(2024) Week 2: Raspberry Lemonade

When tidying up the freezer, I discovered I had a TON of raspberries from my garden, so I figured it was time to actually do something about them. All measurements are VERY approximate as I didn't actually measure anything, but just went with what looked/felt right...

The Recipe('ish)
1.5kg raspberries
Enough water to just cover them
~300g sugar
~1dl lime juice

Add raspberries and water to a large pot and bring to a slow boil. Once the water is almost boiling (medium-sized bubbles, not violent bubbles - or when the water is 90C if you have a meat themometer), mash the berries up against the side of the pot.
Cover a colander with a dishcloth that you don't mind staining purple and pour the raspberries through the dishcloth into another pot. Leave to drain for awhile until it's stopped dripping, even when you move the mess around a bit (I had to do this in batches, as my colander could only fit about half at a time.). Discard the contents of the dishcloth.

Bring the lemonade to a boil again, adding sugar and the lime juice. Once it's almost boiling, taste and add more sugar or lime juice as desired. Transfer to bottles and put in the fridge to cool.

I found that this ended up being quite concentrated, so mix it up with water / sparkling water before drinking it, but it all depends on how much water you added when mashing the raspberries in the first step.

The Verdict
Yummy! Lots of work, but worth it! This would taste really awesome mixed in a drink as well.

Week 28: Watermelon Lemonade

The Recipe
1 large watermelon
~1l soda water with citrus
Powdered sugar to taste

Do yourself a favour and make sure to either get a seedless watermelon or one with REALLY BIG SEEDS!! I got one which claimed to be seedless, but which ended up having a ton of really tiny seeds instead. They were a hassle and a half to remove and took MUCH longer than it ought to!

Cut the top off the watermelon and scoop out the flesh into a large bowl, removing any seeds on the way. Either add it to a blender or use an immersion blender to mash up the flesh finely. Depending on how much pulp you like you can either leave it as is or pour it through a sieve to just get the juice. If you do the latter, leave it to drip for awhile, stirring the remaining pulp from time to time - you can get a lot more out of it than you originally think.

Pour in the soda and add powdered / caster sugar to taste. It does have to be caster sugar rather than regular, as we want it to dissolve completely.

Add some ice cubes to the hollowed-out watermelon and pour in the lemonade. Keep the rest in a jar next to it for easy refills.

The Verdict
Really easy to make, but it didn't look quite as "wow" as I'd hoped. I think next time I might go for the easy solution and just cut up the watermelon rather than using it as a serving dish. The large surface area also allowed the fizz to disappear really quickly from the soda, which was a shame.

I did like it though 🙂 I didn't add quite enough sugar, so it was a bit on the sour side, and I think I should have limited myself to 1/2-3/4l soda instead, as it got quite diluted. Regardless, it still tasted really good, so I'll consider it a success!

Week 52: Eggnog

Eggnog has (as far as I know) never been a tradition in Denmark, so apart from an Eggnog Latte at Starbucks in London a couple of years ago, I've never had it. I got talking with a friend of mine about that the other day, and decided to hunt up recipes. Reading through them, I realized that it was basically pre-frozen homemade ice cream with alcohol added! As I was making homemade ice cream yesterday anyway, and thus had all the ingredients at hand, I figured I'd give it a try.

I know there are as many recipes for eggnog as there are households. This is the one I used. It was supposed to have both nutmeg and cinnamon in as well, but I'm not a fan of either, so left them out. If you have other recipes for eggnog that you'd recommend, I'd love to hear it :)

The Recipe
(Serves 2)
1 egg
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
4 tbsp cream
2dl (200ml) milk
3 tbsp rum, bourbon or similar

Whisk the egg with sugar and vanilla until white and frothy. Add cream and whisk a bit more - not enough to whip the cream, but just to add some froth.
Pour into a glass and add milk and alcohol. Stir and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow the ingredients to meld properly.

Enjoy cold.

The Verdict
Very rich, very sweet, very yummy :) A very successful first attempt that I'll definitely try again. Next time possibly with slightly less vanilla, as I did find that somewhat overpowering... but that may just have been because I just whipped it in with the rest, instead of infusing the milk with it. I was too lazy to attempt any such thing ;)

I can easily see how it wouldn't be for everybody though. It's almost like drinking liquid ice cream.

Week 24: Strawberry-Raspberry Smoothie

The Recipe
100g frozen strawberries
100g frozen raspberries
25g sugar
1dl orange juice
2dl yogurt natural or A-38

Put everything into a blender or similar and run until smooth.

The Verdict
LOVED this! My favourite smoothie so far. I think I want to try it with just plain milk instead of the yogurt though, to see how that will change the taste.

Week 21: Strawberry-Melon Smoothie

The Recipe
2dl yogurt natural or A-38
125g frozen or fresh strawberries
250g melon
30g sugar

Put everything in a blender or similar and run until smooth.

The Verdict
At first taste I absolutely loved it, but after awhile I started thinking it had undertones of banana. I can't STAND banana, so that was a real dealbreaker for me. I tasted some of the melon on its own afterwards, and I think it had gone overripe, which must have caused the banana-like taste, so it would probably have been excellent with a better melon.