Thinking seasonal is always a recipe for success. The colors of the summer and sweet, tart, cool flavors of fruits of the season can decorate your table in creative, elegant and refreshing ways. There are many ways to imbue appetizers, drinks and main courses with seasonal colors and fruity flavors.
Here are some fresh ways to introduce summer fruits into your summer meals and drinks.
Appetizers and Mains
There are many easy ways to put summer on your table in finger foods, salads and even meat and poultry dishes.
Light appetizer ideas include fruit and cheese crostini. All you need is creativity and French bread, goat cheese and your favorite summer fruit. You can add strawberries and a balsamic reduction or honey and raspberries. Consider a twist on prosciutto and melon by wrapping fresh peach slices instead. Or toss watermelon into a salad of tomato, mozzarella cheese and basil, topped with olive oil and salt and pepper.
Your favorite main courses can take on different flavor nuances with the season. Consider grilling steak with warm peaches and onions as a topper. Or poach fresh plums and serve with turkey breast or grilled chicken, bringing a tartness to poultry not unlike that from cranberry sauce.
Summer Cocktails
It’s no surprise that summer is when some of the world’s best food and beverage companies introduce new fruit-focused offerings. For instance, Alizé is debuting a new passion flavor to its portfolio: Alizé Peach. It is an infusion of ripe, luscious peaches delicately blended with premium French vodka, just in time to be mixed into light warm-weather cocktails.
Don’t just add fresh fruit as a garnish to summer cocktails; consider using fruit-imbued spirits instead of plain ones. Whether blended into margaritas, shaken in martinis, mixed into sangrias, or drizzled atop sparkling wine, fruit-infused vodkas, such as the new Alizé Peach or Alizé Passion with passion fruit, are well suited for summer entertaining. Alizé Passion comes in different flavors, blended with exotic passion fruit, fresh cherries, cranberries, and even a touch of ginger.
Summer is the perfect time to live in color with fruit-infused cocktails. Whether it’s a simple Bellini mixed with prosecco and Alizé Peach or a more complicated peach punch that blends the infused vodka with gin, elderflower liquor and honey.
You can pour summer into your cocktail glass with this recipe for a Peach Mule:
StatePoint Photo
Peach Mule
• 2 oz. Alizé Peach
• 1 oz. Vodka
• 1/2 oz. simple syrup
• 3/4 oz. lime juice
• Top off with ginger beer
For a summer feel, use a Collins glass rather than a mug (the traditional Mule vessel), and stir gently. Enjoy in the shade or with a gentle summer breeze.
– StatePoint
Smoothie Recipes
Smoothies can be gulped down for breakfast, drunk as a midday snack, be a salad in a glass for lunch, quaffed after school as an energy booster or served as dessert after dinner.
Susan Westmoreland, food editor of Good Housekeeping, offers these tips:
• Cut fruits and vegetables into small uniform sizes. It will put less strain on the blender.
• Freeze the fruits until they are hard. Also make sure the other ingredients are cold because it will keep the smoothie colder and the consistency thicker.
• Add the liquid first in the blender, and then the fruits and vegetables.
• Don’t fill more than two-thirds of the blender.
• Don’t underestimate ice. It’s the best way to thicken a smoothie without adding calories.
• Don’t add chunks of chocolate or cocoa nibs. You need to add ingredients that blend well.
Tropical Carrot Tango
Instead of snacking on carrots, drink them up. In this recipe, they get a tropical face-lift with the addition of coconut milk, ginger and pineapple.
1½ cups unsweetened light coconut milk
1½ cups frozen pineapple chunks
1 cup freshly grated, peeled carrot
1/2 cup cold water
1-inch piece fresh peeled ginger, grated
2 teaspoons maple syrup
3 to 4 ice cubes
In a blender, combine coconut milk, pineapple, carrot, water, ginger, maple syrup and ice cubes.
Pour into 2 tall glasses.
Adapted from “Juices & Smoothies” by Good Housekeeping
Salad Smoothie
Imagine a tasty lunch salad, and then imagine it as beverage. That’s what you’ll be drinking here.
1 cup tightly packed baby spinach
1/2 cucumber
1/2 cup frozen green grapes
1 cup lemon yogurt
2 teaspoons honey
Combine spinach, cucumber, grapes, yogurt, honey and ice cubes, and blend until smooth.
Serves 2.
— Arthi Subramaniam
Chocolate-Banana Smoothie
Even the fussiest of picky breakfast eaters would love this smoothie. It has chocolate syrup for crying out loud.
1 large frozen banana
3/4 cup milk
4 tablespoons chocolate syrup
3 to 4 ice cubes
In a blender, combine banana, milk, chocolate syrup and ice. Blend until mixture is smooth and frothy. Pour into a tall glass.
Serves 1.
From “Juices & Smoothies” by Good Housekeeping
Mango-Rose Smoothie
When mango lassi teams up with a bright-flavored bouquet of roses in the form of rose water, the result is a fruity-floral dance in the mouth.
3 cups mango pulp
2 cups plain Greek yogurt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons rose water
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
6 ice cubes
Blend mango pulp, yogurt, sugar, rose water, cardamom and ice cubes until smooth. Pour into medium-sized glasses.
Makes 4 servings.
— Arthi Subramaniam
