Sunday, August 31, 2014

Purify Your Energy Drink


When you exercise, especially in the heat, you need to stay hydrated.  You also need to replenish electrolytes including sodium and potassium salts.  Here is an easy-to-make, pure version of an energy drink that is just right for weekend athletes.  It will taste salty to you before you start exercising and just right as you start to expend valuable resources during exercise. 

Pure N-or-G Drink
Makes 12 ounces, recipe easily doubles, triples.....
Ingredients

2 ounces real limeade or lemonade
10 ounces water
1/8 teaspoon salt

Method
  1. Shake the three ingredients together so that the salt is well dissolved.  
  2. Get out there and exercise, then replenish by drinking up during breaks.  
Here's another variation for all my Vermont kin:
juice of 1 lime
2 teaspoons maple syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
10 ounces water

Mix it all together and go out and play.  

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Cilantro Cooler

The third in our August series of summer drinks is an herbal concoction that features cilantro muddled with thinly sliced cucumbers.  It makes a really refreshing and lively bright green sipper. 

Quaff it after a workout for a home spa experience or add a little heat from jalepeños and some tequila and enjoy it at the grownups table.

Cilantro Cooler
Ingredients for one
1/2 cup peeled, thinly sliced cucumber
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (stems fine)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
juice of 1 lime
1/2 ounce honey or simple syrup
6 ounces cold water
optional: diced hot pepper (like 1/2 jalepeño, seeded)
to garnish: springs of cilantro, cucumber slices

Method
  1. Muddle (or pulse in a food processor) the cucumber, cilantro and, if using, hot pepper with sugar.  Let rest at least one hour, refrigerated.
  2. Add lime juice and water.  
  3. Add honey to taste. 
  4. Strain and pour over ice in a tall glass and garnish with a sprig of cilantro and a slice of cucumber to serve. 
Ingredients for 4 Cilantro Coolers:
2 cups peeled, thinly sliced cucumber (about 1 English cucumbers or 6 Kirby cucumbers)
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro (stems fine)
2 teaspoons sugar
juice of 4 limes
2 ounces honey or simple syrup
24 ounces cold water
optional: diced hot pepper (like 1 jalepeño, seeded)
to garnish: springs of cilantro, cucumber slices

Yes, you could add a little tequila.  Vodka is also a good additional ingredient. 

Monday, August 18, 2014

Grapefruit Ginger Soda

I spent some time in France when I was a teenager.  One of the most memorable afternoons was on Bastille Day at the family apartments of the Auer family in Old Nice.  Madame Auer was a grand dame and hostess from another era and I was nervous.   As the summer guest of her son, my father’s dear friend Georges, a visit to the family’s matriarch would be my first real test of speaking French.  I’d spent several weeks in France so far, tutored by Georges, his wife Anne and twin daughters while their youngest son was learning to speak English at my parents' home across the Atlantic. 

The apartment was formally furnished in delicately carved armchairs and settees topped with ecru silk cushions embroidered in floral patterns.  The formal sitting room was cooled on hot days by keeping the shutters closed during the day.  (A tip I had learned learned earlier in the summer from Anne Auer that I have used ever since when air conditioning is not installed.) 

The walls were painted French green, somewhere between the color of a green olive and the stems of lavender.  The color spread from the paneled walls to the potted plants edging the shuttered floor-to-ceiling louvered glass doors that led to the balcony.   By late afternoon a little light crept into the dark room.   I sat carefully and listed attentively in case someone spoke to me.  Madame Auer offered me a soda and indicated I should pick my flavor from the bottles of sirop on the tea cart next to her.  The flavors were exciting.  I was tempted by the hazelnut but in the end picked the raspberry.  (Framboise, s'il vous plait.)

She poured a few ounces of raspberry sirop into a tall glass of ice and topped it with seltzer.   It was the perfect refresher.  Later that night we watched the Bastille Day fireworks shoot out of and around the old chateau in Nice from the plant-edged balcony of chez Auer.  It was a sensory overload sort of day.  Mme Auer, though formal in her manner, was extremely kind and made me feel at home.  A host’s simple offer of refreshment has done this for visitors for centuries.  Language was no barrier between new friends over a freshly concocted soda.

Back then, soda was served only on special occasions like birthday parties and national holidays.  Today, soda is part of the everyday and has grown a bit ordinary.  With the advent of soda making machines and an acceptance of more varieties of flavor, it is possible to craft your own special sirop and make a guest feel extra welcome. 

Try your hand at a six pack of grapefruit-ginger flavored soda.  This pomplemousse and ginger ale combo is sparkly pure and fresher than anything you can get for your soda stream. 

Grapefruit Ginger Soda Sirop

Yield 1 ½ cups, enough for 6 sodas
Ingredients
2 red grapefruits- sections and zest
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
¾ cup honey or sweet rice syrup

Method
  1. Mash together the fruit, zest and ginger.  
  2. Stir in the honey or rice syrup.  
  3. Cover and chill for 48 hours.  
  4. Strain and serve with setlzer or tonice water.  Use a 2:5 ratio, that is 2 ounces of soda sirop for every 5 ounces of seltzer.
Credits to Monica Matheny of The Yummy Life for the inspiration and basic no-cook technique for this recipe. Check out more flavor ideas here.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Watermelon Daiquiri's


Watermelons are large.  Even for a family four, there will be some left over.  Cube the last slices or use a melon baller to extract the last sweet morsels and freeze them in a resealable bag.  Later you can use them as ice cubes in fruit juice or.....

Make a pitcher of pure Watermelon Daiquiri's!

Serves 4
3 cups frozen watermelon cubes (about 1 quart size bag)
32 ounces limade (make your own real limeade or buy one with only lime juide, sugar and water)
8 ounces dark rum

Method
  1. Place the frozen watermelon in a blender.  
  2. Add about 10 ounces limade, enough to just cover the watermelon.  
  3. Blend on the ice cube setting until you have made a nice slush.  
  4. Add remainder of limeade and rum.  
Serve in tall glasses. 
Variation-- turn this into a pure Watermelon Margarita by replacing the rum with an equal amount of tequila.  (In the photo, the drink on the right is the margarita version.)