Lets just hang out at the grocery store

Today after work I went to the grocery store to pick up some tamarind for Agua Fresca and oohh it felt so good in there. Typically on super hot days I’m out there soaking up sun like a lizard. While others may retreat to the shade if I did the same, I would require a fleece at the very least. AC – forget about it! I would start chattering my teeth even if I had just been out in 97 degree Fahrenheit heat like today. No, I’m not anemic! I just live for warmth and the sun and AC is much too much concentrated cold for me.

Now that I’m pregnant and in my third trimester I’ve not only turned on the AC in my vehicle but I’ve turned the vents towards me instead of aiming them at the opposite side of the car. I’m dying over here! I even drank water today. Anyone that knows me knows that is no small thing – but it’s actually the third time I’ve had water since becoming pregnant. The first time I drank water at least one of my friends literally marked it on her calendar - March 9th at 3pm. Water is the most vile and disgusting liquid on the planet. I don’t care if it’s filtered and/or bottled if it hasn’t boiled and flavored I won’t drink it. How can anyone hate water you may ask, simple, I grew up in Alaska where my city water came out of the tap BROWN and smelled like rotten eggs. If you allowed it to sit, you could actually see brown sediment settling to the bottom. I ain’t drinking that crap. It has amoebas and I’m not touching it.

It turned out to be much too hot for me to cook today so we went out to eat and it was still too hot for me to get my lazy butt up and make agua fresca, but I’ll give you directions for it…

• Get about 12 to 16 tamarind pods – tamarind is the stuff that’s usually located next to the fresh jalapeños and habaneros and looks like a large peanut
• Take the outer shell off (you can take the vines off but it may become a sticky mess so leaving them on/in is ok too)
• Put the sticky fruit in a large pot and add about ten cups of amoebas water
• Add a cup of sugar
• Bring it to a boil then lower the heat to med/low for about ten to twenty minutes then let it sit with the lid on for an hour or so – you want the fruit to become a bit mushy
• Get a strainer, place it over your juice container, and scoop the fruit into the strainer
• Pour the water through the strainer a little at a time and mash the fruit through so that you get as much of the fruit in the water without the seeds and vines
• Refrigerate, Stir, and serve cold

*Do a taste test before refrigerating – if it’s too tart for you just add more sugar

Yes this creates brown water, but at least I know what’s in it!