Today, I kick-start the first-ever series on this blog – 5 Ingredients or less!

This series, will feature recipes that use, well, 5 ingredients or less! Simple foods, gorgeous foods, drinks, desserts, savories – all in 5 ingredients or less! Wish me luck! I will scour the world and catalog recipes that you can make with just 5 simple ingredients!

And I kick start the series with a very simple, yet refreshing drink!

So here’s the thing. I do not like mint. And I owe that feeling pretty much in entirety to my lovely mother. She knew I hated mint, and made sure she smuggled it into one dish or another every Sunday. Here’s the thing about Sunday lunch. I come from a Catholic family, and Sunday is the Sabbath. And Sunday lunch is clearly the best meal of the week. We usually have a Pulao or Vegetable Biriyani, a Chicken curry, (or maybe two), a vegetarian curry (for my vegetarian mother), a huge bowl of salad (that my father was completely in-charge of), raitha (because that’s the only way I can eat curd), and maybe, just maybe a dessert (courtesy uh, me! usually for the blog). Neat, huh! And every week, my mother will try to add mint to either the pulao, or the chicken, or even worse, sometimes, she’d make us pre-lunch juices that she’d grind mint into. And sadly, she’d always overdo the mint. Even if there were other fruits in that juice, my mint-hating-tongue would only taste the mint. And she’d always find a way to make us drink it.
She’s a lovely cook, except for the mint.
Oh how I hate her! And miss her 🙂

That reminds me, I must, must write about her other food ‘smuggling’ tricks. When I say this, I say it from the bottom of my heart. I have never seen anyone, ‘re-cycle’ food the way my mother does. But let’s save that story for another day.

So this juice, is for my mother. I saw the recipe and thought of my ‘minty’ mother. And decided to make it today, simply because I missed her very much.

Oh, and of all the pictures I’ve taken so far, never have I admired any shot more that the one above. I loved it so much I made it my desktop wallpaper. It’s been over a year since I last changed my wallpaper.

And the juice, was simply fantastic! My husband and I enjoyed it as our pre-lunch drink today, sitting on the couch, legs stretched on the coffee table, sipping from our gorgeous, lemon slice embellished glasses, and watching Death Note (Japanese Anime) as the faint sun glimmered through a slight drizzle of rain. Ahhhh….

Cucumber, Lime and Mint – The ultimate trio designed to completely cool your body. Fall is here, so maybe the wrong time to be thinking about coolants. But hey, it’s got to be summer somewhere!