Better Home Cooking Basics: #71 Cool Down Summer Drinks with Frozen Fruit Instead of Ice.

If you didn't know - summer is here! I'm keeping cool with ice cold drinks except I'm swapping out traditional ice cubes for frozen fruit. Lately, I've been really into filling my glass with frozen strawberries, mango & peaches & then pouring a can of limonata (a fizzy lemonade) on top of all that goodness. As the fruit defrosts it adds more flavor to the limonata & cools it down at the same time. Then at the end I have a nice fruit cocktail to snack on. Plus, it looks really pretty.

I also use frozen fruit in my smoothies. That means I skip the ice cubes all together & just blend up frozen fruit. It adds flavor without watering it down. I'd opt for smaller sized fruit when making smoothies. Larger pieces like peach segments should be cut in half as they can sometimes get stuck in the blender & don't chop up as evenly as small chunks of mango would.

PS: Frozen fruit also works like magic for wine & cocktails. Try frozen grapes in your favorite glass of white wine or prosecco.

How are you staying cool this summer?

Get more of my better home cooking basics here.

Watermelon Juice

My sister introduced me to Num Pang a delicious Cambodian sandwich shop.  Besides having one of THE BEST shrimp sandwiches I've ever eaten they also have awesome watermelon juice, which my sister (she is in the know about a lot of things) told me how to make.  Turns out you need just 1 ingredient: watermelon. You don't need a fancy juicer, just a blender. I'm pretty sure you could do small batches in a food processor too if you didn't have a blender. I used my immersion blender.

SweetGreen's Blueberry Basil Lemonade

A few weeks ago I spent some time in DC for work.  At the recommendations of my coworkers I tried & became obsessed with SweetGreen, a fabulously fresh local salad joint. Besides their super fresh salad toss-ins that are locally sourced and prepared by (maybe) angels themselves, they also have this ridiculous blueberry basil lemonade.  Yes it is as good as it sounds.  I was really missing it when I got back home so I did what every good food blogger does, I googled it.  I didn't look long since SweetGreen actually gives you the recipe on their blog! (read: I officially love SweetGreen more.)  In honor of their awesomeness and a scorching heatwave I made a batch myself & loved every sip.



PS: SweetGreen is slated for the streets of NYC so be on the look out (or I'll just tell you when it hits!).