Watermelon mint lemonade
Ingredients:
- juicy watermelon;
- 4−6 mint leaves;
- 1 lime;
- 1 tsp sparkling water;
- honey to taste.
Cooking method:
- Peel the watermelon from seeds and cut it into cubes. Use the darkest and juiciest part of it. You will need about 2-3 cups of pulp.
- Grind the berries in a blender along with 2-3 mint leaves until a smooth puree is obtained. If desired, strain the mixture through a sieve. If you get a not very sweet watermelon, add a couple of teaspoons of honey to it.
- Fill cocktail glasses with 3 watermelon cubes and a few ice cubes. Spread the puree over the top, leaving about 1.5 cm to the edge.
- Add sparkling water and garnish glasses with a lime wedge and mint leaves.
Secrets of homemade recipes
Making drinks at home is quite a common activity. Every housewife probably has a couple of delicious drinks in her recipe stash. Moreover, each specific case has its own tricks. Therefore, we will try to understand them in relation to the most common drinks that we encounter almost every day.
Compote
Making compote at home couldn't be easier! It can be based on berries, fruits and even vegetables. Moreover, they can be used both fresh and frozen, as well as dried. This will not make the taste of the finished drink worse.
The secret to preparing a delicious compote is to add fruit and berry raw materials to already boiling water. In this case, large fruits and berries should be divided into pieces of the same size so that the heat treatment occurs evenly. As for sugar, it is recommended to take 150 grams per liter of water. In addition, in recipes for preparing such drinks you can often see a component such as citric acid. It serves not only the purpose of acidifying the compote, but also to preserve the maximum possible amount of useful substances in it. In addition, cooking over low heat will help preserve the vitamins and minerals in the drink. Moreover, it is better not to delay this process. A few minutes of gentle simmering will suffice. The drink will be ready in a couple of hours just under the lid. Active bubbling for too long will destroy almost all the beneficial substances, although the taste of the drink will not deteriorate at all.
Tea
Recipes for making tea, all of them suggest preparing this drink based on tea leaves. Packaged versions of raw materials are discarded on the vine. This, however, is not surprising. Tea dust and waste are usually packed into bags, tinted and enhanced with various additives. Therefore, natural dried leaves will be tastier and healthier.
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The water for brewing tea must be soft, and therefore, if you use tap water, it must first be filtered.
Classic recipes recommend using small teapots made of red clay to prepare the drink. The tea leaves in them need to be distributed evenly along the bottom. Its quantity is regulated according to the conventional ratio of one teaspoon per 150-200 milliliters of water.
It is recommended to pour red and black tea with water at a temperature of 95-100 degrees, green, as well as white and yellow tea - with water at 60-85 degrees, oolong tea - with water at 70-90 degrees. Black tea can be brewed only once; other teas can be brewed many times, gradually increasing the temperature of the water and keeping the brew a little longer.
And, of course, the secret of a delicious drink is its freshness. Yesterday's tea in this regard is significantly inferior only to brewed tea.
Coffee
Coffee is one of the most popular drinks today, and therefore many are interested in the secrets of its proper preparation. Everything is very simple if you have a coffee maker, but when working with a Turkish coffee maker, you will have to learn some tricks. So, for one cup you will need one or two teaspoons of coffee. The coffee is placed in a pot (copper or cupronickel), sugar is added as desired, poured with cold filtered water and simmered on low heat. The coffee is brought to a boil, but not boiled.
Too active bubbling kills the taste and aroma of the drink.
Cocoa
It’s not difficult to brew a drink like cocoa. Bring water to a boil on the stove, add the required amount of cocoa powder and bring the mixture to a boil. Then add milk to it and mix everything thoroughly. The drink is poured into cups, sweetened, and then drunk, after allowing the cocoa to cool slightly. That's the whole recipe.
Cooking method
Squeeze grapefruit juice into a blender.
Pour water into a saucepan and add sugar and mint leaves. Let the water boil. Remove from heat, remove leaves and pour water into blender. Squeeze the juice out of the boiled mint leaves and throw them away.
Mix lightly juice and sweet mint water in a blender. Cool the resulting mixture in the refrigerator.
Non-alcoholic mojito
In general, the non-alcoholic mojito belongs to the same family of drinks. But, given its popularity, I simply could not help but separate the cocktail into a separate recipe. In addition, the sour drink with mint perfectly quenches thirst. To prepare it you will need:
- A few sprigs of mint
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- ½ lime
- 200 ml sparkling water
- crushed ice
Half a lime is cut into 4 parts, each of which is squeezed into a glass. The juice in a glass is mixed with sugar, the remaining lime zest, mashed mint leaves and ice should be added there. The drink is filled with sparkling water. Some recipes suggest using Sprite, but I prefer the option with regular soda.
Refreshing Julep
It is believed that the name of this soft drink comes from the Arabic julab, which translates as “rose water”. Juleps are prepared using various fruits. I present to your attention one of the recipes. It will require :
- 100 ml blackcurrant juice
- 80 ml raspberry juice
- 20 ml mint syrup
- Ice cubes
- strawberries
The liquid components are mixed in a glass, ice is added to them. The drink can be decorated with strawberries.
Other fruit juleps are prepared using the same principle.
Smoothie
These drinks are chilled fruit mixtures. Tasty and refreshing, they are also very healthy because they contain a large amount of vitamins. For example, let's take the simplest recipe - citrus-banana smoothie . To prepare it you will need:
- 4 large oranges
- 1 red grapefruit
- 3 bananas
- Ice
Squeeze the juice from the orange and grapefruit and pour it into a blender. Cut the banana into small pieces and put it there. Add ice and mix everything until smooth. After this you can serve it to the table.
Kvass
Frankly, I can't stand this drink. In any case, I will not drink any kvass sold in bottles or jars even in the most terrible heat. At the same time, I remember very well the pleasure with which, as a child, I drank homemade kvass prepared by my grandmother. And all because homemade and purchased kvass are two completely different drinks. I suggest you remember how homemade bread kvass is prepared. This is not an easy and long task, but it is worth it. To prepare it you will need :
- Half a loaf of rye bread
- 3 liters of boiled water
- 25-30 g dry yeast
- Half a glass of sugar
- Raisin
The bread should be cut into small slices. Place the pieces on a baking sheet and place in a low-heat oven. Dry the crackers for about 10-15 minutes over low heat, then turn off the oven, leaving the baking sheet in it.
Place the crackers in a three-liter jar and fill with water up to the shoulders. Add three tablespoons of sugar and leave to cool. Dissolve dry yeast in a glass of water. When the water in the jar has cooled, pour the diluted yeast into it and stir. Cover the jar with a lid and place in a warm place for 2 days. After this, the kvass must be strained through cheesecloth to separate the grounds. Add the remaining sugar and raisins to the resulting drink, seal it and put it in the refrigerator. After a day you can drink kvass.
And you don’t have to throw away the grounds, but put them in a separate jar. Then it can be used as a starter.
Natural lemonade: greetings from the past
So, many remember this unique taste of Soviet lemonade. It turns out that this drink is easy to prepare at home.
We will need:
- several lemons (4-5 pieces are enough)
- sugar (quarter cup),
- liter of water.
Let's start cooking:
Peel the lemons. Set the pulp aside for now; it will be useful later. Cut the zest into small pieces, pour into a deep plate or saucepan and mix with sugar.
Leave the mixture to sit for at least an hour. After this time, boil the water.
Pour boiling water over the previously prepared mixture of zest and sugar, wait another 30 minutes, and strain the resulting liquid; there should be no zest left in it.
Previously we left the lemon pulp, let's return to it. Squeeze the juice out of it and strain it; there should be no seeds or pulp in it.
Pour the juice into the sweet liquid and mix them well. You can add a pinch of cinnamon or vanilla to the finished lemonade for flavor.
Pour your creation into a container that is more convenient for pouring, such as a jug, and if you like, garnish it with a slice of lemon or mint leaves. Serve the drink cold.
Refreshing drink "Blood Orange"
Ingredients:
- 2 oranges of the “Korolek” variety;
- 0.5 tsp ground ginger;
- 0.5 tsp turmeric;
- sparkling mineral water;
- 4 mint leaves;
- 2 sprigs of rosemary;
- sugar syrup or honey - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Remove the peel and seeds from the orange. Mash the pulp in a deep bowl along with ginger, turmeric and rosemary leaves.
- Fill the glasses with ice cubes and add half a glass of fruit puree and sparkling mineral water.
- Add honey or sugar syrup and mix all ingredients well.
- Serve the drink garnished with a slice of blood orange and mint leaves.
Who invented the cold drink
Refreshing tea was first invented about a hundred years ago. At the beginning of the twentieth century, America experienced unbearable heat for a whole year. One American came up with a brilliant idea - to make iced tea. The locals really liked the drink and gave it the name ice tea.
One day a resident of Switzerland came to America and was treated to iced tea. He was pleased with the taste and freshness of the drink. The Swiss liked the idea and began producing it in convenient containers. This is how Nesti, Lipton, Ahmad and others iced tea appeared.
In 1965, Lipton iced teas began to be produced from tea powder. Now there is a large assortment of cold drinks with different flavors: raspberry, peach, cranberry, mint and others. The most popular today are Lipton cold green teas.
Unfortunately, they contain a lot of sugar and harmful additives. Lipton, Ahmad, Carry is harmful to the body, it is better to make iced tea at home.
