I hope every­one enjoyed sum­mer sol­stice yes­ter­day! Today is rainy and grey, with many rainy and grey days in the fore­cast, so I thought I would write about some­thing sum­mery… like flavoured ice cubes!

A while ago I stum­bled upon this post at the Idea Room about mak­ing fresh fruit pop­si­cles, and I was so deter­mined to make them because it’s such a sim­ple yet bril­liant idea and the berries and kiwis just look so fab­u­lous in the pic­tures. There is just one prob­lem — I don’t have a pop­si­cle mold. The only thing I have that’s sim­i­lar to a pop­si­cle mold is an ice tray. So this sparked an idea of mak­ing flavoured ice cubes!

First, we made lemon ice cubes, lime ice cubes, and lemon lime ice cubes…

And when the ice melt­ed, we noticed that the lime pieces sank while the lemon pieces float­ed… how fascinating…

Then a cou­ple of weeks lat­er, my mom gave me some fresh mint from her gar­den, so we made some cucum­ber mint ice cubes! :D (That’s how I stuffed the cucum­ber slices and mint leaves into the ice tray before adding water.)

Mike likes the lemon lime bet­ter, but I pre­fer the cucum­ber mint.

I’m still going to try mak­ing the fruit pop­si­cles once I get the pop­si­cle molds. Would be per­fect after we go straw­ber­ry-pick­ing this week­end… mmm… (hope­ful­ly it won’t rain! :S)

I think the ben­e­fit of mak­ing flavoured ice cubes is that one would­n’t have to always keep lemons and such on hand and take out the chop­ping board and knife every time one wants a glass of flavoured ice water. I imag­ine that the flavour would keep well for a while (at least 2 weeks, I would think) since they’re frozen.

Friends also sug­gest­ed using apri­cots and rasp­ber­ries and oth­er fruits, but I wor­ry that the fruit juice would make the water taste like watered down juice… but worth a try, I sup­pose! Will cer­tain­ly let you know how it goes if I do try it.

I might even sub­mit this flavoured ice cube recipe to the fam­i­ly cook­book, along­side Aunt Bev’s Wild Ice Cube recipe (made with 100% tap water) ;)

Cheers!