C is for Cranberry Fruit Drink Product Review

Here in the three foot cooks household we have been enjoying a delicious new range of drinks from Ocean Spray.

We were recently sent some of the new Ocean Spray Cranberry Low Sugar Fruit Drink to review.    I regularly use the dried cranberries from Ocean Spray in trail mixes and Christmas recipes we haven't tried the drinks before and I must say that they have been a resounding success.

In North Queensland where we live, as in many parts of Australia, we have been experiencing really high temperatures this summer.  Combined with our normally high humidity here in the tropics it has been a challenge to stay hydrated.

Bear and Bee are fortunate to attend a school with air conditioned classrooms and where they are encouraged to bring water bottles which can be kept in the classroom fridge for easy access.

However after drinking water all day at school both girls prefer to have something else to drink at home with afternoon snacks.  Bee's favourite drink is milk and she has raspberry cordial as a treat while Bear prefers orange juice and soft drink (which she only gets occasionally).  So you can imagine my delight when both girls declared that they love the Cranberry Low Sugar Fruit drink.

Bear enjoying her drink beside the pool.

Even though she won't drink other juices Bee loves this one.

The Ocean Spray Cranberry Low Sugar Fruit Drink is such a great swap for high sugar drinks like cordial and soft drinks and even has less calories and sugar than Bear's preferred brand of orange juice.

And I love it too.  This year one of my goals is to consume less sugar which I have been trying to do by cutting back on coffee, tea and soft drinks.  Now I am going to be swapping some of these drinks for the Cranberry Low Sugar Fruit Drink.  With only 10 calories per serve, the Fruit drink is healthier option and it tastes great.

For more information on Ocean Spray's Cranberry Low Sugar Fruit Drink visit their website here.

We love the Cranberry Fruit Drink so much I have plans for using it in some recipes with Bear and Bee.  Keep watch for my upcoming posts on Berry Frozen Yoghurt Pops for Breakfast and Cranberry Jelly Desserts.

** All reviews are 100% my opinion.**

T is for Too Hot for Hot Chocolates!

With the temperature regularly reaching 30°C or above (86°F) now it is definitely summer here already even if officially summer doesn't start for another week yet. 

This also means it is definitely too hot for hot chocolates.  Why am I talking about hot chocolates I hear you ask? Hot chocolates, marshmallows and Christmas seem to go hand in hand.  Well they do if you live in many parts of the northern hemisphere anyway.  But here? Not so much.

So with Bear and Bee both keen to start doing anything Christmassy, we changed up the Hot Chocolate tradition for Iced Chocolates.  Much more suited to where we live and delicious for an after kindy afternoon tea.

There are many recipes for making Iced Chocolates just as there are many recipes for making Hot Chocolates.  This is how we made our Iced Chocolates.  It is not really a recipe though more just a suggestion of what to do.

Iced Chocolate
Serves 1

Ingredients
1 tablespoon chocolate flavoured topping (like you pour over ice cream)
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
250ml milk
whipped cream, grated chocolate and extra chocolate topping to serve.

Directions

1. Place the topping, ice cream and milk in a blender or a milkshake shaker like our Tupperware one.

2. Blend or shake for 1 minute.

3. Spread a little extra topping around the inside of a glass.

4. Pour in the milk mix.

5. Top with whipped cream and grated chocolate.

6. Serve and enjoy!

You could replace the chocolate flavoured topping with powered chocolate drink mix or even make your own chocolate mix.  Whisk together 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1-2 tablespoons sugar (depending on how sweet you like it) with a little hot water.  Use in recipe in place of topping.