some actions or solutions can be interchangeable, some better and some worse for the situation. I also learned that the end result of somethings can go sour and that's perfectly okay. While I've yet to see what my mistake was when making my honey frosting, I press on and hope for better things in my next project. In the meantime, stay hot and buttery in preparation for my next project, Peanut Butter Cake! Signing off, your guy, your host, Alex.

As to what I should do after the cake:

What sounds more appetizing to you: banana-orange thick juice or orange milk drink? Why? 

Pinkwater, Jill. The Natural Snack Cookbook: 151 Good Things to Eat. New York: Four Winds,  
    1975. Print.