Night Blossoms

For William's birthday, he went through my cookbooks and picked some recipes for us to try. One recipe was for Night Blossoms, which is a slushy, fruity drink with popping boba pearls.

Night Blossoms

Ingredients:

• 4 cups limeade
• 1 container apple juice concentrate
• 1 cup watermelon juice
• 1 cup strawberry nectar
• 2 cups lime sherbet
• 1/2 cup lemon-lime soda
• 1 container passion fruit boba balls

Directions:

1. Mix together limeade, apple juice concentrate, watermelon juice and strawberry nectar.
2. Pour half of the mixture into an ice cream maker (unless your maker can hold the entire batch all at once), and run the maker until mixture is slushy.
3. Pour an equal portion of slush into each cup (a large, maybe 20 oz cup), making five portions total.
4. Place cups in freezer.
5. Pour the rest of the juice mixture into the ice cream maker and being freezing into more slush.
6. In the meantime, in a blender, blend lime sherbet and lemon-lime soda until smooth.
7. Pour equal portions of ice cream mixture into each of the five cups and return to the freezer.
8. When the rest of the slush is ready, divide the mixture up evenly between the five cups and return them to the freezer until ready to serve (not meant to be completely frozen, so do not leave in the freeze for more than a few minutes... probably no more than 30 minutes total or your drink could get too frozen).
9. When ready to serve, top each glass with 1/5 of the boba pearls in the container.

Marsha's Notes:

Here are some pictures of some of the more unusual ingredients I used to help you find them in your stores. I ordered my boba off Amazon, but found all the rest at my local grocery store. The strawberry nectar was in with the Latin/Mexican foods.

Boba Tea

I have discovered and LOVE boba tea! It's so yummy! Here is a quick tutorial.

Boba Tea

Ingredients:

• boba
• tea mix
• ice
• sweetener, if desired
• creamer

Directions:

1. Boil your desired amount of boba according to the package directions. My basic boba says to boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes before rinsing off with cold water.
2. Blend 1/4 cup tea mix with 6-8 oz of hot/boiling water in a boba cup. I used water from either my Keurig or instant hot water tap.
3. Add cooked and rinsed boba to your tea mixture in the boba cup.
4. Add any desired sweeteners or flavorings.
5. Top off the entire cup with ice. 
6. Fill any remaining room at the top of the cup with milk or creamer.
7. Close the water-tight seal over the straw hole and gently shake the cup to mix it all together.

Using my hand-whisk to mix my tea powder mix with hot water.

Boiling my boba.

Add boba to tea mix, sweetener or flavoring, fill entire glass with ice.

Top off any remaining space with creamer or milk.

Shake and done!

Marsha's Notes:

You do need a boba cup and straw for these drinks. I got mine off amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0924MJTJV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

You will also need to either brew your own desired tea, or use tea mix (kind of like hot chocolate mix, only it's tea, sweetener and creamer all in powdered form, often called "milk tea"). Milk tea is the most traditional kind, but there is also other mixes you can try, like the fun purple Taro, or many non-tea flavors like cookies n' cream or peach, which you can use with boba pearls or not. It's up to you. I got mine on Amazon, here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072R1G8BH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 

You also need boba. There are lots of different kinds to pick from... some you cook on the stove... some are "bubble pearls" or "popping pearls" that are more for cold fruity teas and require no cooking... The kind of boba that you cook comes in different kinds and flavors too, like regular tapioca, brown sugar, rainbow, and lychee. Here are some I have gotten before on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CR06BO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

These are the kind that come in a "juice" and you just scoop them out with a slotted spoon and then add them to iced tea.

Tips for fruity teas and popping boba:

If you have the time, brew your desired tea like normal and let chill in the fridge. Then just add your ice, sweetener and boba. If you are going to be making fresh hot tea and don't have time to let it cool, then brew your tea twice as strong as normal so when you add it to ice and the ice melts, it doesn't water-down the drink too much.

For Mother's Day, we all had boba as a family! I was in the middle of making the boba when I took this picture, so all I have done is dissolving the taro and milk teas into hot water. You can see my boba pearls cooking in the pan on the stove in the background. As you can see, the milk tea is a pretty tan color (just like my Mother's Day boba plush!) and the taro powder makes that pretty purple milk tea.