Cherry Limeade

I'm writing up this post a few days after drinking this, and just the thought of the tart refreshing beverage is making me very thirsty. I do not make drinks excessively sweet, so adjust to your taste. I had some leftover canned cherries (packed in the their own juices) which I used up here. Skewered grapes and cherries would make a fun garnish.

Cherry Limeade
Yield: 1 drink served in a low ball glass, or a half-pint mason jar. 


Ingredients:
1/2 of a fresh lime, or more to taste; a thin lime slice for garnish.
1-2 T cherry juice such as that found in canned cherries, or try just regular cherry juice.
2-3 cherries (canned or maraschino); I used canned ones leftover from crepes and it was tart and refreshing
mint, optional
1 tsp sugar, or splash simple syrup
ice
sparkling water

Directions:
Squeeze the lime juice into a low ball glass or a half-pint mason jar and dissolve the sugar into it. It will likely still be grainy, but we're going for a refreshing beverage that is not soda-sweet. Stir in the cherry juice and cherries. Top with ice and fill the rest with sparkling water. Garnish with a lime slice and quaff immediately.

Optional: muddle in some mint or basil.

Lemon and limes

It's been a challenging few months. From Belgium to Barcelona, I have decided to move again. This time, I took it home stateside. I can't really complain too much. I'm camped out near a beach with warm sunny weather. I have been on a role with the sparkling sunny weather beverages. Lest anyone be confused that I only drink Belgian beers (imo - the world's best), I love lime and lemon based sparkly mocktails.

Owning a SodaStream has been the inspiration for nearly all of these fine sparkly beverages (fine bevy of beverages, too much?). I use the device to make sparkling water.

I'm sitting on a patio wearing a seersucker jumper and making notes to myself to not have dairy. If you can digest lactose, fresh ripe cantaloupe and vanilla-bean ice cream blended with a bit of milk is a delicious milk shake. I've had so much fun reading all of the lovely bloggers that show up daily/weekly in my reader, sometimes I really do feel like I should lay this whole thing to rest, but you give me so much inspiration from gorgeous bags, to more lemon-lime yummies, to ex-pat travel delights from Germany, and vidalia onion soup which has me remembering how cold it could be in Belgium, to new cookbooks I am looking forward to ordering.

I did, upon returning, rejoice that I would be reunited with my kitchen appliances, and to that effect, I've decided that to root myself to a place for a while, I'm going to do some variety of canning adventures to bring the Americana back in me. Stay tuned and hopefully suntanned (somewhere).

Limeade with mint and blueberries
Yield: 1 serving, in a lowball glass (or another)

Ingredients:
half of a fresh lime
few mint sprigs
1 tsp sugar (optional)
ice
sparkling water
blueberries for garnish

Directions:
Squeeze half the lime in a glass and add 1 tsp of sugar. Stir to dissolve (will still be grainy). Muddle in the mint by crushing the mint sprigs with a spoon with the lime-sugar juice. Place ice cubes in the glass, and top it all off with some sparkling water. Give a quick stir, garnish with blueberries and serve immediately.

A simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water heated in a small sauce pan to dissolve all the sugar) can be made ahead of time and placed in the fridge.

May MoMe

In the spirit of moving and relocation here is May's Month of Meals.

Week 1 is brought to you by Neil. I've spent the better part of my life lecturing Neil on how and what to eat. His creativity impresses and inspires me. For someone that could easily eat out all the time, his choices to prepare foods at home impresses. I'm proud of you Neil.

I highly recommend the pizza method. To go with all the falafel that keeps showing up on month after month of meals we started baking our own pita bread around here. Oh, and go and check out my friend Stephanie's awesome Etsy shop.