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How-to Make Easy Chia Seed Jam {+ Video}
This Easy Chia Seed Jam is a wonderful way to preserve the fresh fruit of the season and enjoy delicious homemade jam without artificial colors and flavors or an ungodly amount of sugar. It’s a breeze to make, ready in about 15 minutes, plus there is no canning equipment necessary and you can control the level of sweetness leaving out refined sugar and instead using natural sweeteners like honey, maple or any other alternative you choose (or leave it out altogether and go al naturale).
Best part, this simple chia seed jam formula works with nearly any fruit you’d like, so go with the best the current season has to offer and get creative. Try strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, cranberries, apples, pears, peaches, plums, etc. Experiment with blending various fruits and if you really want to have some fun, add in vanilla bean, fresh herbs or spices, rosemary, basil, fresh mint, cinnamon, nutmeg or ginger – the flavor combos are endless, really.
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Carrot, Pear, Raspberry, Cucumber Juice
This is gonna be a quick post – I am a bit behind on recipes and my day is full of client work and other projects, but I really wanted to share this juice recipe with you. I have to admit, I was a bit at a loss for a clever and cute name for this juice, so I went with the obvious. I kept wanting to find a way to combine the words “berry” and “brightness” but I just didn’t have it in me this time.
At any rate, this juice is FULL of flavor. It is incredible bright and perfectly tart, with the right about of sweetness. It sounds like and will look like a lot of berries, but sadly they don’t produce a ton of juice, which is why I rarely buy berries for juicing. But even in small amounts they bring a really wonderful tart flavor to juice and the color from the raspberries are just so beautiful. I found this fun fact about raspberries that I thought was interesting “Raspberries possess almost 50% higher antioxidant activity than strawberries, three times that of kiwis, and ten times the antioxidant activity of tomatoes”. Raspberries are low in calories and they are a wonderful source of dietary fiber. Raspberries are also an excellent source of Vitamin C.
I always love adding cucumbers to my juices since one cucumber offers up so much juice and I really love the flavor from it. Cucumbers are almost 96% water, that is naturally distilled, which makes it superior to ordinary water. The skin contains a high percentage of vitamin A, so should not be peeled off. Read on about the many other benefits from adding cucumbers to your juice.
Pears are an excellent source of water-soluble fiber. The high vitamin C and copper content in a pear act as good anti-oxidants that protect cells from damages by free radicals. You can read more about the health benefits of juicing with pears, here.
I’ve already sung the praises of the carrot, in this juice recipe. The main point about carrots are they are one of the most healing foods. Carotenes, the famous ingredient in carrots, is an anti-oxidant that has powerful healing virtues for many diseases. Read more about the health benefits of carrots here.
What would you call this juice?
[print_this]Carrot, Pear, Raspberry, Cucumber Juice
makes 1 large serving4 or 5 carrots
1 pear (I used a green Anjou)
12 ounces of organic raspberries
1 cucumberJuice all of the ingredients. Serve immediately with ice, if you wish.
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