We're continuing the Summer Cool Off series today with some recipes for delicious, cool, summer beverages! Very little is better than an ice-cold glass of lemonade or iced tea on a hot, Summer day, especially after a full day of yard work.
Recipes
Lemonade
Ingredients
- 10 - 12 medium lemons, halved pole to pole then sliced
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- pinch of salt
- 5 cups cold water
Mash lemons, sugar, and salt into a saucepan with a potato masher to get all of the juice out of the lemon slices. Once the lemons give up all their juice, the sugar is dissolved, and the liquid takes on a syrup like consistency, pour half the lemon slices and the syrup through a large sieve over a bowl or saucepan. Press on the solids with the masher or wooden spoon to get as much liquid as possible out.
Discard the solids, then pour the syrup into the final serving pitcher. Repeat the process with the second half of the syrup. Stir in water, refrigerate, then serve.
Enjoy!
Iced Tea
Ingredients
- 5 bags of strong tea (I recommend Irish breakfast)
- 1 quart filtered water or bottled spring water.
- Sugar to taste (we found 3 was good without being too sweet)
- 1 quart ice cubes (preferrably made from filtered or bottled spring water
Tie the tea bag strings together if applicable, and heat them in the water in a saucepan over medium heat until dark, steamy bubbles form on the bottom and sides of pan. For the best results, the temperature should be about 190° on an instant-read thermometer. Remove the pan from the stove and let the tea steep for a maximum of 3 minutes. Discard tea bags, then pour the tea into the pitcher. Stir in sugar until its dissolved, then stir in ice.
Enjoy!
Arnold Palmer Sorbet
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- zest from two small lemons
- 3/4 cup + 1/3 cups sugar
- 1 cup fresh lemon juice
- 3 tea bags
That's right, our third recipe for today is going to be an Arnold Palmer sorbet. Really, this is actually going to end up being a combination of two sorbets: a lemon sorbet and a black tea sorbet. Here's how you make it.
First, for the lemon sorbet: combine 1 cup of water, and 3/4 cup sugar in a saucepan. Heat over medium heat and stir until it reaches a boil and make sure all the sugar is boiled. Once the pot has boiled, turn off the heat then stir in the lemon zest. Let the liquid sit for about five minutes then stir in the lemon juice. Stir to make sure everything is mixed together. Pour into a seperate container and let sit in the fridge for an hour.
For the black tea sorbet: pour 3 cups of water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Tie the tea bag strings together if applicable, and heat them in the water in a saucepan over medium heat until dark, steamy bubbles form on the bottom and sides of pan. For the best results, the temperature should be about 190° on an instant-read thermometer. Remove the pan from the stove and let the tea steep for a maximum of 3 minutes. Discard tea bags, then stir in the 1/3 cup of sugar. Once that is dissolved, pour the mixture into a seperate container and let it sit in the fridge for an hour.
Once both are well chilled, combine them in a large container and stir until they're well mixed. Pour them into a lined walled cookie sheet (or two) and freeze. After a few hours, pull the cookie sheet out, break up the frozen sorbet, run through a blender then freeze again. Repeat this process once more before storing in an airtight, sealed container.
Enjoy!
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