Raspberry Iced Tea

Hello all. Let me start with a dilemma I've had for the last couple of years - I don't drink soda and I'm always looking for more drinks that are, in comparison, healthy and preferably sweet and not full of high fructose corn syrup. After my Real Strawberry Lemonade post, I've been looking for another beverage post and finally found it the other day when I was at Whole Foods. They had raspberries on sale so I bought two little boxes (12 oz.) of beautiful pink berries. Unfortunately raspberries aren't my favorite fruit so I had no idea what to make with them but I had ideas for tarts, muffins, and even cocktails. I was totally ready to knock something out when I read on some random webpage "...Served with raspberry iced tea." It could have been that I was parched at the time but I was instantly craving raspberry iced tea, so I made it.

What You'll Need:

12 oz. of raspberries

8 1/4 C of water

2/3 and C of sugar

5 Black tea bags 

This is possibly the easiest thing I have "cooked" on here. I split the process in half because I had to go to work. Before work I got the raspberries ready. This is really easy. Start by putting all of your raspberries in a medium sized pot with a 1/4 cup of water over medium heat. After about eight minutes the raspberries will start to break down and mush up. Now, I'm not going to lie but the smell of cooking/cooked raspberries is not my favorite and I'm glad that part only lasts so long. I also added 2 teaspoons of sugar because when I tasted the raspberries they were a little too sour and I wasn't sure how that would affect the tea. The tea was sweet enough in the end so you don't have to add the extra sugar at this point if you don't want.

When the raspberries are done then you need to strain the pulp. I was happy to see that A LOT of juice was strained (compared to the purees I do which is a gamble). Use a spoon or spatula to press the berries to make sure you get as much juice as possible.

Like I said, I had to split the work between work shifts so I poured the juice into a cup and placed it safely in the refrigerator to be used later.

Pure raspberry juice.

When I came home I made the actual tea part. Usually I'm a green tea drinker and only get black tea at Peet's Coffee or The Cheesecake Factory so I had to go out and buy some. In a medium sized pot or tea kettle, boil 4 cups of water. When the water is boiling pour in the sugar and simmer for for 5 minutes, until the sugar is dissolved.

This the water with the sugar added.

Turn off the heat and put five tea bags to steep in the water. The water is going to turn a really pretty deep color. I knew at this point this was going to be good.

After 8 minutes of letting the tea steep discard the tea bags and pour 4 cups of cold (filtered) water in a pitcher, then pour in the tea water.

Now it's time to add the raspberry. Stir cautiously.

You can either put the pitcher in the refrigerator for a while or just put some ice in glass like we did. This tea is totally worth drinking right away. It's just sweet enough to be addicting and not too sweet that it's not refreshing. I think I need to keep a pitcher of this stuff at all times because we're already almost done with it. Enjoy friends! 

Real Strawberry Lemonade

This is something I'm absolutely ecstatic about! This was completely conceptualized by me and the boyfriend. Here's how it started...

I have a subscription to Sunset Magazine (a magazine for living on the west coast) and my first issue was the August issue. They had a great spread about melons and different things to make with all of the different varieties (that's another post). There was a recipe for Summer Fizzies (yes I tried this too- recipe coming later) which are basically pureed melon, frozen into ice cubes and served with club soda. Even though these were super good and refreshing, they weren't sweet enough for me. I tried cantaloupe, watermelon and even mango. If you've ever tried it you know club soda doesn't have a lot of taste either, so we tried putting the ice in 7 Up soda. Mike and I were trying to think of other flavors and he suggested strawberry because they're sweet and have a recognizable taste. I happened to wonder out loud if instead of 7 Up, lemonade would be better? We were in total agreement that it would.

A couple days later I bought lemons and strawberries. Yes I bought lemons. You didn't really think I was going to use just-add-water lemonade did you? If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right - and Mike was in full support.

What You'll Need:

8 lemons

1 C Sugar

1 C Water

2 cartons of Strawberries
6 C Water

Start by getting your sous chef to juice all of the lemons. I don't know a whole lot about juicing because I never make fresh juice, but the manual juicer Mike's mom got us really helped. With all of the lemons, we got a little over a cup of juice.

While Mike was handling the manual labor, I made the simple syrup. I really recommend making a simple syrup for your lemonade instead of just adding sugar because it won't sink to the bottom the way granulated sugar will (I found this out when I was six), and you'll end up with a consistent sweetness. A simple syrup is really easy to make too, I promise. Over medium heat, add your one cup of water and your one cup of sugar. Stir frequently until the sugar dissolves.

When it's done take it off the heat and start your strawberries for the puree. Make sure they are washed. If you can, use a spray instead of the stream on your sink faucet. You don't want them sitting in any extra water. If not, no big deal.

Cut the tops of your strawberries off and any nasty parts. I know they're getting pureed but that's not good eats. You should also cut them into quarters, they puree quicker if the pieces are smaller. 

Add 2 tablespoons of sugar. This is optional though, there is already going to be a lot of sugar in this drink so you don't need to add more. Now, puree. Halfway through I always get a long spoon and stir what I'm pureeing to help it along. At this point add a 1/3 - 1/2 cup of water. Continue pureeing.

When it's done you'll have wonderfully pureed strawberries. With this the possibilities are endless! But for now, we put them in ice cube trays to freeze. Don't bother straining them. Mike had a problem with the seeds being there. I reminded him that he eats strawberries WITH the seeds all the time, and we moved on. Trust me, you won't even notice them. Mike agrees. 

You should have about two to three cups of puree, depending on your strawberries and the amount of water you added. So you'll need two ice trays. Fill them up like you would with water and put them in the freezer. We went out after we put ours in the freezer so they were able to freeze for a few hours.

Now it's time to show the lemonade some love. Pour your pure lemon juice into a 2 quart pitcher and all of your simple syrup. Like I said, if you feel like this is too much sugar only add some at first. You can add more after you add some water depending on how sweet you want it (you can always add, you can never subtract). We used half of the syrup at first.

Add a cup of water at a time and taste so you can monitor the lemon-sugar ratio to what you want. We ended up using 6 cups of water and all of the simple syrup. If you don't like pulp, use a little strainer to take it out, it floats to the top so it'll be easy. Cover and put in the fridge to get cold.

So worth the wait...

While we waited we found things to do then decided to go out and pass time...

A few hours later....

Get out a glass and and put several strawberry ice cubes in it. Fill the rest of the glass with lemonade.

After a little while of letting your cold drink sit the strawberry starts to dissolve into the lemonade. What you get is a magical mix of lemon and strawberry. The best part is that you get a whole pitcher and you know exactly what's in it. You can make as much of this as you want and it's a really refreshing way to spend your summer.

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