(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)
By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate
What could be less labor-intensive than making ice? Just about nothing, so why not chill out as the weather begins to heat up and do just that?
If you haven't experimented with flavored ice cubes, you're missing an easy accent that creates a memorable touch for thirsty guests. When it comes to your meal, bring in the take-out or serve up prepared foods, but top off beverages with these slippery saviors; you will have homemade excellence with virtually no effort.
In these cost-conscious times, not only is ice the way to go for low-labor recipes, but low-cost ones as well. You can even make lots extra and bag them for future use.
If you are serving liquor when entertaining, you can save money there, too. Instead of having an unlimited flowing bar, freeze up cubes of sangria or other wines and spirits to infuse flavor into lemon-lime clear sodas or ginger ale for adult guests.
Grab a few ice cube trays. Plain ones are fine, or you can even find specialty ice trays, which freeze liquid in the shape of letters, hearts or circles, at gourmet and home stores.
Start with either water as a base or a puree of ingredients. To water, consider adding edible lavender, lemon slices, mint leaves or fresh berries before freezing, as “Tea Party” author/event planner Tracy Stern does for her top clients.
Alternately, you can blend a batch of ice cubes. Watermelon-Mint ones were featured in Relish Magazine from a camp that serves them at events every summer. Seeded, diced watermelon, water, honey, sugar and fresh lemon juice (use all to taste) are pureed until smooth. Place fresh mint leaves in ice trays, pour the mixture over them and freeze.
Flavored ice cubes give you the opportunity to double your beverage flavor. Make one quick favorite summer beverage for the cubes and then plop them in another compatible beverage. This is a much better trick, too, than just having plain water ice cubes melting in your party drinks and diluting them. Consider mixing iced tea and apple juice like they do in “The Cowgirl’s Cookbook: Recipes for Your Home on the Range.” It’s a great topper for lemonade.
You don't even have to go to the trouble of making a beverage yourself, though. Get take-out iced coffee or Thai iced tea — highly flavorful and creamy due to sugar and the combination of both condensed milk and evaporated or whole milk that is usually used. Toss in some ice cubes you’ve made that include cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla extract.
Fun fare like this also proves food and beverage preparation can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun – and fast. They take just 10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare. The creative combinations are delicious proof that everyone has time for creating homemade specialties and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it!
Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since there are no right or wrong amounts. These are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations, so whatever you – or your kidlet helpers – choose to use can't help but draw “wows” from family members and guests.
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: It’s dark chocolate with a cacao content of 70 percent or more (usually advertised on the front label of the product) that many nutritionists recommend for its antioxidants. Why not then consider using this as a hot fudge sauce over sugar-free frozen yogurt or sugar-free ice cream for sundaes rather than sauces including less desirable types of chocolate and possibly artificial ingredients? Gently melt the chocolate and stir. Even if some bumps still remain, it then usually creates a slightly crunchy texture that’s also a treat.
Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling
The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and
Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet (Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
