Bring on the Slushies

One sip will have you humming like a phone on vibrate

Hope you are all feeling fabulous, my nutritional Jedis!

I know that many of you have succumbed to pesky chest infections, coughs, misbehaving snouts, or are desperately trying to manage the wave of germs circulating.

This time of year provides a consistent consignment of dodgy school bugs in our house. Sometimes living with younglings can feel like a party in a Petri dish.

Irish offices and their stodgy heating systems are pretty inglorious too. It's the Woodstock of germs.

So I've devised two sophisticated slushie recipes to shoot energy back into your veins, on top of some legendary vitamin C and deliciously talented phytochemicals. There’s a handy PDF printable version too, for permanency in your kitchen files.

And yes, chilli features in both recipes. May the force be with you.

The first is a pineapple and cayenne pepper combo guaranteed to perk up jaded dimples. There is electrifying happiness to be found inside cayenne chilli pepper. It’s not simply the heat jump-starting your dimples. It is, in fact, the active compounds found in the pepper that tickles our feel-good endorphins. Special Agent capsaicin is responsible for this biochemical effect.

Surprisingly, capsaicin’s USP does not lie within its ability to charm our bodies, or in its antioxidant taekwondo moves. There's even more talent to applaud. Capsaicin is a brilliant agitator. As we freak out to cope with the blaze of a hot chilli for example, our body releases a stash of natural painkillers in direct response to the capsaicin content. These endorphins lollop through our system like nectar in our veins.

Yes please.

The second tipple is a grapefruit and ginger granita. It's a sophisticated grapefruit slushie, amped with killer antioxidants.

Fresh ginger will help extinguish those smouldering flames loitering at the back of your throat from too many Thanksgiving Margaritas, or roaring at Logan Roy in Succession. The cool ice and jump of citrus feels like the perfect antidote to almost anything. We've also made this using blood oranges and fresh chilli every January, when blood orange season kicks off. Phenom-bomb.  

We love citrus fruits, especially this time of year. They're like Christmas baubles of sunshine. Grapefruits, oranges, limes, lemons - all contain bumptious amounts of vitamin C to resuscitate party skin over the festive season. This is the vitamin celebrated for its fancy immune ripostes too. Double bonus. Beat that, Lancome.