When I visited my kid in Texas, we went to a large outdoor gathering of people sharing dinner on a Sunday evening. We thought it would be fun to bring aguas frescas for everyone, so we made three gallon pitchers full, and brought a cooler full of ice for the cups. It was a huge hit!
NOTE: These are made in the blender, so the recipe is for what fits in one blender batch.
To fill a gallon sized pitcher, you will need to make several batches.
Watermelon:
Place in blender the following:
• Chunks of watermelon from 1/8th of a basketball-sized watermelon (this amounts to a heaping 2 cups of chunks)
• ⅓ cup sugar (or 3 tablespoons maple or agave syrup)
• 2 cups water
Blend on high for about a minute.
Pour through a sieve (or not) into a pitcher. [We liked sieving the watermelon one, and it's easy]
• Add an additional 2 cups water
One batch of this will fill eight 8-oz glasses if they are filled with ice. Repeat 3-4 times to fill a pitcher.
Pineapple:
Place in blender the following:
• Chunks of pineapple from 1/2 of a whole fresh pineapple (this amounts to a heaping 2 cups of chunks)
• ⅓ cup sugar (or 3 tablespoons maple or agave syrup)
• 2 cups water
Blend on high for about a minute.
Pour through a sieve (or not) into a pitcher. [Pineapple is much more fibrous than watermelon, so we decided to skip the sieving step. Pineapple pulp is tasty.]
• Add an additional 2 cups water
One batch of this will fill eight 8-oz glasses if they are filled with ice. Repeat 3-4 times to fill a pitcher.
Cucumber-lime-mint:
Place in blender the following:
• Chunks of two whole cucumbers. To prepare, wash each cuke in cold water, cut off the stickers (if any) and about ½-inch from each end, but don’t peel.
• Juice of 6 limes (about ½ cup of juice)
• ½ cup sugar (or 4 tablespoons maple or agave syrup)
• 1 1/4 cups (a large handful) spearmint leaves
• 1 1/2 cups water
Blend on high for about a minute.
Pour through a sieve (not optional) into a pitcher. Stir the pulp with a soup spoon until as much comes through as possible. Toss the pulp into the rubbish bin (or use it as a mask).
DO NOT add more water.
One batch of this will fill four 12-oz tumblers if they are filled with ice (or six 8-oz glasses). Repeat 5 times to fill a pitcher.
