Beating the Heat!

Ladies and Gentlemen it is HOT in the bay area, I mean seriously hot for the folks here.  You know we don't have air conditioning because we do not usually get heat like this.  So I needed a solution to my overheating issue that went beyond laying if front of my fan all day.  While at the farmers' market genius hit in the form of beautiful blackberries, I bought myself a basket and headed home where I proceeded to make lemon-limeade and fresh blackberry popsicles.  The recipe is as follows, it is tart but I like it that way, if you don't use more sugar!

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

Make simple syrup and cool.

Juice from 3 lemons

Juice from 4 limes

Mix together with simple syrup.

Drop 4-5 fresh blackberries into your popsicle mold.  If you don't have one you can use dixi cups and popsicle sticks (totally work I swear!).  Then pour your lemon-limeade over blackberries, pop in the sticks and freeze.  In a couple of hours you will have a cool refreshing treat!

In other news I just finished making homemade ricotta for the first time and I am going use it on my pizza tonight (the recipe via smittenkitchen, though I am not using the meat and adding olives and arugula salad as a topper).  

Hope the heat isn't keeping you out of the kitchen!  Remember you can always take a break with a popsicle!