Psychedelicious: Culinary Experiments: Wheatgrass drinks

Wheatgrass was one of the specialty ingredients we used in our class. The top green part gets chopped off and has been incorporated in ice creams, or just fried for garnish...but not much else, unfortunately. The bottom root portion is generally tossed out--it's just like sod, except it's wheat instead of grass. But if properly cared for, it can continue to grow. I was ecstatic when Chef asked if anyone wanted to take the root system home for their garden. As usual, no one else wanted it, so I pretty much took the entire thing home.

Mom planted the wheatgrass sod in an open spot by the cucumbers. We figured if it actually does grow wheat, fantastic. If it dies, at least it provided ground cover for water retention and turn into compost. We took a portion of the sod and planted in a container to see if our cat likes it (she has been known to munch on grass).

But what to do in the event that it does start growing? I've never cooked with, much less had any wheatgrass drinks before, so I started experimenting. There were still some useable part of the wheatgrass still attached to the sod, so I cut that off and used it....

Experiment #1: Wheatgrass-tini

For the upcoming summer months, I thought of something refreshing...like an ice-cold martini. Here's the tentative recipe....but I must say, it's definitely an acquired taste. If you absolutely love wheatgrass, you'll like this. But even with the sugar the rum, and the orange juice, it was barely palatable in my opinion. Definitely refreshing, but there was still that lingering bitterness from the wheatgrass.

Wheatgrass-tini (serves 1)

1 oz. wheatgrass juice

0.5 oz. orange juice

1 t rum

sugar and lemon juice to taste

Combine and shake with ice in a shaker.

Experiment #2: Wheatgrass latte

Since the Wheatgrass-tini wasn't very tasty, I brainstormed on other options. Wheatgrass juice tastes like....10M concentration of green tea and grass. That would be the best way to describe it. With that in mind, I thought of yummy drinks that can be made from green tea/matcha. Then a light bulb went lit up....how about a latte?? It's really easy--just dilute wheatgrass juice with milk or cream to taste, just like you would coffee, then add sugar, again, to taste. The result? OMGoodness. It was actually delicious! I could chug this no problem. The dairy and the sugar tamed the sharply bitter taste of the wheatgrass very well.