Frozen Treat From the Garden

Is there a better way to keep cool in summer with frozen treats made with natural products harvested from the garden?

Here is a very simple recipe for such a treat using Pomegranate seeds, Lemon Juice, Rose water and Honey, all extracts of fresh harvest from the home garden.

The Source and the Harvest

• Fully ripe Pomegranate fruits from the Pomegranate tree.
• Fully ripe Lemon from the Lemon tree.
• Fresh rose petals collected from the Damascus Rose Bush.
• Fresh honey collected from the Honeycomb.

Harvest the fully ripe Pomegranate fruits and extract the seeds. Make sure the thin skin covering the seeds also removed. You may require about two to three fruits.

Extract the juice from the Lemon fruit using a squeezer or any such equipment. Even you can extract the juice with your hands. Make sure to remove all seeds.

Extracting Rose water is a somewhat lengthy process. The petals from the flowers of Rosa × damascena, more commonly known as the Damascus rose, are used for extracting the Rose water. The Damascus rose petals have a very pleasant smell and are edible. These roses are also used to make Rose petal jam, which is commonly known as Gulkand. You can also refer to the Instructable on "How to make Gulkand (Rose Petal Jam) at home" at this link:

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-Gulkand-Rose-Petal-Jam-at-home/

• Harvest the fresh rose petals and clean them in running water.
• Take a medium sized cooking vessel and place a stone or a piece of brick in the center. The idea is to prevent the bowl used to collect the rose water from floating in the water. (Use anything you find suitable)
• Fill the vessel with water just a bit lower than the height of the stone placed inside.
• Fill rose petals around the stone. Initially these petals will float in the water.
• Place a small bowl inside the vessel on top of the stone. This small vessel will be used to collect the rose water.
• Place this arrangement in the stove and start heating.
• When the water gets boiling, place a hemisphere-shaped vessel like a frying pan, on top of the heated vessel and pour cool water in it.
• The steam produced from the water mixed with rose petals contains the rose essence and will be cooled on touching the bottom of the vessel on top.
• Keep on changing the water on top when it gets warm.
• The cooled rose water will be collected in drops in the small bowl placed inside on top of the stone.
• Take out the small bowl and store the rose water in a metal container. You can collect three to four times in small quantities. Allow it to cool.

Now your rose water is ready

Here I have harvested a small piece of the honeycomb and extracted the honey. You may require about two to three tablespoons of honey. The honey bees are living in our garden and they will rebuild the piece of honeycomb taken out.

• Mix together Rose water, Lemon Juice and Honey.
• Take out a few paper cups and small wooden ice cream scoops.
• Fill the paper cups with the Pomegranate seeds
• Insert the small wooden ice cream scoops at the center.
• Fill each paper cup with the Rose water+Lemon Juice+Honey mixture.
• Place them in the freezer to cool.
• Take them out when they are frozen and enjoy.

The sweet-tart tasting pomegranate seeds mixed with the sourness of lemon juice and sweetness of Honey, flavored with the Rose water, tastes and smells heavenly. This recipe is also very good for health as it contains only natural products.