Drinks

When the weather gets warm (or downright hot), having cool drinks are a big plus. Check out today's six drinks, including Pink Lady Punch, Blueberry-Apple Slushes, and Creamy Pineapple Orange Refresher Punch. Enjoy!

LIMONADA (BRAZILIAN LEMONADE)

This is from Gabriella Lewis in The New York Times cooking enewsletter. For this recipe, Gabriella wrote, "Creamy, frosty and tart, this popular Brazilian drink is a fantastic refreshment for a hot day. In Brazil, it’s also known as limonada Suíça, which translates to Swiss lemonade, because it typically includes sweetened condensed milk, which was marketed by the Swiss company Nestlé in Brazil in the 1940s. Sweetened condensed milk is essential to Brazilian sweets, including desserts like brigadeiros. A shelf-stable dairy product that doesn’t curdle in the presence of acid, it gets blended here with limes, sugar, ice and water to make this tangy beverage creamy. Limonada Suíça always includes condensed milk, but limonada sometimes leaves it out. And even though it’s called lemonade, it often uses limes since the word limão is often used interchangeably for lemons and limes in Portuguese. Pulsing the entire lime into this drink adds an extra layer of brightness and depth from the rind. This drink takes only minutes to blend and is best served immediately, but can be refrigerated for up to 3 days."

Time: 10 minutes; Yield: 6 servings

To view this online, go to https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1024120-limonada-brazilian-lemonade.

Ingredients

4 limes, scrubbed and washed, plus wedges or wheels for serving

1/3 cup granulated sugar

Half of a 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

4 cups cold water

4 cups ice, plus more for serving

Preparation

Cut off and discard the tips of the limes, then cut the limes in quarters.

Working in batches if your blender is smaller, pulse limes, sugar, sweetened condensed milk, water and ice in a blender 5 to 8 times until the ingredients are just combined. You’re looking to extract flavor from the limes, but not to pulverize them, which can make the drink too bitter. Pieces of lime rind may still be visible.

Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a large pitcher or bowl with a spout. Use the back of a spoon to push out as much liquid as possible; discard the solids.

Divide among tall, ice-filled glasses, garnish with lime wedges and serve immediately. (You can also pour it into bottles and refrigerate for up to 3 days, shaking before serving.)

CREAMY PINEAPPLE ORANGE REFRESHER PUNCH

This is from the infamous long-since-forgotten emailing list.

Ingredients

1 - 46 oz. can of pineapple juice

1-1/2 pints vanilla ice cream

1 quart orange sherbet

2 liters ginger ale

Directions

In a punch bowl, place the vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet. Slowly add & stir in pineapple juice & then ginger ale.

BLUEBERRY-APPLE SLUSHES

This is from the August 2013 issue of Heart Insight, page 23. (This is the magazine for the American Heart Association.)

This recipe begins, "Refreshing and good for you, this fruit treat comes together in a flash and provides fiber from the apple and antioxidants from the deeply colored blueberries." Serves 4; 1 cup per serving

I was unable to find a link online for this, but did want to give a head's up on where I got this.

Ingredients

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (no thawing necessary)

2 cups ice

1 large apple (about 8 ounces), any variety, cut into chunks (peel left on)

2/3 cup fresh orange juice

2 tablespoons honey

1/4 cup fresh blueberries (optional)

Directions

In a blender, process the ingredients except the 1/4 cup blueberries until smooth. Serve garnished with the remaining blueberries.

PINK LADY PUNCH

Not sure where this one came from, though I'm thinking maybe from one of my mother's cookbooks that she bought to raise funds for some group or other...

Ingredients

4 C cranberry juice

1 1/2 C sugar

4 C pineapple juice

2 qts. chilled ginger ale

Directions

Add sugar to cranberry juice. Stir until sugar dissolves. Add pineapple juice. Chill. Pour into punch bowl & add ginger ale.

LIZARD LOUNGE TEA

My oldest son spent several summers traveling the country, both singly and with friends. Several times, he wound up at the Rainbow Gathering, where he hooked up with a larger group of friends. Most of them had grown up in hot areas of the country, so they nicknamed themselves lizards; their area of the camp site was the lizard lounge. They would cook up their version of iced tea, which they would barter for other commodities. They were frequently asked what their secret ingredient was.

This is a scaled down version. I found that cranberry or cranberry-apple herb tea works very nicely with this, but any herbal tea can be used.

Ingredients

1/2 gallon apple cider

4-5 herbal tea bags

Directions

Place cider in a large pan or teakettle and bring to a boil. Place herbal tea bags into a large container and pour the boiled cider over the tea bags. Let steep for 15-30 minutes and cool. Very good.

The next one is perfect for gift-giving.

EASTERN SUNRISE SMOOTHIE

This is one of my inventions.

Smoothies are incredibly easy to make, especially if you have a blender. The fruits in this yummy smoothie used are from the eastern U.S.: orange juice and strawberries from Florida, cranberries from Massachusetts. Top that off with a beautiful pink color. It’s a yummy way to start the morning.

Ingredients

1 C orange juice

1/2 C yogurt

4-6 frozen strawberries

1 Tbls wheat germ

1/2 C frozen cranberries

Directions

Blend juice & berries. Add yogurt & wheat germ & blend about 15 seconds more.