Juicy mocktails

After a lot of grey skies and drizzle, the sun is finally out. 

So dust off the deckchairs, mow the lawn and clean up the BBQ in preparation for basking in the garden with friends, a refreshing drink and a pink and black sausage or two.

We’ve been busy in the kitchen, mixing up some very special mocktails, just perfect for those long hot summer days. They’re healthy, taste delicious and are really easy to make. Leaving you more time to work on your tan/power wash the patio.

Sister Citrus

Serves 6

What you’ll need

• A 900ml bottle of innocent orange juice (with bits or smooth, depending on your OJ preference)

• 4 clementines

• Freshly squeezed lime juice to taste

• Slice of lime to decorate

• 1 hammock (optional)

How to make it:

Cut the clementines in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Next, pop some ice into a big glass jug and pour in the orange juice. Add the clementine juice to the jug, squeeze in as much lime as you like and give everything a good stir. Then pour into nice glasses, garnish with a slice of lime, kick back in your hammock and enjoy

Apple do nicely

Serves 6

What you’ll need

• A 900ml bottle of innocent apple juice

• A punnet of raspberries, washed

• A small handful of fresh mint, finely chopped

• A few sprigs of fresh mint to garnish

How to make it:

Pop the raspberries into a bowl and mash into a mushy puree using a fork. Next, pop some ice into a big glass jug and pour in the apple juice. Add the raspberry puree and chopped mint to the jug and mix it all together. Then pour into tall glasses, adorn with a sprig of mint and sip daintily.

Let us know how you get on. Tweet us your sunshine photos to @innocentIreland or post them to facebook.

Cherry good

We haven’t made a new kids smoothie recipe for a while, but we think this one was worth waiting for. Combining the delicate taste of cherry with a sweet, jammy strawberry-packed punch, it’s one of our most refreshing recipes yet and perfect for quenching your thirst after a game of mini-golf in the park. And just like all of our drinks, it contains real, pure fruit and no rubbish whatsoever. It’s cherry cherry good (sorry) and on the shelves in selected Dunnes and Tesco stores now.

To celebrate we're giving away a case of our new smoothie. To win write your answer to this question in the comments below: Name a county in Ireland that rhymes with cherry. We'll pick the winner from a hat. Good luck.

This competition is now closed.

Congratulations Sinead C, you've won a case of cherries & strawberries smoothies for kids. We'll send you an email.

Super slimmer

Back in 2009, changes at our factory meant that our little smoothie bottle had to go from 17g to 23g. Our packaging team worked hard to get the weight down to 20g in 2010, but getting back to 17g proved really difficult (it’s always the last few grams that are the hardest to shift).

So now, we're happy to announce that we’ve finally cracked it, and after a strict January detox and countless lunges and squats, our little bottle is back down to 17g and looking great. We're always looking for way to reduce the environmental impact of our packaging, and lightweighting is one of the best ways we can do this. By stripping 15% off the weight of this bottle, we’ll save around 300 tonnes of carbon in 2012. Nice work Team Packaging.

Flies beware

Animals don't eat it; it eats animals. And the odd human if the films are to be believed.

But whatever the truth, there's no doubt that the venus fly trap is a plant to be feared. Especially if you're a fly or a spider.

The trap is triggered by tiny little hairs on the inner surface of the plant. If a prospective meal wanders in and stumbles over a couple of these hairs, it snaps shut, trapping its prey inside. The plant then begins to produce special acids which kill and digest its lunch. And if the little fellow tries to escape, the trap just closes tighter and digests it even faster. There really is no escape.

Once it's finished eating, the trap reopens ready for the next unsuspecting victim. Each individual trap on the plant can only operate 3 or 4 times, after which it photosynthesises like a normal leaf or withers and dies.

But that's enough from us. Here's David Attenborough wearing a nice shirt to show us exactly how it works:

    

And what's more, for the next month or so you could win one of these wonders of nature with our kids juicy drink. All you have to do to be in with a chance is to enter the special code from promotional packs in the gang's garden. Just make sure you take your umbrella.

 

Win some green smoothies

Ah sure be-gorrah, tis the time of the year again when all turns green. To celebrate, we're giving away a hamper of our very own Paddy's Day smoothie - kiwis, apples & limes.

To enter, all you have to do is tell us, in the comments below, how many different types of fruit go into our kiwis, apples & limes smoothie? Click here for a hint.

This competition is now closed.

Winner: Congratulations to Belinda who correctly answered 5. Some green smoothies are on the way to you Belinda.

Our new juice blends

Great news, we’ve been busy making some juices. You can choose from our totally tropical (sorry) or delicious apple & raspberry juice, depending on whether you need to be whisked away to a desert island or sun-filled orchard . Get in them in selected Tesco and Dunnes Stores now.

apple & raspberry juice

Think pink
Or drink pink. Since everyone knows that apples and raspberries go together like eggs and bacon, after a lot of thought, we opted to blend the former pair for our delicious new juice blend. We hope you think we made the right decision.

• it's never sweetened, never concentrated
• blend of 7 apples and 30 raspberries in every carafe
• there is 1 portion of fruit in every 150ml serving

tropical juice

Extremely exotic
For something slightly more exotic in your tumbler, why not pour yourself a glass of our delicious new tropical blend? A combination of pineapples, passion fruits, mangoes, oranges and apples, it’s guaranteed to make the sun shine*.

* most of the time.

• it's never sweetened, never concentrated
• blend of apples, oranges, pineapple, mango and passion fruit
• there is 1 portion of fruit in every 150ml serving

 

 

Ready, steady, grow

Rosy cheeks. Dirty hands. And muddy footprints in the hallway.

When the frost has melted away, there's nothing better than getting the little ones outdoors for fresh air and a bit of gardening.  This springtime, we want to get loads of kids in Ireland outside planting and harvesting their own gardens. From March until the end of April, every box of our kids smoothies or fruit tubes will come with its very own pack of easy to grow seeds. There are six different varieties to collect including carrots, tomatoes, cress, basil, violets and sunflowers. The best part is that all grow into something you can eat - delicious.

Whether your garden is big, small or not much at all, our seeds can be grown in containers of all shapes and sizes. From empty smoothie cartons, to welly boots and window boxes – everyone can take part. Getting kids sowing and growing is a great way for them to learn where their fruit and veg actually comes from and it turns out they’re more likely to eat stuff they’ve grown themselves too - so it’s another clever way to get them eating their greens.

Every pack has handy growing instructions, cut out and keep plant markers and loads of cool plant facts. Keep an eye on www.innocentdrinks.ie and follow us on twitter @innocentIreland for information on our exciting schools competition which we'll be launching this week.

Yam must read this

Feedback Madagascar is one of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that we support.The project we support promotes yam farming with training on yam cultivation techniques, the creation of demonstration plots and household plantations. Working with twelve community forest management associations, over 250 people are already producing and yams are taking off.

Famous for providing the fuel for Usain Bolt’s sprinting successes, the yam is commonly confused as a sweet potato (they are un-related), they are similar in properties.

 “Anyone for yams?”

The project is based around the Malagasy rainforest, where people are reliant on inadequate rice and cassava harvests; the cultivation of yams reduces the impact of the annual famine and dramatically ups people’s nutritional intake.

And yams are fun. To raise awareness of yams and their benefits, alongside rainforest conservation, there are now yam festivals. Associations take stands, organise competitions, cook offs, speeches and full-on carnival singing and dancing.

As part of the project, training on culinary techniques is included to make the most of the yam.

Here are 6 of their suggested recipes:

1. Yam Pudding
2. Yam Crisps
3. Yam Pizza
4. Yam Soup
5. Yam Salad
6. Baked Yam

If you fancy trying your hand at Yam Pudding, here is an embellished Western version:

Ingredients:

800g grated uncooked yams

300g milk

120g golden syrup

3 eggs

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

120g brown sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground nutmeg

• Preheat oven to 160˚c
• Grease baking dish (approx 8”x8”x2”)
• Combine all ingredients
• Bake until a knife comes out of mixture clean, approx 1 hour.
• Serve warm with cream or ice cream

For more information on Feedback Madagascar, please visit our innocent foundation page: www.innocentfoundation.org/ or their own website: www.feedbackmadagascar.org

hot and bothered

...that's how some of our indian mangoes have been feeling of late.  When it comes to climate change, the majority of conversations still use words like 'when' - when it happens, when the temperature rises, when the seas rise etc.  Of course the reality is that our climate is already changing, and more so in some regions than others at this point in time.  The Western Gatts of India is one of those regions, and that is where some of our delicious alphonso mangoes come from.

When our indian farmers started talking to us about the problems, we decided it was important to make sure we did our bit to help cool the mangoes down, and keep the farmers in the mango business.  Fast forward through many many conversations, and we had a set of recommendations from a local agricultural institute, a consultant and 18 farmers working with our supplier, ready to trial some new techniques in the world of mango growing.

We have just received the first report from the project, and despite only being able to implement 2 of the 5 techniques this season we have seen some great results. Farmers participating in the trial were able to use less agrochemicals on the trees and still managed to have a lower incidence of pest and disease attack than a standard farm (saving them lots of money as well as protecting the environment).  Plus, the trial farms also found that they had a higher yield of mangoes per tree.

Next season we will be implementing all 5 of the recommendations, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we get even better results.  Needless to say the farmers participating in the project are pretty happy that they can still produce great mango in a changing climate (and save some cash at the same time), and we are thrilled that we still get great tasting mango and have managed to help out in tackling this challenge.

A big thanks to our suppliers, and everyone involved in the project so far.  I'm off to grab a mango passionfruit smoothie to celebrate.

A hamper full of smoothies...

To celebrate the launch of our new smoothie carton sizes we had a competition (see below) to give away a hamper full of (you guessed it) smoothies.

We had  a lot of entries and a lot of correct answers. We really must make our questions a little trickier. The correct answer is "Strawberries and Bananas".

The lucky winner is Emer Breen.

Thanks to everyone who entered and stay tuned as we'll have another competition soon.

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There's no better way to celebrate the launch of our new smoothie carton sizes than...you've guessed it, giving away some smoothie cartons. We've a smoothie hamper up for grabs for one lucky reader. How do I win, you might be asking. Well, just post a comment below with your answer to the following (pretty easy) question and we'll announce the winner next week.

Question: What smoothie recipe made an appearance in last Mondays blog post?

Hint, look at the picture.