Homemade Slushy: Cran-Raspberry with Strawberry Slushy

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Summer means icy drinks like this cran-raspberry with strawberry slushy.

 This past weekend my daughter asked if we could make slushies. We searched for a machine that might assist us in our efforts, but came up empty.

Isabella then remembered an As-Seen-On-TV slushie shaker that she had seen at our local Walgreen's. They have two shelving units full of As-Seen-On-TV products (wait, I noticed yesterday that they've replaced this section with back-to-school items, even though it's still July). We purchased a Slushy Magic cup and went home to give it a go (we paid only half the price that was listed on their site).

The cup comes with some "magic" ice cubes (whose ingredients I decided against investigating) that you put in the freezer for a few hours. Then you pour juice into the shaker cup, add the "magic" cubes, cover and shake.

It seems that we didn't leave the cubes in the freezer long enough. And, I think it would take about forty minutes of dedicated shaking to get the Magic Slushy cup to create a nice smushy iced beverage.

We went to plan B: use my drink blender, with the juice, some whole strawberries and ice. We blended several batches, poured them into some red Solo cups (Isabella sang the song while we worked, the "Glee" version) and put them in the freezer for two hours.

They were great. When we got to the party, we poured them into smaller cups, added some ginger ale and a sprig of mint.  A great standard kid-friendly drink was born!

Cran-Raspberry with Strawberry Slushy

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups cranberry-raspberry juice
  • 10 strwberries, hulled and cut into chunks
  • 8 to 10 ice cubes
  • 1 cup ginger ale
  • 10 mint sprigs for garnish

Method:

  1. Put juice, strawberries and ice into a blender. Mix until ice has become crushed and strawberries are just past being chunky.
  2. Pour mixture into several plastic cups.
  3. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for two hours.
  4. Remove from the freezer, pour into individual serving cups.
  5. Stir in a splash of ginger ale into each drink. Garnish with the mint.