Artichoke drink – Che Hot E – Mama Snow Cooks and More

When I was little, my mom would used to make us artichoke drink with just plain water, artichoke, and maybe a little white sugar whenever we have a sore throat. Now I like to merge it with Vietnamese che hot e to make this 100% natural che that is healthy and not too sweet for my little foodie chef who LOVES sweet. My direction is written as if you are letting your little chef helped you with this. This is easy and can be cooked within 20 minutes if you are cooking it by yourself… just a little longer with a little helper! =)

Since my little foodie chef loves this so much, I had her helped me make this sweet refreshing drink today.

Ingredients

1 artichoke
2.5 – 3 liter of water
4 Tbsp of pure palm sugar
1/3 cup of dried goji berries
1 Tbsp of basil seeds or chia seeds
honey to sweeten
1 dragon fruit (optional)

Note: I normally chop up one dragon fruit to add to the cooled mixture at the end when dragon fruit is in season. My little foodie loves to eat sweet dragon fruit. Chia seeds are healthier but it won’t expands nicely like basil seeds. Basil seeds are traditionally used in this dessert.

Direction

1. Chef Grace poured 1/3 cup of dried goji berries in one bowl and she poured 1 Tbsp of basil seeds into another bowl. I helped her pour water into the bowls to soak the two ingredients.

2. Chop the artichoke in half and put it in a pot with water. Add in 4 tablespoons of pure palm sugar too. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes on high heat. When done, discard the artichoke and pour the liquid into a big 3-liter mixing bowl. Pour the liquid through a mesh strainer so that the fuzzy stuff from the artichoke won’t be mixed in with the sweet drink. Set aside for about 15 minutes so it won’t be too hot for the little one or add a few ice cubes to speed up this cooling down process.

Ready to mix this dessert with my little foodie chef?! She’s very quick.

3. Dump that bowl of soaked basil seeds into the warm mixing bowl.

4. I had to strain the soaked goji berries before my little chef does this step.
Dump that goji berries into the mixing bowl.

5. Now with all her strength in her 26-months-old muscles, my little chef squeezed honey into the bowl as mommy counts 1 – 10 FIVE TIMES! (Adjust the timing according to how much honey mommy see is being poured in the mixing bowl.
Count out loud!

6. Ah! My little foodie’s favorite final step in making her favorite dessert is the taste test to see if it’s good enough for her. “Ngon qua” (very good) would be her okay sign.

7. I then pour the sweet drink into a 2.5-Liter pitcher that I bought at Walmart. There were extras so my little foodie and I drank it up.

8. Squeeze in extra honey to individual preference. It’s my little chef’s first time getting to squeeze the bottle of honey so I think she is having fun with that.