Date & Apple Shake

Date & Apple Shake served with potato crisps

Football fever is hightening every day here in Germany. All possible things are being sold in the shape of a football - bread rolls, cakes and pastries & tarts with icing made to look like a football. You name it, they have it. Pizzerias are advertising that they are open all throughout the tournament and are also offering special deals for larger groups. Almost every pub has hung a board outside saying that the patrons can enjoy the tournament inside on their large screen (and buy bottles after bottles of the local 'Alt' while watching the game). I am sure most of them are going to make so much business during that month, that they will afford to shut down the place for several weeks after the World Cup is over.

No wonder then that my 'goals' have changed temporarily. I am thinking football and thinking of eating football all the time. (Eating football?) What I mean is that I often find myself thinking of making something innovative for the 'Monthly Mingle' organised by Meeta. I prepared something a few weeks back, but could not sit quiet after that. So, what innovative thing did I make? Well, nothing. And that is because whatever I thought of making is being sold here in the shops anyway. For example, I thought of making a pastry with a football icing. But they are selling it now in shops, as I have already mentioned. (Copy-cats!) What I could have done is that I could have just photgraphed a readymade pastry and posted it as 'mine'. (They are never gonna know about this in the US and in India, are they?) But hey, what about integrity? Ah, those darn values!

The moral of the story is that I made only a milk shake to wash down my pizza. Well, it's just a milk shake, but then you can always have it, even well after the football season is over. Moreover, it's nutritious and tasty. Good enough to make your son the next David Beckham. (That's of course, if you are ready to accept somebody like Posh yuk! Spice as your daughter-in-law!)

Anyway, here's the recipe for Date & Apple Shake based on one by Tarla Dalal

Ingredients:

4 cups Low Fat Milk
1 large apple
10 black dates, deseeded and finely chopped
a few drops vanilla extract/essence or 2 tsp readymade/homemade vanilla sugar
3 to 4 ice-cubes (optional)

Clockwise from top left: vanilla bean, milk, apple, dates

Method:

1. Soak the dates in 1 cup warm water for about half an hour.

2. Chop the apple. You could peel it, if you like. But please don't forget, that there is a lot of nutrition right under the peel!

3. Mix all ingredients in a blender and blend them till you get a fairly smooth and frothy shake.

4. Garnish them with any chopped nuts or pieces of a bright-coloured fruit e.g. strawberries. My garnish were the special football glasses. ;-)

A few Notes:
1. In case using readymade vanilla sugar in sachets, just empty one of those into the blender without bothering to measure. The quantity in those sachets is normally 8 grams here in Europe. Hopefully it is the same in the US.

2. You can make vanilla sugar at home like this: Buy a vanilla bean as shown in the earlier picture, use the pulp in a cake or in any recipe that asks for it, and then insert the remaining outer cover in a jar filled with sugar. You’ll get wonderfully aromatic vanilla sugar in about a week.

3. You could use a banana instead of the apple, if you like.

4. This shake tastes equally good, when made without ice-cubes. On the other hand, if you want it really chilled, you could use vanilla ice-cream instead of the milk (barring that used for soaking dates), vanilla essence and ice-cubes. Visit here for another great recipe for a similar milk shake.

Enjoy the shake! Enjoy the game!! And may Brazil Germany win!!!