Photo by Liv Friis-larsen | Fotolia.

Unlike other flavors, it’s easy to make mint water. Using a clean medicine dropper, tap water and a recycled 16-ounce bottle (or other vessel of choice), just add three or four drops of peppermint or spearmint extract. You can add more or less extract, depending on your palate preference.

We have six bottles of homemade mint water in the fridge, ready to grab-and-go.

If you have fresh mint, crush the mint in your hands to release the oils, then place it in a pitcher or quart jar of water. Let it infuse for three hours or longer. The infusion of fresh mint is, not surprisingly, more wonderful than extract.

After the mint has infused, you can fill grab-and-go bottles, straining out the mint.

• THE PRIZE: One winner is sure to impress friends at the next picnic or barbecue by bringing along this cute, yet functional watermelon knife. Approximate retail value: $24.95.
• To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Kitchen Gadgets Section and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, August 2nd at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!

Cut your melons with flair with this Kuhn Rikon Watermelon Knife. Photo courtesy Kuhn Rikon.

• To learn more about Kuhn Rikon, visit KuhnRikon.com. 

Enjoy this delicious dessert at home. Photo courtesy Inspired Cuisine.

What’s the difference between crème brûlée and other custards? See our Custard Glossary.

• THE PRIZE:Ten winners will each take home two boxes of crème brûlée mixes to make at home. Make the delicious dessert by itself, or pair it with a nice liqueur like we did in our Grand Marnier Crème Brûlée Recipe. Approximate retail value for each two-box prize: $11.00.
• To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway:Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Desserts Section and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, August 2nd at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
• To find out more about Inspired Cuisine, visit InspiredCuisine.com.

Before our (delicious) ahi tuna burger and bacon cheddar burger arrived, the duo at the next table received their order: large salad bowls filled with bell peppers, celery, chopped greens, cucumbers, green beans, radishes, red onion slices, tomatoes and Roquefort cheese—topped with burgers. We asked to see the menu again. There it was, in the salad column: Burger Salad.

The burger salad from L.A.’s O! Burger. Photo
courtesy OBurger.net.

While we ate every bite of our buns, we can’t wait to go back to have a burger salad. It’s available with any of the burger choices (which also include an Italian turkey burger, lamb kofta burger and veggie burger).

On the opposite coast, O! Burger, an organic burger restaurant in West Hollywood, has two burger salad options. The large mixed salad bowl on the menu—baby greens, chick peas, cucumbers, napa cabbage and tomatoes—can be topped with one or two beef, turkey or veggie patties. There’s also a “Super Bowl”: two patties with grilled vegetables.

While diners and other casual restaurants have long offered a “diet plate” of a bun-less meat patty with a side salad, in the hands of chic burger emporia it seems a treat, not a deprivation. The higher quality of meat and salad fixing has a bearing on this, of course.

The best-of-both-worlds burger salad gives you the burger you pine for, while replacing the largely high-carb and nutrition-free bun with a choice fiber- and vitamin-filled salad, tossed with a fine vinaigrette.

For those who don’t want that many veggies, Five Napkin Burger restaurant also serves an Inside Out Burger: a ground chuck patty and pickles wrapped in lettuce leaves with tomatoes and special sauce—no bun.

Burger salad, inside out burger and super bowl deliver low carb nutrition and high palate enjoyment. We’ve started making them at home (with the amazing Built Burgers). The effort is minimal, and it beats trying to get a reservation.

It tastes like mango juice mixed with vodka.
Photo by Katharine Pollak | THE NIBBLE.

We recently sat down with a bottle of Three Olives Mango Flavored Vodka, made with natural mango flavor. Drinking it in shots was pure pleasure, like a mango cocktail in a bottle—but far more enjoyable for us than any sweet, gussied-up cocktail.

For those who do enjoy sweet cocktails, there is a vast selection of mango cocktail recipes—mixed with mango nectar or other fruit juice such as apple, orange and pineapple; with coconut milk; with other spirits including curaçao, rum, tequila, apple and watermelon schnapps; and laden with fresh fruit—bananas, mango and strawberries, for starters.

While some cocktail recipes are simpler—mango vodka and Sprite, garnished with mango cubes, for example—who needs the Sprite when the vodka tastes this good?

For our second shot, we floated a piece of sweet-and-hot Cowboy Candy—a circle of candied jalapeño—atop the vodka. Next time, we’ll have fresh jalapeños on hand.

And who needs the sugar calories of juice, mixers and sweeteners, be they sugar or agave? At 69 calories per fluid ounce, two shots of Three Olives Mango Vodka fit into any calorie plan.

Flavored vodkas are a very individual experience. As much as we didn’t care for the Three Olives Grape Vodka we tried last week (again, neat; it would be better in a recipe), the Mango Vodka was a home run.

• Find more of our favorite spirits in our Cocktails & Spirits Section.