Flavoured Ice Cubes

Summer is here and we feel the need to keep ourselves hydrated. It is boring to have plain cold water all the time so here are some fun ideas.

Make ice cubes using the following liquids and herbs and store in freezer bags for upto a week or 2(depends on the liquid and herbs used). Mix and match the ice cubes, add sugar or splenda and some plain or sparkling water to make instant refreshing flavoured water.

Liquids:

• Plain water.
• Black or Green Tea - pour boiling water over tea leaves (use 1 tsp tea leaves for 1 cup water) and steep for 7 to 8 mins. Cool and strain.
• Corriander Water - Boil 4 cups of water by adding 2 tbsp of corriander seeds. Reduce till you get 2.5 cups of water. You can make cumin water in a similar way.
• Lemon/Lime juice.
• Fruit juice (orange, water melon, blueberries, pomogranate etc. - extract juice and freeze)

Herbs:

• Lemon/Lime zest
• Mint leaves
• Orange zest

Method for ice cubes:

• Pour liquid in the ice tray. Add herb and freeze. Eg. water and lemon zest, tea and mint leaves, orange juice and lemon + lime zest etc.

To serve:

• Choose a base - water or sparkling water, choose a garnish - mint/lemon/lime/orange zest , choose the flavours - fruit juices, lemon/lime, tea, corriander/cumin.
• Add Flavour ice cubes to fill 3/4 of the glass. Add the garnish ice cubes.
• Finally add sugar and the base - water or sparkling water.

Serving suggestions:
Use any combination you like. Here are some suggestions:-

• Ice tea - 4 tea ice cubes, 2 mint ice cubes, 1 lemon zest ice cube, water and sugar
• Corriander Ice tea - 4 tea ice cubes, 2 corriander ice cubes, 2 mint ice cubes, water and sugar
• Fruit punch - 2 ice cubes each of various fruit juices, 1 lemon juice ice cube, 1 orange zest ice cube, 1 lemon zest ice cube, water and sugar
• Orange soda - 4 orange juice ice cubes, 1 mint ice cube , sugar and sparkling water.
• Lime Soda - 2 lime juice ice cubes, sugar, salt and sparkling water.