A hot cup of tea or coffee keeps you warm on cold days, but in the summer it's a whole different story. What if we told you that you could make your own favourite beverage to keep you cool and refreshed even on the hottest summer days? Here are Pay Chen's tips and ideas for making delicious cold drinks at home without all the fuss! ICED TEA This is super easy to make, cheaper than buying in the store, plus you are able to control the sugar content by adding only natural fruits and flavours! Pay’s tips:

• Brew your tea stronger than you would drink it hot. Use more tea instead of letting it brew longer (letting it brew longer can make it bitter).
• Add sugar to the tea when it’s hot so that it dissolves – it will be grainy if you try to add sugar when the tea is cold. Or make a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar) to sweeten your cold tea.
• Use your favourite loose leaf tea or tea bags and enjoy!

TEA SMOOTHIE Smoothies are a quick go-to breakfast or refreshing drink that are great for kids, too! Pay’s tips:

• Mix it up by using your favourite green tea or fruity tea.
• Use seasonal fresh fruits, or frozen berries for a quick, frothy drink.

COLD COFFEE No need to spend $5 on your favourite iced coffee! Save yourself the dough by simply making your own! There are tons of ways to mix it up just the way you like. Pay’s tips:

• Pour coffee into ice cubes and add that to milk or iced coffee for added flavour.
• Remember to keep your coffee strong because ice will water it down (or use coffee ice cubes!).

For more of Pay's great tips, check out her video demonstration below! [embed]bcid:3693020806001[/embed] Courtesy Pay Chen  www.paychen.com @PayChen

When Jeni Britton Bauer sets out to create a new ice cream flavour, she often begins with a classic and then adds a touch of the unexpected. Think caramelized honey and smoky, toasted cumin. The richest chocolate with spicy rye whiskey. Or tropical mango playing against salty, nutty Manchego. The woman behind Ohio treasure Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and the James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams At Home (2011), has just released her second book, focused on ice cream-centric desserts. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts tempts with ice cream layer cakes, ice cream bars and sandwiches, decadent sundaes, fruity tarts, toppings, plus more than 50 new and uniquely-Jeni ice cream and frozen yogurt recipes – everything you need to recreate the ice cream maven’s treats in your own home. “Every flavour starts on paper,” Britton Bauer tells Cityline.ca. “It has to sound good. I have a flavour memory, because I’ve been working in ice cream for 18 years, but even before that, I worked in scent [blending essential oils into perfume]. I can draw up a scent the same way I can draw up a colour in my mind. So I put things on paper first to see if it works there, and then we try it, and perhaps try three different versions of it, and it goes from there.” Britton Bauer says the recipes in the books are exactly what you’d get in any one of her 15 scoop shops (or the more than 1,000 retailers across the U.S. that sell Jeni’s ice creams): “That’s my goal, and I think all chefs should have that goal. If you’re making Thomas Keller’s gazpacho, it should be exactly like his gazpacho. Keeping the home kitchen in mind is important to me.” That said, she encourages freestyling, especially when it comes to the new book. Sundaes, cakes and sandwiches can be switched up to include a huge variety of flavours. One recipe, for a classic yellow cake – the Lady Cake – is alternately left whole in a layer cake, crumbled into an ice cream base, and mixed up with beets for a version that’s a gorgeous shade of pink. “[It’s] something like carrot cake, only with pink beets, which is a lot more interesting,” she says. “You can use the same spices, or I would use cardamom, and add walnuts in there. It’s changing one or two things but relying on the foundational recipes first.” Britton Bauer also indicates when recipes are (or can be made) gluten-free, and there are a selection of dairy-free ice creams as well, including Salty Caramel Crème Sans Lait, a dairy-free version of the flavour that made her famous. She notes that there’s a collective feeling in the Jeni’s kitchen when a flavour works. “It does hit you in a specific way,” she says. “We did birch and marshmallow last year. It was part of a forest collection – we did birch, maple, cedarwood and vanilla. The birch and marshmallow was familiar, and yet new. It has to be a bit of both. It was deeply familiar, sort of like the top of a root beer float – with a creaminess and fluffiness. But then it’s brand new, because it’s not root beer, it’s birch. It’s cooling and menthol. You kind of know when you’ve hit it.” One of Britton Bauer’s favourite recipes from the past couple years, included in the new book, is Absinthe & Meringue ice cream. She created it for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and BalletMet’s production of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring on the composition’s 100th anniversary. “I was reading a ton of Fitzgerald and also reading about Coco Chanel, who happened to be at [the composition’s controversial debut in Paris, 1913]. It was perfect timing. So we did this partnership with the Symphony, and it was great,” she enthuses. “The flavour was all about how the bohemian class clashed with the upper class. The bohemian class thought [the symphony] was wonderful, and the upper class thought it was horrible. So I made an absinthe ice cream to represent the free spirit, the idea of moving forward. And I added meringue kisses [to represent the upper class], which were meticulously hand-piped, and dried for several hours and baked for several hours. If it’s too humid they don’t work. There are so many rules, and you have to follow them exactly. But you add them to the absinthe ice cream and after two or three hours they’re just crushed, and they leave these little sugary voids. I thought it was a perfect way to describe it – the free spirits won.” Ready to try your hand at one of Jeni's flavours? Here's her best advice for making crave-worthy frozen treats: 1. "The most common pitfall is not having the canister frozen long enough, or not letting your base get cold enough. Your base has to be at refrigerator temperature, or below, and the way of getting it below is with an ice bath, heavy on the ice." 2. "Then, if you’re sure both are very cold, make sure you let [the ice cream churn] long enough that you can get a bit of air in it. You can let it go for quite a while. You do need to get some air in the ice cream, so that when you scoop it, you get that feathered look, which you want. You don’t want it to be too dense, otherwise it ends up tasting more like frosting." 3. "In flavour development, I’d start with the classic vanilla and add one thing. I’ve seen it where there’s too much going on, and then it gets cluttered." Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts is now available in stores and online.

A drunken dark chocolate, with notes of caraway. Dark chocolate & rye whiskey ice cream Makes about 1 quart Chocolate paste: 1/2 cup brewed coffee (any temperature) 1/4 cup sugar 2/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder 1 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped Ice cream base: 2 2/3 cups whole milk 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch 2 ounces (4 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 3/4 cup sugar 3 tablespoons light corn syrup 3 tablespoons caraway seeds, lightly crushed 1/2 cup rye whiskey Advance Prep: For the chocolate paste: Combine the coffee, sugar, and cocoa in a small saucepan, bring to a boil over medium heat, and boil for 30 seconds, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Let stand for a few minutes, then stir until very smooth. Prep:  Mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese, warm chocolate paste, and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice and water. Cook: Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, and corn syrup in a 4-quart saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the caraway seeds and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat. Chill: Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese mixture until smooth. Stir in the whiskey. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes. Freeze:  Remove the frozen canister from the freezer, assemble your ice cream machine, and turn it on. Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and spin until thick and creamy. Pack the ice cream into a storage container. Press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours. Excerpted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts by Jeni Britton Bauer (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2014. Photographs by Kelsey McClellan.

Whether it's a sunny lunchtime picnic in the park or a balmy evening meal in the backyard, we love eating al fresco in the summertime -- especially with friends! And because nobody likes to do a lot of cooking prep in the summertime, you can share the load by having a potluck meal where everyone brings a dish to share. Not sure what to make? We've got you covered with our top potluck mains, sides, desserts, and drinks that are all portable, share-able, and totally delicious. Mains: Niçoise muffuletta sandwiches Cold poached lemon dill salmon World's finest double-fried chicken Tarragon chicken sandwich with red grapes Sides: Cold asparagus with Mairlyn’s world-famous lime sauce Cucumber-potato salad Fresh basil and tomato orzo salad with parmesan  Crudités jars with Moroccan hummus Salads on sticks Corn, black bean and mango fandango salad Raspberry salsa Mixed bean salad Blueberry quinoa salad Three fresh fruit salsas Kimchi slaw Herbed couscous, goat cheese & heirloom tomato salad Cherry-onion bruschetta Salad rolls Desserts: No-bake peach and almond tartlets Summer berry cupcakes Pimm's cup jellies Chocolate zucchini brownies The ultimate chocolate-chip cookie Blueberry & oats for dessert Mini jumbleberry pies Drinks: Raspberry watermelon lemonade Old fashioned iced black tea Coconut water and pineapple Trio of lemonades White Zinfandel strawberry sangria What's your go-to potluck recipe? We'd love to hear about your faves -- let us know in the comments!

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself laughing out loud when reading Tom Mylan’s gorgeous and wacky tribute to meat, The Meat Hook Meat Book. One part butchery lesson, one part cookbook, one part sheer hilarity, Mylan admits he wanted his book to be more than your typical recipe-filled cookbook. He wanted it to tell the story of the Brooklyn-based butcher shop he helped open in 2009. "[The book] ended up being much different than I originally thought it was going to be, but I’m really proud of it. I think it’s a really weird, awesome book. I'm not just saying that because I wrote it -- writing it is just 25 per cent of the work. Shooting, designing, and editing it is really [the bulk of it]," Mylan explained to Cityline.ca in a recent phone interview. "I was inspired by great cookbooks like the Au Pied De Cochon cookbook, from the great restaurant in Montreal. They designed it themselves, because they couldn’t get a book deal. Cookbooks that are zany … do they work less like a cookbook? Yeah they do, and that can be good or bad, but I think good, because they’re visually stimulating and they give you a sense of what it’s like to actually be [at the store or restaurant] and what the energy is like. I think it’s important to communicate that enthusiasm." Mylan and two other butchers -- Brent Young and Ben Turley -- opened The Meat Hook after seeing increased consumer interest in where their meat was coming from. The three had previously worked together at Marlow & Daughters, another locally-sourced butcher shop in New York City, and decided there was enough demand to justify striking out on their own. The Meat Hook has quickly become a Brooklyn institution. When asked to describe the shop, Mylan says, "I think what makes it so exciting is that it’s not like your typical job where you’re doing the same thing every day. You never really know what you’re going to end up doing that day … what thing needs to be handled or what project somebody’s going to give you, like 'Figure out something to do with all these pig heads!'" Along with the history of the shop, The Meat Hook Meat Book contains lessons on: butchering your own meat, making sausage, recognizing the various cuts, and how to expand your cooking repertoire to include some of the lesser-known -- but often tastier and cheaper -- cuts. "A great place to start is with the beef off cuts. Beef tongue steaks are these delicious, tiny little steaks," he says. "The thing about tongue is that it’s really well marbled -- people pay hundreds of dollars for Wagyu or Kobe beef because it’s well marbled. Tongue is like that, but it only costs you a few dollars a pound, if you can find it. It’s got a lot of fat, it’s great to grill. It just tastes like a delicious steak." Not into beef tongue? How about beef heart? Mylan can’t recommend it highly enough: "[The beef heart’s] not quite as easy -- you have to trim the sinew off and marinate it for 24 hours. Once you’ve grilled it, it’s one of the best steaks you’ll ever have. It’s like steak, but the flavour is a lot more profound because it’s a much different type of muscle." There are recipes for both in the book, along with dozens more, including Dinosaur Ribs, Garlic Sausage (as well as a sausage-making lesson), and something called 'The Man Steak.' (A 3-5 pound pinbone sirloin, if you’re curious.) The butcher notes that his own approach to cooking meat has evolved over the years. "If you had asked me ten years ago how I wanted my steak done, I’d say totally rare," he says. "Now, I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation into what actually has better flavour. Certain types of steak are better at different temperatures. A rib-eye is actually better, to me, when it’s cooked medium. Most people who are foodies would be like, ‘Oh my God, you’re murdering it.’ But a rib-eye, especially a grass-fed rib-eye … if you get one of those and it’s rare, it’s really hard to eat because the connective tissue hasn’t had a chance to firm up. It’s a bad eating experience. If the fat doesn’t get a chance to render, you can’t eat it." Mylan hopes that the book, and lessons contained within, will help people to challenge their own perceptions of what to cook and how to cook it. "There are different boneless steaks that are exploding out of everywhere. The blade steak, the flat iron, that stuff is actually better rare. If they’re lean and relatively thin, they’re better rare," he notes. "That’s part of the point of the book is to get you to think, 'Steak isn’t just steak.' Every cut has a different methodology and way that you want to approach it as far as cooking it to its best. That’s part of the revelation of learning to think like a butcher." The Meat Hook Meat Book is now available in stores and online. Photograph by Michael Harlan Turkell