Lime, Lemongrass and Gingerade

Having hit a total dry-spell in the erotic fiction department, I thought I’d offer you a recipe for a nice summer drink.  Yeah, pathetic I know, but it’s delicious. You’ll thank me.

3 ripe limes
3 inches of fresh ginger
three sticks of lemongrass
Sugar syrup or honey to taste

Cut the skinny tops off the lemongrass sticks and then pound each stem with a rolling pin or a mallet until they split and you can smell the fragrance strongly. With a sharp knife, cut the lemongrass sticks into 1/4 inch pieces all the way to the root and put it into a measuring cup.

Peel and finely grate the ginger root and add it into the measuring cup with the lemongrass.

Pour enough boiling water onto the ginger and lemongrass until it registers 1 cup of liquid at least. Stir the steeping mixture and let it sit until it cools.

Juice the three limes and this to an empty pitcher. Once the steeped ginger and lemongrass tea has cooled, pour it through a fine sieve into the pitcher, pressing the filtered pulp until it renders most of its liquid.

This makes a very concentrated tea. Keep it in the fridge. You can add water & sugar syrup or honey to taste and serve over ice.

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Once you taste this, I doubt you’ll ever go back to plain lemonade again. It’s thirst quenching, astringent and very healthy. Lemongrass has proven antibacterial and anti-fungal properties and one of its components, called citral, has documented anti-cancer properties

As much as everyone likes to think so, ginger’s only proven medicinal properties are as an anti-nausea stomach settler. There are some documented studies of its effectiveness in combating morning sickness and lessening the nausea caused by chemotherapy. There are also some studies that suggest it can be used as a prophylactic against certain types of e-coli induced diarrhea. But mostly, I find it just tastes good.

Limes do contain high quantities of vitamin c, although not as much as lemons. But if you use your fingers to squeeze them, they’ll give you nice, clean-looking fingernails.

Hints for the ingredients: ripe limes are a medium green colour. Don’t pick them too dark or they will contain very little juice and be bitter. Roll them over the counter, pressing down on them with the flat of your palm and they’ll juice better. Fresh ginger root is dry on the outside and the peel has a shiny, almost opalescent quality to it. Don’t buy it if the root is shriveled or wet. Fresh lemongrass sticks are plump and pretty, light green on the outer leaves. Inside, near the root, they are a cream colour. They will crush and release their fragrance and flavour better if you find fresh sticks.