Cucumber Limeade

Summer ain’t over! Oh no it ain’t over (in my singing voice)! I decided that I would start asking myself if I am a person who loves to cook or an artist with a love of food! I have been watching some of my favorite chefs one being Pino Luongo and he makes me fall in love with food. I hope to visit one of his oh so expensive restaurants and eat to my heart’s content. I consider myself a huge foodie with a picky pallet. I love to dance, I love photography and I love food. I also love making and creating things. However I loathe measuring, and am so happy that I have Josh to measure and re measure all my screw ups. I have been going back and forth on the art of food and what does it mean to me; I still have not figure that one out yet but I am getting there.

Lately I have been feeling as if I have been keeping myself in a box wanting to do more with my cooking. I do not want to limit myself but expand my culinary creativity. The other day I was looking at Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman Chicago Addition.  One of the chefs had few of his signatures dishes and the one that stood out to me was how he used  foie gras and pop rocks to make a unique lollipop! His creation made me want to get on a plane and find myself in his restaurant eating this lollipop. I was amazed! I wonder could I find myself coming up with a signature dish someday.

Cucumber Limeade Recipe: Adapted From Lemonade 

• 3-4 huge cucumbers (about 4 heaping cups)
• 1 1/2 cups lime juice
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 16 cups of cold water ( about a gallon)

Recipe Directions: In a sauce pan on low to medium heat, dissolve 1.5 cup of water and 2 cups sugar to make simple syrup. In the food processor place cucumbers and lime juice and blend; once the syrup has cooled add the simple syrup to the food processor and blend until all the ingredients are mixed into a puree. Take a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the puree in the strainer extracting the liquid.  Place the liquid into a pitcher add water and chill.

Recipe Notes:  I had to work in batches since my food processor could not hold all of the cucumber and simple syrup. I of course go tired put it in a bowl and began to stir. If you do not have a fine mesh strainer I would encourage you to use a nut bag or anything that will get rid of all the pulp( I have used stocking, new of course 🙂 ). I ran out of limes so I had to use lime juice. I used about 6 limes and ½ cup of lime juice. I should have used just the juice but fresh is always better.