It’s easy add a hit of extra flavor to lemon-
ade, from lavender to jalapeño. Photo
courtesy The Great Pepper Cookbook by
Melissa’s Produce.

Bottled drinks are not only pasteurized, but typically use reconstituted lemon juice. If you’ve ever tasted bottled lemon juice, you know that the flavor is simply not bright and lemony like fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

Lemonade “made from concentrate” and sold in cartons like orange juice is the far better choice (as are cans of frozen lemonade concentrate).

But the best choice of all is to squeeze fresh lemons. It takes just five minutes to make a single glass, and you can adjust the sweetening to your own taste.

You can follow the same recipe to make limeade.

Leave a pitcher of lemonade unsweetened to accommodate every family member or guest. For a party, set up a bar where guests can add their own sweeteners—agave*, honey, noncaloric, superfine sugar or simple syrup. You can buy or easily make the latter two, which, unlike granulated sugar, dissolve easily in cold drinks.

For adults bottles of gin, tequila or vodka expand the options.

You don’t want ice cubes to dilute your lemonade. Ideally, freeze lemonade or a complementary fruit juice (we especially like blueberry and watermelon) in ice cube trays so regular ice cubes won’t dilute the flavor. And keep the lemonade as chilled as possible to use fewer cubes.

Ingredients For 15 Glasses

 
Ingredients For 1 Glass Of Lemonade

 
____________________
*Agave tends to be twice as sweet as the equivalent amount of other sweeteners, so use half as much.

Preparation

1. MAKE the optional lemonade ice cubes a half day in advance or the night before. For the ice cubes, we save time by reconstituting frozen lemonade concentrate instead of making lemonade from scratch. When ready to make the lemonade…

2. ROLL room temperature lemons on the counter top before squeezing. This maximizes the juice output.

3. PREPARE the superfine sugar if you’re using granulated sugar. If you don’t have a box of superfine sugar, simply pulse regular table sugar to a superfine consistency in a food processor. The time you spend to do this is more than offset by the time it will take to get table sugar to dissolve. Another technique for dissolving table sugar is to boil the water several hours in advance, stir in the sugar to dissolve, and chill.

4. COMBINE the water, lemon juice and three-quarters of the sweetener in a pitcher; mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust the sweetness bit by bit. Your goal is to keep the fresh lemon flavor first and foremost, and not make sugar the first thing you taste. It’s better to under-sweeten than over-sweeten: People can always add more sweetener to suit their individual tastes.

It’s easy to add a nuance of flavor to lemonade. Our favorites are ginger, lavender and lemongrass. Photo © Edith Frincu | Dreamstime.

5. ADD ice to the glasses, fill with lemonade and garnish. Ideally, chill the lemonade prior to serving so it will be cold and require less ice.

6. ADD the garnish: Slice extra lemons or contrasting limes into wheels, and cut notches so they sit on rim of glasses. You can also notch watermelon cubes or strawberries, place blueberries or raspberries on a cocktail pick, add a sprig of lavender or rosemary, etc.
 
TO MAKE ONE GLASS AT A TIME

1. COMBINE the sugar and hot water in a 16-ounce glass (we use a Pilsner glass) and stir until the sugar dissolves.

2. ADD the the lemon juice and cold water. Fill the glass to the top with ice and serve.
 

LEMONADE RECIPE TIPS

The Izzy Scoop, topped with an Itty Bitty. Photo courtesy Izzy’s Ice Cream.

Move over, sprinkles: There’s a better ice cream topping in town—at least, if your town is Minneapolis or St. Paul.

There, Izzy’s Ice Cream, an artisan scoop shop, has a repertoire of 150 flavors. And the good news is, you can try two at a time without filling up.

That’s because Izzy’s pioneered The Izzy Scoop with the Itty Bitty, a mini, 3/4-ounce scoop on top of the regular scoop. It was conceived 12 years ago as a way to enable customers to enjoy a second flavor, perhaps exploring a new flavor, while providing a little something extra.

While the concept is trademarked, you can use it at home without licensing the idea. The company explains, “Izzy’s Ice Cream would love to see the Izzy Scoop take off and become an option for ice cream lovers all over, as long as credit is given to Izzy’s.”

You can also create a multiple of Itty Bittys with this tiny scoop, which creates even ittier Itty Bittys, just half a tablespoon’s worth.
  

Round and tart, it is erroneously thought of as a green tomato; and is called a husk tomato, a Mexican tomato and other names.

Tomatillos were a staple of Maya and Aztec cuisines. They are still enjoyed today in chili, enchiladas, gazpacho, guacamole, salsa verde and tostadas, among other specialties.
 
 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TOMATOES & TOMATILLOS

While both tomatoes and tomatillos originated in Latin America (the tomato in Peru and the tomatillo in Central America), they are second cousins. They share a botanical family, Solanaceae (the Nightshade family), but belong to different genuses.

 
 
COOKING WITH TOMATILLOS

It’s very easy to cook with tomatillos: They don’t need to be peeled or seeded. Their texture is firm when raw, but soften when cooked.

You can incorporate tomatillos in different ways:

[2] It’s easy to see why people confuse tomatillos with cherry tomatoes (photo © ).

[3] One of the easiest ways to enjoy tomatillos: Make salsa verde. Here’s a recipe from Domenica Cooks. She serves it with seared sea scallops (photo © Domenica Cooks).

[4] Chef Missy Robbins combines salsa verde with anchovies, bread and butter. Here’s the recipe from her cookbook, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner…Life (photo © Rizzoli Publishing).

WHERE TO START?

RECIPE: SALSA VERDE

For an easy salsa verde, remove the papery tomatillo husks and roast the tomatillos for a few minutes.

Then, blend with lime, cilantro and green chiles to taste.

You can use salsa verde on just about any savory dish, and of as a snack with chips raw vegetables.

Turn it into a creamy dip with a bit of sour cream or plain yogurt.
 
 
MORE TOMATILLO RECIPES

 
 
> THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SALSA

We drink it at the trade show where we first discovered it; and we do buy it online. A 4-bottle package that’s $12.00 has a shipping cost of $4.95.

And we think it’s worth it. But we want to drink so much Blossom Water, that the shipping charges quickly add up. (Blossom Water folks: Can you put the product on Amazon so we can at least use Amazon Prime?)

Perhaps by publishing a rave review, some retailers will take notice. So here it is:

WHY DO WE LOVE BLOSSOM WATER?

The flavors are perfectly blended:

Lemon Rose Blossom Water. Photo courtesy Blossom Water.

The flavors taste exactly as they sound: like a delicious sip of nature. We love each flavor as is, so we haven’t considered adding gin, which itself is made with botanicals that would complement those in Blossom Water.

We’ll get around to it; but for 45 calories for an entire bottle of heaven, we’re not in a rush to add more calories.

The beautifully-designed bottles are also ready to serve as party favors.

OK, men: You think it’s a chick product. But it’s a beverage for anyone whose palate seeks exciting new flavors.

The only solution: Taste it for yourself.

Discover more at DrinkBlossomWater.com, and ask your specialty store manager or supermarket beverage manager to bring some in. They, too, will never know until they try.

But chilled fruit soups are great summer desserts, and they couldn’t be easier to make. Just toss the ingredients into a blender or food processor, whirl, and it’s ready to serve.

RECIPE: CHILLED BLUEBERRY BANANA SOUP

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preparation

Blueberry soup: pretty in purple. Photo courtesy BlueberryCouncil.org.

1. COMBINE 2 cups of the blueberries, the banana, ice, milk, frozen yogurt, sugar and lemon juice in blender.

2. PROCESS until smooth. Divide equally into four bowls.

3. GARNISH with the remaining blueberries and frozen yogurt or ice cream.
 
Find more delicious blueberry recipes at BlueberryCouncil.org.

A fruit soup can be made from fresh or dried fruits and served hot or cold. It can be served as a first course or for dessert. It also can be an intermezzo or palate cleanser between fish and meat courses.

Cold soups tend to be made with seasonal fruit and are thus served in warmer weather. Soups made of dried fruits, such as Norwegian fruktsuppe, made of raisins and prunes, can be served hot or cold in any season.

 
Check out the history of soup and the different types of soup in our Soup Glossary.