Mint elixir
I've been surprised recently to discover low calorie tasty drinks that one can make at home that entirely replace soft drinks for me. First there was iced ginger elixir from “The Garden of Eating.” Then there was a similar version of lemonade from the same book. Both recipes make use of stevia for sweetness. So today I decided to try my own variation on that them. I took ¼ cup of dried peppermint, which I purchase under the name yerba buena in the Mexican spices section of the local grocery store. (Yes, I do know that it should be spelled “hierba buena” to be academically rigorous, but that's not how it was written on the packet.) I put it in a 2 cup pyrex container and then poured boiling hot water over it and let it steep for an hour. Then I strained the liquid into a pitcher and added four cups of cool, filtered water, along with ¼ teaspoon of liquid stevia. Nice. It doesn't have the slap in the face effect of the lemonade or ginger drinks, but a nice drink nonetheless.