RECIPE: Healthy Sweets For Summer ♡

I guess carrots may be one of the vegetables which lots of children find it difficult to eat. I often go grocery shopping on the weekend with my husband, and there, I try to buy lots of vegetables. I almost always ask him if he would like to eat them, and carrots are the thing he usually says “no”…

Carrots are really healthy food though!! Carrots contain lots of β-carotene, and this is where the name “carrot” actually came from. This β-carotene will be converted into active Vitamin A in human body and this brings us lots of good effects.  I would summarize the good effects of  β-carotene as follows:

• to improve skin color and may reduce wrinkles (if you do not eat too much)
• to boost the effectiveness of sunscreen
• to protect the mucous membrane, which results in reducing allergies

There are a few things you have to be careful when you eat carrots since they contain an enzyme which destroys Vitamin C. This enzyme has a low tolerance for “heat” or “citric acid”, so it is better to heat carrots or to have them with lemon or vinegar. Heating carrots will also increase the amount of β-carotene we absorb in our body.

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Now, we know more or less about carrots 🙂 As a child, I also didn’t like carrots and my mom sometimes made jelly with carrots so that I could eat them. So, I decided to prepare some for us. I got the recipe from my mom and converted it to my way 🙂 My husband liked it, so here, I will share the recipe!! I hope you will enjoy it ♡

◆Ingredients◆ (serving size: about 10)

• Carrots (7 oz) *about 2 whole carrots
• Lemon juice (2/3 cup) *about 2 large lemon
• Sugar (7 Tbs)
• Gelatin powder (1 Tbs)
• Water (1 1/3 cup + 2 Tbs)
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◆Notes◆

If you have some organic lemons, you may use the skin as a container 🙂

◆Directions◆

1. Wash lemons and cut them in half (if you use them as a container) and squeeze lemon juice. You may take off all the thin skins inside the lemon.

2. Wash carrots well and grate them.

• To shred them fine, I recommend to use this grater (the picture below). You may use a cheese grater as a substitute for this.
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• I like the fiber texture in the jelly, so I like to grate the carrots. But if you don’t like the texture, you may boil carrots with a little water until they get soften and puree them with a blender.

3. Put gelatin powder into a bowl and add 2 Tbs of water. Leave them for a few min to let the gelatin powder absorb the water.

4. Put “1”, “2” and 1 1/3 cup of water in a sauce pan, and add sugar. Cook them over low heat for about 5 min and stir well to dissolve sugar.

• You will check the taste here. If you like sweeter, you may add another 1 or 2 Tbs of sugar.

5. Turn off the heat. Add “3” into “4” and stir them very well.

6. Pour “5” into a container and keep them in a fridge until they get harder for about 3 hours.

• I also like to keep them in the freezer and eat them frozen!! This would become similar to a sorbet.

♡ DONE ♡

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Hmmm… yummy!! I think this is really refreshing and thus, good for summer 🙂 I also like this orange color!!

Oh, I wish I had a lemon tree at home likewise lots of other people who have houses here… One day when we get our own house, I would love to have the tree!! 😀