I try not to follow trends (I prefer to set them ) but Im disappointed to find that this recipe is very much following a trend. And here I was thinking I was being smart and innovative Ginger and coconut seem to be the height of fashion and this drink is based around ginger, but its got a twist. The thing is, being sugar free, chemical free and 1000% aspartame free, well and truly limits what we can drink. Of course water is wonderful and marvellous and healthy and a teeny bit boring. Every now and then I need something a little different to drink. So Ive invented my own sugar free cordial. Refreshing, easy, easy, easy to make and even better, dead easy to use. And not boring! In this recipe I made a ginger and vanilla cordial sweetened with a tiny bit of honey and fresh apple juice. The innovation lies in what I did with the resulting mix. I froze it in ice cube trays. So every time I fancied something out of bounds of normal water I opened the freezer, popped out a couple of ice cubes and let them melt into my drink.

Method

Grate your ginger and cover well with your fresh apple juice and bring to the boil. Boil for a couple of minutes then strain the liquid into a large bowl. Pour the remainder of your apple juice over the ginger and bring this to the boil again, it means we get the most flavour out of the ginger. Strain and throw away the grated ginger. Add the honey and the vanilla and the citric acid. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. Next time you fancy a change from ordinary water pop a couple of these ice cubes into your drink. This also works well with hot water.

Ingredients

Makes about 1litre enough for about 8 litres diluted 500g fresh ginger grated (leave the skin on) 30ml honey 5ml citric acid or one 1000mg vitamin C tablet 5ml good quality vanilla essence 1 litre of fresh apple juice (if not homemade cold pressed cloudy apple juice works well)