Basil Peach Agua Fresca |Cooking With Amanda

You know how it can get so swelteringly hot in the summer that you think you're going to melt away?

And all you want to do is drink that cold, icy lemonade on the rocks all. day. long. Even though you know you really shouldn't.

I'm having a lot of melting-away moments these days. Which is probably also why somewhere around the third-trimester-mark I started dreading my pre-natal weigh-ins.

Sugary lemonade, your plot is beyond evil.

I'm not going to lie, drinking water has been hard on me this pregnancy. Even though my all-day-sickness was during the finger-numbingly freezing winter months and I certainly didn't feel like melting at the time.

But. This is ~~slightly distasteful~~ gross. Water tasted like raw chicken to me.

Banish mental images ASAP.

And now during the final stages in this crazy heat I'm just getting bored of water.

Plus that lemonade. It's been haunting me.

That was until one of my genius friends introduced me to the idea of adding healthy stuff to my Emergency Hydration Plan. We all know about plopping a few cucumber and lemon slices into a jug of ice-cold water. But adding fresh fruit purées?

I imagined it to be like drinking watered-down baby food. Until I actually tried it. Let me tell you my friends — it is delicious.

Now I've tried many fruit-vegetable-herb combinations, but the recipe I'm sharing here is by far my favorite. It's refreshing, it's fruity — and there's no mint for a change.

A few pointers about making your Basil Peach Agua Fresca absolutely work for you:

Use the most delicious peaches you can find. These are the main tastemakers here and if they turn out to be the kind of pretty-but-disappointingly-bland peaches, well, nothing's going to save your agua fresca.
Peel. Or don't. It's entirely up to you. I'm usually too lazy to peel my fruit before blending, but then end up regretting it. If you're as OCD as I am about bits of peel in your drink, you can always strain the purée through a fine mesh sieve.
The basil is subtle. I'm sure you could blend some with the peaches to make it more prominent, but I didn't know how my pregnant self would handle too much herb-ness, so I just added the leaves for some subtle flavoring.
Have ice on hand. Nothing more frustrating than wanting to dive into your peachy water and realize you're out of ice. Not that this ever happens to me or anything. Just sayin'.

I know I've been singing the praises of this magical wonder drink for way too long already.

I'm just really, really fond of it. I don't have to fear I'll be in a double-whale stage by the end of the summer. I mean, single-whale is still plenty.

I stopped being bored of making sure I'm getting all my fluids. Actually, I'm looking forward to my fruity drinks these days.

And I don't have to stress about making a healthy smoothie every day, because my smoothie is basically in my water.

Life. You've been hacked.

Now, friend. Where does this leave us?

I can tell you pretty accurately: You're going to look at the recipe below. You're going to try it. And then you're going to share it with the world.

Or with Pinterest, which is basically the world these days.

No excuses. I promise — once you've tried it you're going to want to make this all summer long

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Basil Peach Agua Fresca Recipe

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Ingredients

6 peaches, pitted
juice of one lemon
2 1/2 cups cold water
2 handfuls fresh basil leaves
ice cubes

Directions

Peel the peaches if you want to avoid little bits of peel in the finished drink. (Alternatively, you can strain the purée through a fine mesh sieve.)
Blend the peaches into a smooth purée and immediately mix with the lemon juice.
Combine the peach purée in a large jug with the water, basil, and ice cubes, and serve immediately.