How To Make Italian Sodas

One of my favorite drinks to serve at parties are Italian Sodas. They're easy to make and a nice alternative to traditional soda. My Grandmother would often serve these drinks when she had friends and family over. She taught me how to make the Italian Sodas and I've been making them ever since.

Italian Soda Recipe

Ingredients:
Flavored syrup - any kind will do
Club Soda - If you can't find club soda or seltzer water you can replace it with sparkling water. But honestly, it's not the same.
Ice
Cream or Half & Half

Traditionally, Italian sodas are served in tall narrow glasses. Fill glass with ice.

Add one inch of syrup to the glass.

Fill glass with club soda. Make sure to leave room for cream.

Add about half an inch of cream to the glass. Adding cream is optional but I found it's what really separates the drink from just flavored soda. The cream make the drink more unique.

To mix the drink take the straw and push the ice from the top to the bottom, moving the straw up and down. If you just stir the drink the syrup will sit at the bottom and not get mixed in (providing you're using a narrow glass). That's it, enjoy!

Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

As I had promised, here's the recipe for the Spinach Salad that I served at the Tinkerbell birthday party. As you can see from the picture, I actually used a spring lettuce mix but the original recipe calls for spinach. Both spinach and spring mix taste equally good.

Ingredients:
1 Salad bag of spinach or spring mix

1 Avocado Sliced

Caramelized Almonds - Place 3T of almonds and 3T of sugar in small frying pan. Heat on low until sugar melts and sticks to almonds.

1 Large can of Mandarin oranges

Poppy Seed Dressing

3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp dried onion
1 cup of oil
1 Tbs poppy seeds

1. Place all of dressing ingredients in a jar and shake well. Set aside.

2. Mix all salad ingredients together except almonds.

3. Add dressing to taste.

4. Add almonds and mix together. Enjoy!