With the onset of summer, desire grows for some kind of cold drinks. However, health conscious people avoid use of cold drinks for fear of adulteration in these drinks. Testing of different brands of cold drinks has shown either contamination of these drinks with chemicals harmful to human health or unhygienic water used in preparation of these drinks. Under these circumstances best idea is to prepare squash at home using juices of different fruits. (Photograph used here was uploaded by mateoutah at Ficker.com and shared from Flicker.com)

Orange home made Squash:

The ingredients needed to prepare orange squash are listed below.

1. Orange fruit juice: a cup of orange juice

2. Sugar: One and half times more quantity than the orange juice i.e. 1+1/2 cup of sugar

3. Approx. one teaspoon or less water

4. Preservative: One pinch KMS for 1 liter of finish product

Method of preparation:

Mixed Fruit Jam is prepared using pulp of apples, papaya, banana, pineapple, oranges, grapes, guava and other locally available fruits during the season. One or two pieces (units) of large sized fruits such as papaya, banana and oranges etc. and about 300-400 g of grapes of black and green color are used. All fruits should be fully ripe and have less fiber for jam making. They should possess good color and aroma. Adding too many bananas may spoil the taste. Wash fruits thoroughly and remove seeds, skin, core and other non-desired parts.

Remove skin and seeds of oranges and cut all fruits into fairly large pieces. Put them in a thick bottomed vessel with a little water and cook for 8-10 minutes. Mash all fruits to form even consistency pulp and sieve to re¬move skin, seeds etc. Mix guava, grapes and other fruit pulp together. The black grapes are used to provide the pulp a deep pink color. If your liking is for deep red color, add a little raspberry red color.

Sugar and pulp are used in 1:1 ratio. Add one cup of sugar for one cup of pulp. Cook the mixture on a slow fire, stirring regularly to ensure that the bottom does not scald or burn so that the Jam does not boil. When jam is nearly thick, add 2 g citric acid or two spoons lime juice per kg of pulp. Citric acid should be added only after cooking the pulp for some time. Cook till jam reaches thick consistency. Remove from fire and add a pinch of potassium meta bisulphate ( preservative) and mix it well.

_______________________________________________________