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Creamy Strawberry Mint Italian Soda · Bite Me The Show About Edibles

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 263.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Today we're doing creamy Italian strawberry mint soda.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles, where I help you take control of your high life.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I'm your host and certified Ganger, margaret, and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, welcome back to Bite Me.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: It feels like it's been a while for me because I have been batch recording episodes, which saves me a lot of time and I don't feel like I'm scrambling, which I have done many, many times in my recording career.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Then it also feels like it's been a while since I've talked to you, and I know that's not really the case.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: You're hearing me every single week, but from my end that's what it feels like.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So welcome back.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: If you're joining us today, we have a fun episode for you.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: If you're joining for the first time is what I meant and if you've been a longtime listener, thank you for being here.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, before we get into today's episode, just a couple of things I wanted to talk about.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for those who pointed out that they couldn't hear the audio when I first released the episode.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I believe it was for the episode with Laura Hamilton about olive oil and if you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode, it was a fun episode talking about all things olive oil, because there's often a lot of confusion around it, like what does extra virgin olive oil mean really, and is virgin olive oil a thing, and can you like all those questions we covered.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: But when I recorded that episode, I recorded it with Laura, there was no problems.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And then I go back later and I record the introduction and the outro and sometimes when I'm doing that, I will mute the body of the episode, and what I did was I forgot to unmute it before I uploaded it to the platform to distribute the episode and that is why you couldn't hear anything.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So I was able to repair it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It did take a bit of time for it to sort of push out to all the different platforms that it goes out on, because if you're listening to this, it's available on pretty much every platform.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: You can conceive of including YouTube.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, you can get Bite Me the Show, but Edibles on YouTube audio only, but it's there.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So if you haven't had a chance to listen to it because you're like what the heck, there's nothing here, it has been repaired and again, thank you for those who pointed it out to me so that I could make the necessary fixes, because I literally had no idea.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I do sometimes go back and listen to my own episodes after they've been published, but not too often, because I listen to myself talk enough as it is and of course, I have to listen to the episode when I go back and edit it.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Because this may come as a surprise to all of you, but I still have a lot of filler words that I use when I'm doing these episodes.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a point of shame a little bit for me, because after doing this for five years, you think I would have improved Now.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I haven't gone back and listened to any old episodes to do a comparison in the amount of ums or ahs or some of those filler phrases or words that I like, because I know I have a bunch of them.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I have to edit those out.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: But there we are.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to address some fan mail, because I have gotten some fan mail from you folks and I love getting the fan mail.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It's right in your podcast platform.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Whatever you're listening on, you can just tap the link and send me a message.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Just know that I can't reply directly to you.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So if you send me something and I don't reply, that's because I'm not able to through that service.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So it is a bit of a one-way messaging service, if you will.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: And I did get a message from Missouri, a listener in Missouri who was saying that it's off, subject to the episode in question, and this was dated a little while ago.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So my apologies for not getting it to it sooner, but again, I batched, recorded a number of episodes and released them, so that I'm just getting to it now because I'm actually organized for once.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Woohoo.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Finally, he says, or she says, this is off, subject to the episode.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: But I was wondering if you don't renew your grow license in Missouri, usa, do you get to own guns again, or are you just shit out of luck?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, asking for a friend, and I will be honest, I don't actually know that because I'm based in Canada.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Our gun laws here are very different.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: You can own guns and grow cannabis.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: That's not a problem as far as I'm based in Canada.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Our gun laws here are very different.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: You can own guns and grow cannabis.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: That's not a problem, as far as I'm aware anyway.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But it sounds like if you have a license in Missouri, you can't own a gun, and I think I've heard this before and to me it would make sense, if you're no longer, if you haven't renewed your girl license, that you would be able to own guns again.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I don't see why not.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: But if anybody knows the answer to that, feel free to update me and I can, of course, update all of you.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that message.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I also want to give a shout out to Daniel, who messaged as well through the podcast hotline, who shared with me that he really appreciated my episode about going from Marge to Margaret.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: If you haven't heard that, that was the episode I don't know, probably before this, one or a couple episodes ago.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I think it was a couple episodes ago at this point, but I am no longer going by Marge because I am reinventing myself, if you will, now that I'm in a whole new chapter of my life and it feels right.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So if you want to hear more about that, I suggest you check out that episode.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But he sent me a really kind message around that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that, daniel.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And finally, I had two folks who generously donated or bought me cookies through the Buy Me A Cookie platform.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Wayne bought 12 cookies recently.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I believe he is from Rochester, new York, so thank you for that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Wayne and Gary bought 24 cookies recently and I was blown away by that.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Gary is a new listener who just joined the Bite Me Tribe, and thank you to both of those listeners because that really does help support the show.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: As many of you may or may not be aware, there's a lot of softwares that you need to run a podcast.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Some are probably a little more superfluous, but that I engage in because it helps the production of this show go easier and faster.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And I do it all myself.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I wear all the hats and there's a lot to running a podcast like this, and so support like that is really meaningful, so I really appreciate it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: So thank you to both of you is really meaningful, so I really appreciate it.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: So thank you to both of you.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Let's get into today's episode, because it's a little bit different.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It is not traditionally infused and, interestingly, this episode or this recipe, sorry came from Levo and as soon as I saw it I was like I have to try making it because we have been enjoying some very hot weather this summer.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: It's actually we've gotten quite a bit of rain, but we've had a lot of heat.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: It's not that hot out right now, actually, as I record this, but I think we're going to have some heat returning and I'm hoping for a hot late summer.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: This recipe came from Levo and it is a creamy strawberry mint Italian soda and I saw that and I was like this sounds delicious, and of course, the photograph that accompanied it was delightful.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful strawberry red beverage and I'm looking at the recipe now online.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I'll link to it in the show notes so you can try it out for yourself.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: But it had four out of five stars and I think that's crazy because I would give it five stars myself.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: There are a few steps to making this beverage, but it does make a number of servings.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: What does it say?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: It says here one serving, but it shows three glasses in the image.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I have made a batch of this and served four drinks and then I think I had some left over.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if a serving is a jug, because it does make quite a bit, like I said, so ignore that.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: But what's different about this one is they don't actually infuse it with cannabis, and that's something that I think is important for people to remember Just because you are making infused beverages and perhaps you're using a Levo device or you're using some other device, you can use these devices to infuse other things as well.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: You are not limited to cannabis and sometimes people forget that, and this is a nice reminder because you can, of course, infuse this with cannabis too.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: But in this particular instance I did not.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I followed the recipe as they made it and it is delicious, it's so good.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I'll go through the steps relatively quickly, because it's kind of in sections.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You have the homemade sweet syrup and then you have the rest of it, I guess, the homemade sweet syrup, you need sparkling water and then you need to infuse the coconut milk.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: You start out by you get out your Levo device, in this case, and you are going to pack your pod that goes in the device with fresh mint, and I was able to pick mint from the garden, which was really nice.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Obviously you can find mint easily at the grocery store, the market, whatever and then you put coconut milk in the reservoir.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: So if you don't have a Levo device, you can obviously do this different ways.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: You could just put, you could warm the coconut milk up on the stove and put the mint in like one of those tea balls or something like that and do it that way.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: You're only infusing it for half an hour and I gave it a really delightful mint flavor and you're using a full fat coconut milk.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: So like the can of coconut milk, not the stuff that might come in a Tetra Pak that's like more of a beverage.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So just keep that in mind.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: If you don't have a Levo, don't worry, you can still do this.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: You just have to find a different way to infuse it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: But you could just gently do it on the stove and put your mint and a little tea ball or some kind of reusable tea bags as well.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You could do that.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different ways that you can do it.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: You don't have to have the device, but of course the device makes it easier.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: The one thing I really do like about the Levo now that I've played around with numerous devices, because I have a sous vide immersion circulator I have the Levo, an Ardent and a Magical Butter.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: But there is something so simple about the dispensing of the product with the Levo, because you push a button and it dispenses it, and it's still pretty easy to clean too.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So that's something I really appreciate about it, because sometimes straining your infusion, after you're done infusing it can be messy.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You're going to infuse the coconut milk and that takes about half an hour, so it doesn't take very long.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And then, while that is infusing, you're going to make your homemade sweet syrup, or simple syrup as some people might be more familiar with it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You just use some strawberries, two cups of strawberries, a cup of water and a cup of sugar, and it's super easy to make on the stove.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I actually picked out the ones that you know sometimes they have like spots and stuff.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So I picked out the ones that weren't as attractive and, you know, topped them, cut them in half, put them in the and you first put the water and sugar in the pot until you dissolve the sugar, and then you add in your strawberries and you just sort of boil that for 10 minutes and then you simmer it for another 10.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And then you strain it and you have this beautiful sweet strawberry simple syrup and then you're going to one and then, once the coconut milk is done, infusing as well, you're going to take those two ingredients, let them cool a little bit, because obviously you don't want you don't want it to be hot.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: When you're making these beverages, you want them cold, so you're going to let them cool down and then you're ready, when you're ready, to combine them, you put some ice in a glass and then you're going to add some of the simple syrup strawberry simple syrup.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: You're going to top it off with sparkling water and then you're going to top it off with the mint-infused coconut milk.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: You give it a nice stir and then you can garnish it, of course, with slices of strawberries or little sprigs of mint or whatever you happen to have, or nothing at all, depending and enjoy.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And it is delicious, it's delicious.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: So when I went away on a weekend by myself, I actually brought my Levo with me and I made it while I was there, because I was like you know, I'm going to have this weekend to myself.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I might as well experiment with some of the edibles that I want to be making for the show and also for me to consume.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And it was so good.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: And then, not long after, I did it again.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: That's how good this one was.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I made it twice because I recently celebrated and he does not consume cannabis, so this was perfect, and I had my kids over for a lovely barbecue we were enjoying.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: You know, waiting for the barbecue, the food to cook I'd already made the components of the drink and I assembled them and it was a hit with everybody.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: They're like wow, what is this?
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It's so good.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So it makes enough for four people and we had decent sized glasses as well.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: These were not small glasses that I put it in, so it was so good.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I highly recommend you try it out.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It's a delightful summer beverage.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: It is creamy, minty.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't notice the coconut milk being overpowering either.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Some people aren't necessarily a huge fan of coconut milk but the strawberry simple syrup and everything it just came together beautifully and it's really simple to make.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: It does require a little bit of the hands-on time to infuse the coconut milk and to make the simple syrup, but once those components are made you have enough to probably make four to six drinks, depending on how large the glasses are that you're using.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But I highly recommend this particular beverage if you're trying to cool down on a hot summer day, because we still have summer left, my friends.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: There is still summer left to enjoy, don't you worry.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And of course it's nice to have these types of drinks in your repertoire as well, and you can always go to bitemeatodcastcom.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I have a recipes page where I try and put all the recipes that I'm making on the recipe page itself.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I miss them and I have to go back and add them later because, like I said, I'm a one woman show and doing all this stuff on my own, and I'm also working on revamping the website slowly.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it will make the website easier to navigate as well to help you find what you're looking for when you're on there, because of course, I still have the cannabis infusion or potency calculator as well that's free to use so that you can, you know, get a baseline of how strong the edibles are that you're making.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Now let's say that you make this and you do want to infuse it.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Well, you have options, because you could put some cannabis in with the mint while you're doing the coconut milk, or maybe do a double infusion, because it's only going to infuse for half an hour, so it might not be as strong as it would otherwise.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So that's one option.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Or you could also use like you could probably use like an oil in it as well, or a tincture.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: If you have one of those on hand, you have to make sure you're going to stir it really well, so that is an option.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: You can do that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And then, finally, if you have any of those like ripple powders I think I saw a few of those kicking around, like the water-soluble powders that are available.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Now, all these things are going to change the taste a little bit.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: If you are going to try anything, stirring in a little bit of the oil is probably your best bet, so that it doesn't really change the taste too much and I'd add as little as possible to get you the effects that you're looking for.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: That's what I would suggest, because of course, you can still infuse it with cannabis in a few different ways.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: But this was just an interesting episode to me because the recipe came from Levo and they're not infusing it with cannabis.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But it's a great reminder that you can use these devices to infuse other things.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Any of those devices, like you could use a magical butter machine to make a large batch of infused basil, infused olive oil, which I have done before.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I've done it in a slower method, like when you put olive, or you take a jar of olive oil and you put fresh basil in it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I've bought herbs or grown herbs from the market, preferably because they might be local and organic.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Or I've grown them in my garden and infused olive oils.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I've done basil, rosemary, sage and thyme, and it's so nice because you can you have that sort of flavor of the summer throughout the winter months when it's well.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Where I am in Canada it's not as easy to grow basil and those kinds of things indoors in the wintertime, so it's a way to preserve the taste of summer.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So of course, you could use your any of your devices to do the same thing and it would actually be faster, because when I did it the way that was recommended, it took a couple of weeks, but I could have shortened the process by using one of my devices, I guess.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: So just a nice reminder you can infuse your stuff with other things as well and I would love to hear, if you have like, if you have, infused your olive oils or anything else with things other than cannabis and what they were I've heard of people doing.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Lavender is another big one that people enjoy and, of course, many of these herbs and things you might be using to infuse your oils or fats with, are you still going to have terpenes in them, just like cannabis?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Does you think lavender, for instance, has the terpene linalool, which promotes relaxation and rest, which is why you often see it in sort of sleep formulas, because it does promote that kind of relaxation.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It's an exciting world really food and beverage and infusions so I would love to hear, if you've tried it out, what you did, how you did it and you can always reach out to me, hit me up through the fan mail, email, podcast, hotline.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: There's lots of ways to get a hold of me and I always love hearing from you.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And, of course, if you're interested in learning more about some of these devices, I have a sort of a deeper dive on the pros and cons of various devices.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I think I've done so far and I do plan to do more.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I've done the Levo and the Ardent and other things like the Pax dry herb vaporizer, because when I do inhale cannabis I tend to use a dry herb vaporizer versus smoking joints.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of joints.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I know purists are probably like that's crazy, but I used to be a smoker so it just really doesn't jive with me anymore and I'm also an asthmatic allergic to a lot of stuff.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So I just try to really take care of my lungs because these types of things never seem to get better as you get older, am I right?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my friends, I hope you enjoyed that episode.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Connect with me where you would like.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: There's also the Bite Me Cannabis Club and there's going to be a lot of changes happening over there.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So join now while you still can, because eventually things are going to be changing quite a bit and I'm hoping to make it a really fun space where we can all come together and connect and learn more about cannabis and edibles and all that kind of thing, and I