Iced Cider Vodka Martini

‘Tis the season! For cider, that is. If you like fizzy things and you’re lucky enough to find unpasteurized cider, you might be able to make applejack (a.k.a. hard cider). In order to have that happen, though, you’ll have to drink a mugful of cider from the jug and then be patient for several weeks while the remaining cider does its fermentation thing. Disclaimer: your cider could conceivably explode during this process. That’s never happened to me, but it is a distinct possibility. You certainly want to hold your jug of cider over the sink when you reopen it just in case. Or you could drink/cook with/bake with your cider fresh and unfermented and not worry about any of that.

But if you do find the idea of turning cider into an adult beverage, you have another option: make cocktails with it. Again, you’ll skip the possibly messy fermentation process, plus you won’t have to wait for weeks before enjoying your kicked-up cider. Plenty of cocktails depend on fruit juice as their main ingredient — why not use cider for yours? Especially if you live in Michigan where some of the world’s tastiest apples are grown!

Iced Cider Vodka Martini
This makes a single martini. If you’d like to serve several, it’s best to make them in single-serving batches rather than trying to overfill the jar. (An overfilled jar can’t be shaken very well.)

4 ice cubes
4 shots cider
1 shot vodka
Dash vanilla extract
1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half or into a few pieces

Find an empty capped jar, preferably one that doesn’t give much indication of what it used to hold. (Salsa and spaghetti sauce tend to leave fragrant marks on their jars — once a jar has held salsa, you’ll always be able to whiff and tell.)

Pour/place all ingredients in the jar and shake it as hard as you can. Pour into a pretty martini glass and serve immediately. Note: you can leave the cinnamon stick in the martini as a decorative element, or you can pour the martini through a small sieve and strain out the cinnamon.

Enjoy the season!

Homemade Chocolate Extract

Great culinary projects are ones that yield a deliciously unusual result AND are a snap to make. (Disclosure: I consider a year of something sitting in a dark corner unattended as a “snap.” Beer and wine — while tasty and worthwhile homemade culinary projects — don’t fall into the “snap” category since they can explode if you don’t check on them to make sure they’re burping away happily as they ferment. I once tried making molasses beer from a 1757 “receipt” that didn’t include many details about how to safely nudge the fermenting beer along its merry way. The end result was not a favorable one. But that’s another story. And heck, in the end nobody’s eye got poked out when the metal cap shot off the bottle like a bullet and ricocheted off the tiled shower wall. All’s well that ends well, as they say…)

So if you’re looking for an easy — and safe! — culinary project, I’ve got one for you: chocolate extract. Seeing an outrageously priced bottle of it in a specialty-foods catalog got me wondering if I could just make my own. After all, vanilla extract is simply a vanilla bean soaked in 80-proof alcohol for several months. Hardly complicated if you have a good-quality, fragrant bean or two and good-quality, not-so-kick-you-in-the-teeth vodka or rum.

As luck would have it, I had cocoa nibs in my pantry. Okay, it’s not so much luck as the fact that I adore minimally sweetened chocolate. You can’t get any more purist about chocolate than having cross-cut cocoa beans (a.k.a. nibs) in your pantry. I poured some nibs into a four-ounce bottle that had formerly held bourbon vanilla extract from Trader Joe’s, added enough Uncle Tito’s vodka (an artisanal vodka made in Texas) to fill the bottle, and stuck it in a dark corner for three months.

When I sampled the extract at the end of three months, it still tasted a lot more like vodka than chocolate. Drat!! I put it back in the corner and forgot about it. Then about seven months after that, I attended a tea talk. The tea lady said she made her own extracts. My ears perked up. “How long does that take?” I asked. She smiled. “Oh, just about a year. You have to be patient.”

So maybe I just hadn’t waited long enough? As soon as I got home, I tried the extract again. It’s fabulous! It has, at this point, become the essence of chocolate. I love to splash just a few drops into iced water to make cocoa-scented drinks. And if you add it to sparkling water, it’s a lot like the chocolate pop I used to love as a kid. Better, actually, because the extract holds a true chocolate flavor.

If you’re a big chocolate fan and like subtle flavors, you’ll love chocolate extract. Especially if you don’t mind sticking a bottle into a dark corner and letting it sit around for at least ten months. Just be sure to label what’s in it and when you made it!

I already have a second one in my corner marked “Chocolate Extract October 2011.” No way do I want to let my unattended inventory dip too low, not when it’s so tasty and simple to maintain.

Enjoy!

Cantaloupe, Orange & Coconut Smoothie

‘Tis the season to seek out lush summer melons and enjoy them any which way you can. Right now, cantaloupes, watermelons, honeydews, crenshaws — even lesser-known melons like piel de sapo, or “toad skin” — are crowding the produce bins. You can trim away the hard rinds, then chop the flesh and add it to fruit salads, cereal, and salsas … or you can blend melons into smoothies or freeze them into homemade popsicles. You can even go the savory route and include melons in main dishes. Chicken sautéed with melons and grapes? Sounds pretty good to me. Or the classic cheese-plate-for-dinner idea: include a variety of cheeses, some sliced melons, whole-grain crackers or flatbreads, maybe some high-quality cured meats made from grass-fed [insert your animal of choice here]. Simple, elegant, and delicious!

Cut melon usually lasts a few days in the fridge if you tightly wrap the cut half to slow down the premature softening process. Chopped or cubed melon usually lasts overnight; you could use half of a large melon the night before in a salsa or fruit salad (or as dessert) and then blend the remaining cubed melon in the morning for a smoothie.

Cantaloupe, Orange & Coconut Smoothie

Blend a few slices of cantaloupe with the juice of 1 orange and about 1/4 cup of coconut milk. If you’re more into melon than coconut, use 2 oranges and just a dash of coconut. You could also pour this smoothie into popsicle molds and stick it in the freezer for a few hours to make homemade freezer pops. Or freeze the smoothie into ice cube trays for future smoothies — just add a little more orange juice and/or coconut milk, re-blend, and enjoy a slushie-smoothie!

Enjoy!

Watermelon Chai Smoothie

I’d be willing to bet that most people would say that summer = watermelon and watermelon = summer. You can’t have one without the other. Just ask my watermelon-loving friend. Her superpower is eating an entire watermelon in one sitting … although then she groans about having “watermelon belly.” Good thing watermelons aren’t in season year-round!

While I can’t eat an entire watermelon in one sitting, it is one of my favorite summer fruits, especially when it’s served cold. And because it’s so watery, watermelon makes a great smoothie — you almost don’t have to add anything else. I did decide to pour in some of my leftover chai tea, though, in the hopes of tempering the watermelon’s sweetness a little bit. It was a great combination! I think any tea would pair pleasantly with watermelon (which is, after all, mostly sweetness), but the spices in the chai provide a particularly welcome backdrop to the smoothie. If you don’t have chai/spiced tea on hand, you could add a few shakes of the spices that make up chai: cinammon, ginger, cloves, allspice, and/or cardamom. Pour in a splash of water if the smoothie seems too thick.

Watermelon Chai Smoothie

Cut the flesh of a watermelon into chunks and place in a blender. Pour in a half-glass of chai tea and blend. Add more chai if the smoothie seems to be too thick. I used one quarter of a personal-sized “baby” watermelon and a half-glass of strong chai (steeped overnight) to make mine. If you like, blend in a few ice cubes as well.

Enjoy!

Honeydew Smoothie

What to do when a friend gives you the gift of perfectly sweet honeydew?  It depends how quickly you want to enjoy it!  I thought about blending it with coconut milk and honey to make ice cream, but then I decided that I didn’t want to wait for the ice cream maker to do its thing, so I made smoothies with it instead.  (And saved a few wedges to have with my lunch and dinner the following day.)

I’m not sure why you don’t see more smoothies made with melons — honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon all blend into sweet, frothy-light drinks.  Tart-sweet juicy fruits like citrus and pineapple provide the perfect undertone for the floral-sweet flavor of melons.  For this glass, I opted to add a dash of spicy ginger, too.

Honeydew Smoothie

Blend coarsely chopped honeydew flesh with enough fresh orange juice to make a frothy-thick smoothie, adding more juice if you’d like it to be thinner.  (I used the juice of 1 orange and about 1 1/2 cups of honeydew.)  Add a dash of ginger – ginger is potent stuff, so just a pinch per glass will do — and briefly blend again.

Enjoy!

Pomegranate-Rum Snow Cone

Okay, I’ll admit this right up front: this is probably going to be the Most Frivolous Post of 2011.  Then again, it’s a darned clever way to pair a free, natural resource with a rather exotic condiment.  Yep, ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about snow and pomegranate molasses.  Considering that pomegranate molasses hails from the Middle East/Northern Africa, and considering that ice in those regions had to be brought down from lofty (and chilly) mountain peaks and was therefore quite a delicacy, pairing snow and pomegranate molasses ought to stand out a bit in the annals of gastronomy.  The rum is just the metaphorical icing on the cake…or the swizzle stick in the cocktail, if you will.

To make this decidedly adult snow cone, you either need snow or a blender.  The former has the advantage of authenticity; the latter has the advantage of not having to run out into a frigid landscape to scoop snow with chilled fingers.  (Also the big advantage of making this a year-round drink, not to mention giving Californians the ability to make wintery Michigan-themed party cocktails.)  If you’re going the authentic route, try to find a nice icicle to use as a swizzle stick.  Californians are just SOL on that part…

Pomegranate-Rum Snow Cone

Pour a shot of rum and a shot of pomegranate molasses* into a glass and mix with a spoon.  Gather a glassful of fresh snow (or blend ice to create snow), pour the pomegranate-rum mixture into the snow, and add more snow to the top of the glass to replace what melted on contact with the rum.  Stick an icicle in the glass as a swizzle stick and serve immediately, preferably with a long-handled spoon to make enjoying the snow cone all the easier.  As it melts, you can stir it to create an adult slushy.  You could also skip the rum and just go with a pomegranate snow cone.

* Pomegranate molasses can be found in any Middle Eastern grocery store or in the Middle Eastern section of most well-stocked grocery stores.

Enjoy!

Pear & Banana Smoothie

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful”…so let’s pretend we’re someplace a bit more tropical with a refreshing smoothie in our hand.  After this much snow, I’m okay with the idea of being a bit unseasonal and including a summery banana with a wintery pear.  Using coconut milk rather than dairy is another good way to add to the tropical feeling.

If you’d rather stick to more winter-appropriate fruit, though, you could always go with a ripe Fuyu persimmon in place of the banana.  Just make sure you choose a Fuyu and not a Hachiya — the Hachiya variety takes much longer to ripen and is very, very astringent until it does.  The Fuyu, on the other hand, gradually sweetens as it ripens, so if you accidentally choose one that’s a little underripe, you’ll still be able to make a tasty smoothie with it.

Pear & Banana Smoothie
This makes enough for 1 hearty serving; feel free to multiply the ingredient amounts to reflect however many portions you need.

1 firm but brown (not green!) Bosc pear, core and stem removed, cut into quarters or rough chunks
1 medium banana
Splash of coconut milk (or dairy, or nut, or grain, or whatever else you’d like)
Dash of ground ginger (optional)

Blend all ingredients until you have a smoothie that’s as thick or thin as you want it to be, adding more milk if necessary. Likewise, if you overdo the milk and want to make your smoothie thicker, cut another banana in half and add it a half at a time. (Unpeeled-but-cut-in-half bananas will seal themselves and will last for several days at room temp, so any leftover halves won’t go to waste.) I like adding a bit of ginger to give the smoothie a bit of a spicy kick.

Note that the smoothie will darken a little upon standing — that’s the pear oxidizing and turning brown after having been puréed — but the color won’t affect the taste.

Enjoy!

Banana-Macadamia Coconut Milk

As my regular readers know, when I discover a new ingredient or a new way to use a tried-and-true ingredient, I go on a [fill in the blank] kick.  This time, it’s macadamia nut butter.  I started out dipping 90% dark chocolate squares into it (UNbelievable!), then made salad dressings out of it, and now am making smoothies with it.  I’m sure there will be more macadamia nut butter variations to come…

Seeing as macadamia nuts are so smooth and creamy, they would work with any fruit and any kind of milk (dairy, nut, grain, etc.).  I just happened to have bananas and coconut milk on hand, so I went with that, but feel free to use whatever fruit and milk you have handy!

Banana-Macadamia Coconut Milk
Serves 1 big breakfast-sized serving or 2 small snack-sized ones.

1 banana
1 big spoonful of macadamia nut butter
1/2 cup whole coconut milk*
1/2 cup water
Pinch of ground cinnamon or ginger
2-3 organic strawberries** (optional, but they turn the smoothie a lovely pink)

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, then serve immediately. A single strawberry perched on the edge of the glass would make a nice garnish.

* Note it makes more sense to buy whole coconut milk and then dilute it yourself: you’ll get a product that tastes much better, you’ll save money, and nutritionally speaking, you’ll get a far better product. The same logic applies to dairy milk.

** Since strawberries are one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the U.S. and since we eat their skins, it makes sense to buy the organic version.

Mint & Lemon Verbena Tea

Now that herb gardens are in full swing and so is the hot weather, take advantage of both!  Most leafy green herbs make a refreshing herbal “tea.”  (I say “tea” because true teas by definition contain leaves from the tea plant, camellia sinensis.  If it doesn’t have tea in it, it can’t really be tea…but by this point, we’ve gotten used to calling anything that’s leafy, green, and steeped “tea,” so I’ll just go ahead and say tea.  For the record, though, non-tea steeped beverages are infusions.)

You can make fresh herbal teas the same way you’d make regular bagged tea: pour boiling or almost-boiling water over the leaves and let them steep.  I like to let mine steep for at least 10 minutes before I add ice cubes and make the hot tea into a refreshing chilled tea.  I also like to crush the leaves with my fingers before I pour water over them — that way, they’ll release more of their flavors.

Aside from the joy of harvesting your own food from your own garden or windowsill, another big bonus of making herbal teas is that they’re caffeine-free.  (The tea plant naturally contains caffeine, but seeing as you’re not using actual tea plant leaves…)  And if you’re a big caffeine fan and a tea purist, you could combine your fresh herbs with bagged green tea leaves and enjoy the best of both worlds!

A Few Herbal Tea Combinations:

• Mint & Lemon Verbena
• Rosemary & Lavender
• Basil & Thyme
• Dill & Parsley

Aztec Atole

One day, I hope to live in the Chocolate Belt: that narrow strip around the equator where cocoa trees grow.  How great would it be to have your very own cocoa pods dangling outside your front door?  The process of transforming the raw bean into a chocolate bar is a very long and complicated one, but it sure would be fun to try!  Until then, however, I’ll be content with seeking out close-to-the-source chocolate products like nibs and bars made with 100% Criollo cocoa.

Chocolate was originally consumed in large quantities by the Aztecs, who mostly enjoyed theirs unsweetened (or lightly sweetened) and in liquid form.  According to accounts written by Spanish explorers, the modern-day Mexican atole — a corn-based drink — is probably similar to what the Aztecs would have prepared.  Key ingredients include ground dried corn, spices, and a hint of sugar.

Given my obsession with not-so-sweet chocolate, I decided to come up with my own version of atole con chocolate.  It’s quite different than an American hot chocolate — much, much less sweet, for one thing, plus it has a spicy kick.  And thanks to the toasted cornmeal, it kind of reminds me of popcorn.  (In a chocolatey kind of way.)  Just be sure to use sweet paprika and not smoked paprika!

Aztec Atole con Chocolate

2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T. toasted, ground cornmeal (toast some coarsely-ground cornmeal at 200 degrees for about 5 minutes or until the grains are fragrant and slightly browned, then grind the toasted cornmeal in a coffee grinder, saving any leftover toasted and ground cornmeal in a glass screw-top jar)
1 tsp. powdered sucanat OR honey (see previous post about creating healthy chiffon cakes by powdering your sucanat)
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground sweet paprika
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Use a fork or a whisk to stir all ingredients EXCEPT the vanilla together in a mug, then fill mug with boiling water. Stir until the sucanat and cocoa dissolve. Add vanilla to slightly-cooled cocoa and stir again. (Since the vanilla extract is water-based, blending it with boiling water would cause much of its aroma and flavor to dissipate and be lost. Adding it at the end ensures that that won’t happen.) Taste to see if the blend is sweet enough for you — if it isn’t, add another teaspoon of sucanat and stir again.

Enjoy!

Note: because atole is a much thicker mixture than traditional American cocoa, you’ll probably have to keep stirring it as you drink it.  Apparently, the Aztecs made theirs so thick that their stirring utensils would stand straight up.  Now, that’s a chocolate drink!

Vanilla Chiffon Cake Made with Powdered Sucanat

In the world of natural sweeteners — i.e., unrefined sweeteners like maple syrup and molasses — there aren’t as many solid sweeteners as there are liquid ones.  Normally, this works out fine when baking, because most baked goods include liquids (which allows you to tinker with the overall total amount of liquids), but some baked items are meant to be airy and towering rather than have a more dense, lower-to-the-pan crumb.  Case in point: chiffon and angel cakes vs. brownies and cornbreads.  Frosting is another thing that normally works best when made with a fine, powdery sugar rather than a liquid one.

In my quest to remove refined white sugar from my repertoire of baked goodies, I’ve been struggling with a way to make Qualitarian airy cakes and frosting.  This quest became especially pertinent a few weeks ago — one of my best friends was about to graduate from law school, and since she’s celiac and therefore can’t have gluten, I’d said I would bake several cakes for her party as her graduation present.  One of the cakes I wanted to make was a Vanilla Chiffon with Strawberry Frosting.  (Others were a Caribbean Chocolate-Banana Rum Cake and Chocolate-Cranberry Squares, but since those weren’t meant to be high and airy, I knew they’d be easy to do gluten-free — brown rice flour and sorghum flour make wonderful stand-ins for the traditional all-purpose wheat, and that was the biggest tweak I’d have to pull off.)  But I knew that the sucanat I normally use in place of white sugar would be far too grainy to make a successful chiffon.  How would I be able to make a Qualitarian cake that everyone would recognize as a chiffon?  (Albeit a far more flavorful one — natural sweeteners retain their signature tastes rather than just hitting your tongue as sheer sweetness.)

Two days before the party, I had an epiphany: use my trusty coffee grinder to grind the sucanat into powdered sucanat the same way I use that coffee grinder to grind grains/nuts into flour.  How had I not thought of that trick before??

It worked as well as I’d hoped it would!  In fifteen seconds, I had plenty of wonderfully-fragrant powdered sucanat to use in all of my cakes, not just the chiffon.  I used about 7/8 of a cup for every cup specified in the recipes (mostly garnered from the ever-classic Joy of Cooking) to account for the fact that the powdered sucanat is more densely packed in the measuring cup than standard white sugar, and I was very happy with the results.  (When using the cups-and-spoons measuring system, volume differs tremendously from one ingredient to the next.  This is the #1 reason why we’d be better off using the weight-based metric system rather than the volume-based English one, but that’s another topic for another post.)  The frosting came off equally well.

So, there you have it!  If you have a coffee grinder, you can have powdered sucanat in your chiffons, too.  Compared to one made with refined white sugar, the made-with-sucanat-cake’s color and flavor will be far richer, its texture will be fantastically fluffy, and you’ll have made a dessert that’s far better for your health and environment than anything you’ll find on a supermarket shelf.

Oh, and one more tip: store your extra powdered sucanat in a glass screw-top jar and use it to make your own hot chocolate (or any other sweetened beverage) from scratch.  It’s so fine that it’ll dissolve almost instantly.

Enjoy!

The Jill

In the tradition of memorable beverages like the Harvey Wallbanger and the Arnold Palmer, I’m going to name my most recent smoothie/cocktail creation after my friend Jill.  Why?  Because she’s nuts about watermelons — she’s capable of consuming an entire melon in one sitting.  (I wish I could do the same with my beloved pineapples, but my tongue turns fuzzy after eating less than half of one.)

While I’m not quite as ardent about watermelons as Jill is, I agree that they’re one of the best fruits of summer: they’re messily fun to eat, you can have pit-spitting contests with seeded watermelons, and seedless varieties make a great base for a blended beverage.  Their extreme sweetness also means that they pair well with almost any other kind of fruit.  When choosing watermelons, look for ones that are unblemished and heavy for their size.  A slight yellowing at the stem plus a pronounced watermelon fragrance are usually good indications that the melon is ripe.  If none of the melons match that description, just plan on letting a melon ripen on your countertop (out of direct sunlight) for a few days.

The Jill

Blend trimmed chunks of seedless watermelon with a few fresh mint leaves and a spoonful of coconut milk until you reach your desired consistency.  (More watermelon = more watery and more coconut milk = thicker.)  For this martini-sized portion, for example, I used a quarter of a baby watermelon, a tablespoonful of coconut, and four mint leaves.  Other good additions include tropical fruits and/or any member of the berry family.  I used my remaining melon to make a smoothie with papaya, coconut, and mint one day; the next, I made one with strawberry, coconut, and mint.  Yum!

Pour smoothie (or cocktail, if you add a shot of rum while blending) into a striking glass, garnish with a sprig of mint, and serve.  You can serve The Jill on the rocks if you like, or you can toss a few ice cubes into the mix when you first blend your drink.

Enjoy!

Macadamia Mango Mousse

Upfront disclosure to the mousse die-hards out there: this is not a true mousse.  True mousses are made with eggs — they’re the key ingredient, in fact — whereas this one is made with macadamia nut butter.  Still, the nutty richness of the macadamia butter is very reminiscent of an eggy richness, and both the nut butter and fresh mango lend this faux-mousse an incredible smoothness.  The chai tea gives it all an exotic, spicy flavor.  (The macadamia nut butter is worth seeking out for this recipe because it’s so creamy and yet easily blends into the background; peanut butter would be far, far too strong and would override the delicate chai.  I think it would also clash with the mango.  Cashew butter is your next-best bet if you can’t find macadamia nut butter.)

Macadamia Mango Mousse (which happens to be egg- and dairy-free)
This is enough for a single serving of mousse. Double or triple (or more) as necessary.

1 ripe mango, peeled and chopped (you can use frozen mango chunks, but the mousse won’t have the lightness you’re looking for)
1 T. macadamia nut butter
1/2 cup strongly-steeped chai tea (I used the leftover pot of chai I’d made the night before)

Place all ingredients in blender and blend just until smooth. (Since you’re starting out with soft ingredients, blending shouldn’t take more than 10 seconds.) If you’d like the consistency to be a bit thicker, add another tablespoon of macadamia nut butter. If you’d prefer to have a smoothie rather than a mousse, add another 1/2 cup of chai tea.

Spoon/pour into pretty glass and serve.

Enjoy!

Mexican Papaya Smoothie

Here’s some fruit trivia for the day: what’s the difference between a Hawaiian papaya and a maradol papaya?  The latter is from Mexico and is visually very different than the vaguely-pear-shaped Hawaiian variety — maradols are almost a foot long and have much darker flesh.  Both, however, have a wonderfully smooth tropical flavor; both blend well with other tropical fruits like coconut, banana, and pineapple; and both have peppery black seeds that can be used as edible garnish or dried and used the way you’d use black peppercorns.  (And both are sometimes used as vegetables when they’re still green and un-sweet.)

Although the maradol has a slightly milder flavor than its more-bulbous Hawaiian cousin, its vivid color makes it an appealing choice for smoothies and cocktails.  Because it’s so much bigger, too, you can eat it like a watermelon: cut it in half long-ways, scoop out the seeds, and slice it into wedges with the skin still attached.  The other great thing about maradols is that they can be quite a bargain — the last time I bought one, it cost $1 less than a Hawaiian papaya and weighed about four times as much.  Holy tropical treat, Batman!

An Easy Papaya Smoothie (with either Hawaiian or maradol papayas)

Trim skin away from papaya flesh, cut into rough chunks, and place  in a blender with a squirt of lemon juice and a handful of ice cubes.  If you’re using the smaller Hawaiian papaya, prepare an entire fruit; if you’re using a maradol papaya, cut into quarters and trim flesh from only one quarter, wrapping the remainder in plastic wrap and storing it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Blend fruit until you have a smooth, icy drink, then serve immediately.  A wedge of lemon and/or sprig of fresh mint would be a nice garnish.

Enjoy!

Hibiscus Tea

Seems like hibiscus is all the rage: hibiscus tea, hibiscus punch, even sparkling hibiscus beverages in the form of Ooba, the latest smartly-packaged and fizzy “health” drink to hit the shelves.  (It’s a far better option than Coke, true, but I hesitate to call anything that contains mostly sugared water a great beverage choice.)  Seeing all the recent hype prompted me to finally seek out some dried and un-candied hibiscus flowers for myself so that I could come up with my own concoctions.

When you infuse the flowers in water, I found out, you get a lovely deep red hue — it’s like drinking garnets.  (Hibiscus actually stains so well that you can make rinses out of it to give your hair a reddish sheen.  Easter eggs could also be dyed in hibiscus tea.  Just watch out for your countertops!)  The flavor of hibiscus is potent, too, in the sense that it’s very tart and tangy, kind of like cranberries.  I’m a big fan of unsweetened things, but even I had to balance the tea’s acidity with a bit of honey.

Hibiscus is particularly popular in Jamaica.  There, it’s called sorrel and is featured in a number of drink recipes, both rum-based and nonalcoholic.  Typically, it’s mixed with ginger and sugar, and sometimes also with spices like cloves and allspice.  I think it’s also great with lime and/or mixed with other fruit juices.  (The latter is a great way to naturally sweeten the hibiscus without having to resort to sugar.)  The best places to find dried hibiscus flowers are health-food stores, grocery stores that serve Latin or Caribbean populations, or online herb stores like www.mountainroseherbs.com.

Making hibiscus-based drinks is easy — just pour boiling water over a few petals and give it a few minutes to infuse.  The individual petals are large, so ten of them would be more than enough for an entire beer-pitcher-sized pitcher of tea.  You can stir in a bit of honey to taste and drink it hot, or you can put it on ice for iced tea.  You can add lime juice or include a chunk of ginger root in the initial steeping (or cinnamon sticks or any other spice).  Combine with sparkling water to make your own customized fizzy beverage.  Or add fruit juice to your infused hibiscus water and then top off with a bit of rum for the ultimate summer cocktail!