Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale :: MMM (Must Make Monday)

I have been a collector of recipes for as long as I can remember but I never manage to find enough time to try all the recipes I collect and that was the reason my MMM (Must-Make-Monday) series was born. The idea is to force myself to choose at least one recipe from my Must-Make-List each week. I will post the results on my blog. Solid idea, or so I thought, but with my recipe collection growing faster than the speed of light, I could use a month of Mondays and still not get to half of the recipes in my collection(s). That’s the other thing, since I started this blog, my collection has become plural. It started with the Must-Make-Page on my site but I also have a Must-Make Board on Pinterest.

My MMM (Must-Make-Monday) series, is good in that it forces me to follow through and use recipes from my collection(s). After using a recipe, I check it off and add it to Made-This (TAB). You can view archive postings from my MMM (Must-Make-Monday) series, by clicking here.

To start things off this week, here are a few recipes, that I’ve come across recently. Categorised but listed in no particular order, these are recipes that I would love to try but haven’t gotten around to yet. They are to become the newest additions to my Must-Make-List.

Important *** I have not tagged these recipe links as Gluten, Grain, Sugar, Dairy, Egg or Nut Free, nor have I labelled them as Vegan or Vegetarian. Please review and confirm the recipe meets your dietary requirements before you begin.

Sweet:

• Chocolate Almond Coconut Bars by Free Coconut Recipes. No-bake bars with chocolate, almond and coconut…perfect for a mid-summer treat!
• 5 Minute 4 Ingredient Raw Protein Bars
  by Beyond The Peel. Perfect recipe, quick, simple with only a few ingredients and loads of options!
• Quinoa Energy Bars by Cooking Quinoa. These bars look and sound really tasty, plus I like Wendy’s idea of pressing another baking pan on top of the mixture to compress it.
• Silky Banana Bread Bites by 20 Something Allergies. When all you need is a little indulgence

Frozen:

• Banana Cashew Ice Cream by Sweet Healthy Living. A homemade ice cream that doesn’t require an ice cream maker and it doesn’t freeze solid, so it should be easy to scoop.

Breakfast:

• 5 Minute Banana Chocolate Chip Quinoa Flake Bake by Healthful Pursuit. A single serving of a nutritious breakfast cake. I bet these would be good with some fresh raspberries.

Salad:

• Kohlrabi and Mango Salad by Easy Natural Food. I haven’t had kohlrabi since I was a kid.
• Mojito Fruit Salad by The Fig Tree. Yep, you read that right, a Mojito salad!

Savoury:

• Curry or Garlic Herb Cauliflower Wraps by Empowered Sustenance. I love the look of these wraps. Makes me want to run into the kitchen to try this recipe now!
• 20 BBQ Side Dishes – Unique Ideas For Grilling by Half Hour Meals. We’ve already tried grilled zucchini, carrots, grape tomatoes, broccoli, onions, corn on the cob, peas in the pod and pineapple. There are some great ideas for grilling other veggies and fruit as well.
• Flaky Buttery Biscuits Gluten & Grain Free by Real Sustenance. These sure look like they would make great dinner buns.

Miscellaneous:

• Make Your Own Vanilla Extract by Nourishing Treasures. I have wanted to make Vanilla Extract for a long time. Now I have an idea how to go about doing it. Loved reading all the comments on this post. Shared experiences on the best before date, nada, what alcohol base to use, rum and vodka seem popular, whether to split and scrape vanilla beans, or not and how to keep a perpetual bottle of vanilla extract going.
• Food Photography Mistakes by Learn Food Photography. My passion is food but to share my passion, it must look presentable. I’m going to learn to love photography.
• Gluten Free Ratio Rally – July 2012 hosted by The Crispy Cook. The theme for July was crackers and bread sticks.
• Weekly Gluten-Free Roundup by Maura at Celiac Kitchen Witch. Interested in more Gluten Free Recipes and Reviews?  I love browsing through the weekly roundup that Maura compiles. You should sign up to receive it.

To see a text listing of my gluten free recipes, click here

I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed. ~Robert Frost

There hasn’t been much cooking in the Fox Kitchen lately. It’s been pretty hot and I’m still spending a lot of time on my blog makeover. I’m making my way through my posted recipes to make sure they have been categorised properly, have all the ingredients listed (I lost a few of those with the switch over to a new theme). Checking the 400 plus pictures in my Media Library, resizing some, adding descriptions, making sure they’re attached to right blogpost and deleting the unattached pictures. It’s really just general blog housekeeping that I’ve put off for a while.

Still to do? The About Me page needs a complete overhaul. It’s amazing how much I’ve changed in a year. I’m still mulling over a new logo and new header design, which has me learning how to use Photoshop. I’m finding it is a challenge.

I’ve also been adding abbreviations to the links on my Recipe Index page. I’m hoping the abbreviations will help you decide whether a recipe is a good fit for your dietary needs before you click-through on it.

Abbreviations:
GF = Gluten Free, not used because these recipes are all gluten free
DF = Dairy Free :: Click to show just the Dairy Free Recipes
EF = Egg Free :: Click to show just the Egg Free Recipes
GrF = Grain Free :: Click to show just the Grain Free Recipes
RSF = Refined Sugar Free :: Click to show just the Refined Sugar Free Recipes
Vt = Vegetarian :: Click to show just the Vegetarian Recipes
V = Vegan :: Click to show just the Vegan Recipes

The few things I’ve done in the kitchen are repeats of recipes I’ve used in the past. Let’s see, I…

• Froze some more Chicken in a Citrus Marinade
• Made some Caramelized Onions to go in the freezer
• Roasted some BBQ Corn on the Cob [DF EF RSF Vt V]
• Put together a Cabbage Slaw With Asian Inspired Peanut Cilantro Salad Dressing [DF EF RSF GrFr Vt V]
• Had Salmon Cakes [DF RSF] for dinner one night
• Of course I had to restock my Frozen Yogurt Tahini Banana Bites [DF(opt) EF RSF GrFr Vt V(opt)]! I just can’t do without my favourite little treat.
• Cooked up some Orange Turkey Meatballs And Sauce [RSF Omnivore]
• Made some Sweet & Spicy Kale Chips [DF EF RSF GrFr Vt V] to share with my little two and a half year old grandson. He says they’re not too spicy, he likes them!
• I’m keeping a jug of  Coco Chai Rooibostea in the fridge, so I can make a Chai Tea Frappe [DF EF RSF GrFr Vt V] with only a moments notice
• I used some of the above and an avocado to make Green Chai Latte Popsicles
• Used this recipe to make Roasted Rosemary Wedge Fries on the BBQ [DF EF RSF Vt V]
• Worked on developing a Lemon Blueberry version of this Orange and Almond Cake (Flourless)

Yikes, that’s a pretty long list! I must have spent more time in the kitchen than I realised.

On to today’s recipe. I have planned for the longest time, to share this recipe for Homemade Ginger Ale with you. I first tried this Ginger Ale recipe by Kitchen Konfidence back in January…notice the snow in one of my pictures?

I credit Homemade Ginger Ale with getting me off unhealthy soda pop, or soft drinks. I had a one to two cans a day habit for years but was never really able to break the habit until I started making ginger this ginger syrup.

Here are a couple of links that show you why you should be concerned about soft drink consumption…Link to How Soft Drinks Impact Your Health and more recently, from Healthy Kitchen Guide, Researchers in England have discovered that regularly drinking soft drinks changes the way muscles use food as fuel. Muscles normally burn fat.  However regular soft drink consumption makes muscles prefer to burn sugars over fats.

I made this ginger syrup, loved it and have not gone back to my old habit of drinking pop from a can.

The original recipe used a Simple Syrup which is 1:1, one part sugar to one part water. I decided to make mine with honey as it’s my sweetener of choice these days but heavens, I didn’t want to use a full cup of honey for every cup of water!

I played with the recipe until I came up with a formula that works for me. I use about three parts water to one part honey. Not bad, especially when you only use only one to two ounces of the syrup in a glass of sparkling or still water.

I had originally intended to try several different recipes for Ginger Ale but I stopped at the first recipe because I liked it so much. None of the other recipes included whole spices and I love the spices. They make my kitchen smell wonderful! All sweet like spicy Ginger.

You’ve probably heard that Ginger is great for nausea but did you know that Ginger is an anti-clotting agent? It has a wholesome effect on the circulatory system as it makes the platelets less sticky and is of great benefit for circulatory disorders.

You can buy a whole bag of ginger root, prep it all by peeling and slicing it into thick slices. Weigh out the ginger destined for Ginger Ale, into 4 oz lots and freeze separately in freezer safe containers until ready to use.

The most economical way to buy Whole Cardamom and Whole Allspice is in bulk packages from an international grocer. I live in an area with a large South Asian population, which is great because I don’t have to travel far to find specialty products.

If you follow a sugar-free diet, Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free does not add any sugar to her base “syrup”. She says, “Try this healthy, simple-to-make Homemade Ginger Ale recipe. It’s naturally gluten-free and you can sweeten it however you choose.”

Here are is another link to a Ginger Ale recipe…
Healthy Homemade Ginger Ale by Life From Scratch