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Cool as can be

Summer drinks and desserts that will save your bacon
food_glenda1

With the sun blazing a path in to August and the long weekend just on the horizon, it's the perfect time to chill, chill, chill with some new additions to your cool drink and dessert inventory.

Here's a collection of tried and true recipes you can count on from some of Pemberton's favourite local farmers and my own recipe box. They've all been tested — and attested to — by their creators.

FANTASTIC FREEZIES

If you were smart enough to get out to the strawberry u-picks like Camel's Back Harvest in Pemberton earlier this month, then you should have a nice stash of frozen strawberries in the fridge. Missed them? No worries, just stock up on the blueberries, raspberries and blackberries before they disappear and stash them in your freezer.

Here's how: Pick out the twigs and other unwanted bits then spread your berries on cookie sheets to freeze them before you bag them. Try to prevent them from touching each other, and simply leave them in the freezer until they are frozen solid then bag them. Don't — repeat, do not — wash them now. Do that when you take them out of the freezer to use them. You don't even have to remove the green sepals from strawberries.

Use freezer-weight bags, zipped or not (I double mine), and you'll have fresh frozen berries right through winter with great taste at a fraction of the cost of commercial ones.

This is a recipe that Carrie Charron at Camel's Back Harvest in Pemberton has adapted from VitaMix recipes, but any blender will do. You can use a food processor, too, it will just be chunkier. The Charron kids, Maxine and Cedric, call it ice cream but it's more like delicious soft serve.

Carrie's strawberry ice cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c. sugar

1 c. milk

4 c. frozen strawberries — or any frozen fruit you like: raspberries or blueberries, or a mixture like strawberries and rhubarb

Blend everything well. If you use a Vitamix make sure you push everything down well with the tamper, especially in the corners. Serve immediately and enjoy.

Here's an icy favourite we enjoyed at home in Edmonton for years. The flavour is fresh and tangy, the mouthfeel smooth as silk. This is adult Creamsicle territory but kids will love it, too.

Awesome Creamsicle pie

1 355 ml. (12 1/2 oz.) tin of frozen orange juice (Try to go organic; the extra flavour is worth it)

1 litre vanilla ice cream

9-inch ready-made graham cracker crust

Remove the ice cream and juice from the freezer and let them soften on the kitchen counter for about 30 minutes. Pour the concentrated juice into a large bowl and stir until smooth — you don't want any ice crystals. Stir big spoonfuls of softened ice cream into the OJ concentrate until it's all stirred in. Mix well. Pour into the graham crust. Place a large piece of plastic wrap right over the ice cream mixture and smooth it flat so no air is trapped — that way you won't get ice crystals forming. Freeze until it's firm — about three hours. Top with orange zest if you like before serving. This keeps about a week in the freezer if you wrap it tightly with foil.

COOL SUMMER SIPPERS

When temperatures soar, tempers can, too, if people get dehydrated. Here's a selection of easy-peasy cool drink favourites. I'm getting thirsty just reading these!

Delaney and Alisha Zayac at Ice Cap Organics like to whip up this cool natural lemonade for lunch with their family of four and three "woofers." Ice Cap grows both spearmint and lavender, which is available at their farmers' market stalls and in their harvest boxes.

Lavender mint lemonade

Lavender mint syrup: In a pot bring to a boil 1/2 c. honey and 1 c. water. Add four sprigs of fresh mint and four sprigs of lavender. Simmer for 15 minutes. Let the mixture cool then drain it, squeezing out all the goodness from the mint and lavender. To make the lemonade, add one tablespoon of the syrup and the juice from half a lemon to one glass with ice in it. Top up with water, stir and garnish with fresh mint. Delicious.

Over at Rootdown Organic Farm, Sarah McMillan likes to whip up this cider house special using the awesome organic non-alcoholic apple cider that Jeanette Helmer's brother ships over from his orchard in Cawston. (Look for Chilco Orchard Apple Juice at Pemberton Valley Supermarket and Mile One Eating House in Pemberton and Nesters Market in Whistler). If you have any leftover prosecco from the night-before, splash it in.

Sarah's ditch mint cider

In a three-litre jug — Sarah uses a particularly giant beaker that she jokingly says looks like something from a meth lab — mix equal parts Chilco Orchard Apple Juice and water. Add the juice of a whole lemon. Wash and coarse chop half a bundle of basil and half a bundle of spearmint (mint of choice here is "ditch mint" from the creekside on their farm). Muddle it all up, and serve over ice.

This recipe from the Caribbean is fabuloso. It's from one of my favourite little recipe books, Chunky Cookbook's Desserts and Drinks from New Internationalist. The ginger root is easier to grate if you freeze it first.

Ginger beer

1 large ginger root, peeled and grated

4 cinnamon sticks

4 whole cloves

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 lemons or limes

4 c. water

Put the ginger into a pot and add the cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and juice and zest or thinly peeled skins of the limes or lemons. Add the water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly and allow it to boil for 10 minutes. When done, strain the liquid into a pitcher and let it cool. Adjust the flavour by adding more water, sugar or lemon/lime juice as needed. Chill and serve over ice with lemon/lime slices.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who goes for the cool tall ones.