Raspberry-Lemon Soda Floats

With the unofficial start of summer here, it's time to celebrate all things ice cream! All this week we will be enjoying ice cream-based recipes to help keep you cool all summer.

Today we start with a classic summertime recipe - the ice cream float. I remember drinking many floats during my summer vacations. I think they consisted of cherry Crush poured over vanilla Perry's Ice Cream. For ice cream week 2016, I decided to amp up my ice cream float with a homemade soda and a new Perry's flavor.

The ice cream featured in my raspberry-lemon soda floats is called Lemon Chillo. It's a lemon ice cream with cookie swirls. If you don't have access to Perry's Ice Cream (i.e. you live outside of the WNY area) you can go ahead and use a lemon ice cream or sorbet.

The raspberry soda comes together really quickly too. The only ingredients you need are raspberries and sugar! I carbonated my soda with a siphon, but you can use bottled, plain seltzer water if you haven't bought a siphon yet!

What are you waiting for? Stop making boring ice cream floats. Mix up your flavors and toss chocolate ice cream into cream soda. Pour coconut seltzer over pineapple ice cream. Don't limit yourself to just plain vanilla! (And let me know what unique flavor combinations you come up with!)

Disclaimer - As a member of Perry's Ice Cream Inside Scoopers team, I received the new summer ice cream flavors to test out. I've been enjoying Perry's Ice Cream since I was a kid and I'm so happy to be able to support a locally owned and produced (and delicious) product. Other than free ice cream, I have not received any compensation for this post. All opinions are my own and I totally ate all of the ice cream they sent me. All by myself.

One Year Ago: French Toast Ice Cream Crepes
Two Years Ago: Quiche with Sweet Peppers & Sausage
Three Years ago: Funfetti Mallomars
Four Years Ago: Tarragon Chicken & Pesto Potatoes
Five Years Ago: French Baguettes

Cranberry-Pomegranate Soda

Happy festive foods week! Today is brought to you by the Cranberry!  

There are so many traditional holiday beverages - mulled wine, peppermint hot chocolate, whatever a hot toddy is - but today I thought we might need something cool, bright and refreshing. I also like carbonating things with my siphon.

Vanilla Soda & Ice Cream Floats

Carbonate everything!

Ever since I got my soda siphon at the flea market, I've been making so many different homemade sodas!  I seriously want to carbonate everything.  Pretty much anything I can pour into the siphon has a chance of being carbonated.  Except milk, I'm pretty sure that would be just weird.

Having an endless array of soda flavors also gives me endless possibilities of ice cream float flavors!  Which is exactly what I had in mind when I prepared this all natural vanilla soda.

Sure, you could buy some cream soda from the store.  Or you could quickly make this vanilla soda from all natural flavors!  It's seriously simple too.  All you need is a vanilla bean and some palm sugar.  Sure, palm sugar is a specialty ingredient (you can find it in my aStore on the bottom right!), but it gives this soda an distinct flavor.

Make it.  Pour it over ice cream.  Enjoy in a comfy spot outdoors.  Do it do it do it!

Apricot Soda

Hello from Arizona!

That's right, I'm away from New Jersey again and hanging out in the desert.  Did you know that Arizona gets monsoon rains in July?  Craziness.  It's also about 197 degrees here during the day.  Roughly.  That's what inspired me to share this soda with you today.

Last week I had a bowl of fresh, ripe apricots waiting to be made into something delicious.  Since I haven't made enough use of my shiny soda siphon yet, I decided to combine the two and make this apricot soda.  It was perfectly refreshing during the heat wave we endured last week in the tri-state area.  It was also pretty good with a scoop of vanilla!

Pear-Raspberry Soda

I'm not quite sure if I still have legs right now.  I mean, I see them and they did carry me home from the gym last night, but they don't really seem to be attached to my body.  I blame Crossfit.

Yep, that's right, I joined the Crossfit cult.  Although I'm not really sure if I'm ready to drink the Kool-aid.  I spent four years participating in and teaching BodyPump  - a totally different type of weight lifting class.  BodyPump is all about repetition until you reach muscle failure.  Crossfit is an Olympic style lifting class that seems to try and make your legs fall off with excessive rowing.

So much rowing!  My poor shins are tired!

There are a few reasons I decided to give Crossfit a try...

1. I have been doing BodyPump for five years and was looking for something a little different.
2. Many of my friends have been going to Crossfit and RAVE about, constantly.
3. The Crossfit gym is literally a block away from my apartment and they have 8pm classes.

Sold.  I'm signed up to go twice a week and I'm ready to burn!  First, I had to spend two weeks taking a Fundamentals class - learning the bar moves so I won't hurt myself during class.  I've been to three classes in the past week and I'm enjoying it, though my legs are wishing we'd cut it with the rowing.

You're wondering what an average Crossfit workout looks like?  Here's what we did yesterday...

Strength work
Bench Press - warm-up & 2x5reps at max weight, 3rd set - go until muscle failure

Conditioning Work
225 jump ropes (or 75 double-unders... which I haven't mastered yet)
50 Ball squats (you first do a squat, then you toss a heavy ball in the air)
25 Knees to elbows (hanging from a pull-up bar, you lift your knees as high as you can!)
Row 1500 meters (So much rowing)

I came home and ate a whole bunch of Girl Scout cookies.  Yum.

I'll keep you posted with the workouts and whether I see myself getting stronger and leaner.  Leaner probably won't happen if I continue finishing my workouts with a row of Peanut Butter patties...