Ingredients:

Caipirinha (KIE-PUR-REEN-YAH), known as the national drink of Brazil, has been gaining in popularity in the cocktail world over the past number of years. Once relatively unknown outside of Brazil, the drink is becoming a hit with international crowds far from Copacabana Beach. In fact, the International Bartender Association has designated it as one of their Official Cocktails.

The original meaning of the word Caipirinha is "someone from the countryside" or what we might call a hillbilly or yokel or country bumpkin. However, the drink has gained such popularity and sophistication that the countryside association is rarely made, and today the word Caipirinha carries connotations of the drink itself without the baggage of its origin.

It is a simple drink, with few ingredients, but like the Mojito, requires a bit of time and a gentle touch when preparing it.

The alcoholic base for the cocktail is Cachaça (KA-SHA-SA) which, like rum, is made from sugarcane alcohol, derived from sugarcane that has been fermented and distilled. This spirit is said to have been developed from sugar cane over 500 years ago. It has a sharper, tarter taste than rum and is well suited to cocktails that call for sugar and lime or other fresh fruit. Cachaça can also be used to flambé desserts, marinate meat or even as a flavoring for tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

The main difference between Cachaça and rum is that rum is usually made from molasses, a by-product from refineries that boil the sugarcane juice to extract as much of the sugar crystals as possible. Cachaça, on the other hand, is made from fresh sugarcane juice that has been fermented and distilled.

A Caipirinha cocktail is served on the rocks, over ice. The sweetness of the sugar and the tartness of the lime disguise the taste of the alcohol, but don’t be deceived. This is not lemonade in the shade! Proceed with caution!

Recipe: Raspberry Caipirinha

Serves: 1

Ingredients: 

Crushed ice

Instructions: 

What’s sweet, fruity, bubbly, and destined to rival your neighborhood double-tall-non-fat-no-whip-cream-mocha? Bubble Tea (also called boba tea, tapioca tea, boba nai cha, pearl tea, milk tea, bubble drink, zhen zhu nai cha, tapioca pearl drink, momi, momi milk tea, QQ or any combination of the above)! It’s a tea-infused milky or fruit-flavored cold drink that’s a drink you can eat.

History
Bubble Tea originated in Taiwan in the 1980s where legend has it that a local tea establishment attracted customers by combining fruit juices with chilled tea. According to Bubble Tea Supply, a Hawaiian company, elementary school children would look forward to buying a cup of refreshing tea after a long, hard day of work and play. Tea stands were set up in front of the schools and would compete for business with the best-selling tea. Today, Bubble Tea is spreading quickly from Taiwan to other parts of Asia and North America.

Tiny Bubbles
The bubble in Bubble Tea refers to two things. First, small bubbles are created since the drink is shaken in the ever-trendy martini shaker before serving. In addition, bubbles in the form of tapioca balls can be added to the drink. These chewy tapioca balls (or pearls or Boba) are derived from the starch of the cassava root, and they taste like a grown-up gummy bear. They are about the size of a marble and are high in fiber and full of minerals. They are generally translucent brown with a darker brown center, although you can get rainbow, green, and coffee pearls to spice up your tea. As you sip your drink, these bubbles travel up the wide straw. The texture, taste, and chewy sensation make you want more!

There are a myriad of choices when you order a Bubble Tea. Do you want green or black tea? What flavor of Bubble Tea do you want? Some places offer up to 27 different choices. Do you want tapioca balls, and if so, do you want green, rainbow, or regular black pearls? How about extra pearls? Do you want a slush, a sherbet, or an ice cream float version? Do you want to add small cubes of jelly, such as coconut or lychee jelly, for a different combination? You can even have it hot or cold. From university campuses to neighborhood cafés and upscale restaurants, bubble beverages have become the trendiest drinks on the menu.

Making Bubble Tea at Home
Once you're addicted, you may not want to venture out every time a craving hits. With a little preparation, you can make it in the comfort of your home. You will need tea, sugar syrup or honey, tapioca balls, flavoring (either in powder or syrup form), and creamer for the milky teas.

Tea
For the tea part of the experience, you can use green, oolong, or black tea, such as Darjeeling, Ceylon, or Orange Pekoe. (Black tea is commonly known in some Asian cultures as red tea.) Tea adds depth, complexity, and smoothness to the Bubble Tea. Also, recent studies have credited tea for doing everything from preventing cancer to promoting a healthy heart and curbing arthritis. Green tea also contains high amounts of powerful antioxidants called catechin polyphenols. All this healthiness offsets the calories, in my opinion!

Sugar Syrup
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups water

Pour ingredients into a large pot. Cook (without stirring) at medium to high heat until the mixture boils. Remove from heat. Cool and store refrigerated.

Tapioca Balls
You can buy the tapioca balls in several of the grocery stores in your local Chinatown. These stores also sell some of the more popular powdered flavoring (such as strawberry, mango, and lychee). You can also order the tapioca balls and flavorings from a Canadian online Bubble Tea website. As well, they sell wide straws and cups if you need them.

7 cups water
1 cup tapioca balls

Bring water to boil. Once the water is boiling, pour in tapioca balls. Boil for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for another 30 minutes. Strain and rinse with water. Store in a container with 2 tablespoons of sugar syrup for up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

Now that you have the "mise en place" done for your Bubble Tea experience, you can put it together.

Recipe: Bubble Tea

Serves: 1

Instructions:

Shake the first four ingredients in a cocktail shaker.

Bring some water to a boil in a kettle. Measure 2 tablespoons of tapioca balls into a microwave-safe container. Pour boiling water on top of the tapioca balls to cover. Microwave for 1 minute.
Strain the tapioca balls and pour into a cup.

Add some ice. Serve with a wide straw and enjoy.

For a bit of fun, add 1 ounce of rum.


Tasting Notes
You either love or hate Bubble Tea. The tapioca balls are delicious and chewy, and I always add more bubbles than I should since I love them so much. However, one friend I served it to passed it along to his wife since he found the texture of the bubbles disgusting. Send the bubbles my way ... I love them!

On a hot, hot day in July (or any day, for that matter), what could be better than a refreshing Mojito on the deck or patio? Mojitos have become trendy in the past decade, now claiming to be one of the most popular cocktails. And we enjoyed testing these Mojito variations all weekend!

History
The word mojito comes from the word mojo, which means to blend, combine or assemble. The earliest Mojito recipes date back to Cuba in the early 1930s but the drink didn’t become popularized until the 1940s, at a Havana bar, La Bodeguita del Medio. This was a bar frequented by musicians, students, and future celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway, Bridget Bardot, and Nat King Cole, and it was here that the Mojito gained its solid reputation. Today this bar is a popular tourist destination in Havana and the Mojito is in demand around the world, wherever fine cocktails are served.

Ingredients
The most difficult ingredient to find may be the mint! I had to go to a couple of grocery stores to find some, and I plan on planting some in my garden so that I can have a mojito whenever the mood hits.

Some prefer to use soda water, or even Champagne, in place of mineral water. I found that mineral water keeps the taste cleaner unlike soda water or even champagne.

Also, some recipes call for simple syrup to be used in place of sugar (2 cups sugar to 1 cup of water, placed over high heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly for about five minutes). I like to use both sugar and simple syrup. The graininess of granulated sugar helps grind the mint leaves and the simple syrup adds sweetness to make a perfect Mojito.

For my own twist on the Mojito, I muddled lemon balm and lemon verbena leaves from plants I picked up at the Ottawa Farmers' Market last week. Also, instead of mineral water, I used Ginger Beer for a spicy kick.

Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena

Recipe: Lemon Balm and Verbena Mojito

Serves: 1

At Halloween, the ghost milkshakes were such a hit that we thought we'd do it again at Christmas but this time try making Santa and a Snowman. One of my daughters had fun making these with me, but during the photo shoot was getting impatient because she wanted to try the milkshake and the whipped cream kept melting and dripping causing the candies to fall. She won, and I gave up on getting a better picture. Fun and delicious and quite possibly a new Christmas tradition at our house!

Recipe: Santa and Snowman Milkshakes

Ingredients:

For Santa's belt or Snowman's buttons:
4 tablespoons chocolate chips (we used semi-sweet, but you could use bittersweet or milk chocolate)

For the Milkshake:
2 cups vanilla ice cream (our favorite brand is Häagen-Dazs)
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Raspberries or strawberries for Santa
Whipped Cream (homemade is our favorite, but we used chocolate whipped cream from a can for this version)

For the Whipped Cream:
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Red food coloring for Santa

Instructions:

For the belt or buttons: Melt the chocolate either in a double-boiler or in the microwave. With a toothpick or paintbrush, paint a ghost face on the inside of a clear glass. Put the glass in the freezer while you make the milkshake and whipped cream.

For the milkshake: In a blender, combine ice cream, milk and vanilla extract. Blend until smooth.
For the whipped cream: Whip cream until almost stiff. Add sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Beat until cream holds peaks. Put into a piping bag. (I have a Whipped Cream Dispenser which makes making and piping whipped cream easy.

Take the glass out of the freezer. Fill with the milkshake. Top with the whipped cream. Serve with a spoon and a straw.

More to Explore:

• Index of Recipes
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There are some Christmas albums that I can't live without during the season. Sarah McLachlan's album "Wintersong" is my current favorite. Over the years, it's been Roger Whittaker (when I was little and heard it played over and over at Christmas), then it was Jim Brickman's "Joy to the World", Bruce Cockburn's "Mary Had a Baby", and Natalie MacMaster's "Get Me Through December". My friends tease me because I even like pan flutes at Christmas, but only at Christmas!

There's nothing nicer than curling up with a delicious mug of this hot chocolate, turning the lights down, listening to a favorite Christmas album admiring the lights and decorations on the Christmas tree with a fire crackling in the fireplace.
The recipe calls for brandy, but I didn't have any so I added 2 teaspoons of Tequila. Since the recipe calls for such a small amount, you could leave it out altogether. Chef Steven Vardy (originally from Beckta) gave a cooking class at the local wine store a few years ago, and this was one of the recipes we got to sample.

Recipe: Spiked White Chocolate Cappuccino

from Chef Steven Vardy

Serves: 8

Ingredients:

This is what gets me out of bed: the anticipation of a tall non-fat latté to warm and wake me up. Slowly sipping my coffee while reading email or the newspaper is a decadent way to start my day. 

I have always sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top (and I can't understand why coffee bars don't have cinnamon sugar as one of their options). When Mary Lou mentioned this recipe on Twitter, I knew I would have to make a large supply.

Recipe: Toast Dope

From eGullet as recommended by @mlbatt on Twitter

Ingredients:

Weekends are a time to kick back, sit on the deck, and sip some lemonade or limeade with friends and family.
The only hard part about this drink is squeezing the juice from the limes. This time, I used key limes which have about a teaspoon of juice in each, so I was squeezing for awhile. You could also use lemons or regular Persian limes.


Key limes are smaller than regular limes. They are a lighter green (yellow when ripe), thinner-skinned, and more tart than a regular lime.

Key lime, Meyer lemon, Regular lemon tower

Recipe for The Most Extraordinary Fresh Limeade

2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 cup lime juice (or lemon juice), freshly squeezed

Melt water and sugar until it boils. Remove from heat and cool. Stir in the freshly squeezed lime juice. Chill.

In a glass, pour 1 cup lime juice mixture and 1 cup water. Serve with ice.