Every year for the last seven I’ve made a fabulous frozen punch for our church open house. It’s a grand recipe I got from a friend years ago but it is extremely time intensive. I borrow a large stock pot from the church every year to make it…. you dissolve stuff and add a million ingredients and then pour up into a thousand ice trays because I quadruple the recipe. I’ve never minded making it but this year I seemed to be running behind.
This past Friday I was walking out of Mom’s In Prayer and my friend and I were talking about our plans for that day. I told her about the punch I was about to make. She looked at me and said, “Why do you do that?” I was all like, “Uhh well I think it’s because….” She stopped me and said with all seriousness in her voice, “You need to stop that and make a different punch recipe. Here’s a great one…..” And she gave me the equivalent of a fabulous punch that cost half the price and takes about 75% less time to make! I took that permission and ran all the way to the grocery store to purchase my newly discovered, two-ingredient punch.
My friend assured me that once I made this punch I’d never go back. And she’s totally right! We lapped up every ounce of four rounds of the Christmas punch and I will never go back because it was so good.
Sophie and her friend did a great job seeing punch. They graduated from last year which was staying their punch post for a whopping 20 minutes before getting bored and ditching the punch bowl to go play nerf guns upstairs. This year I reminded them they were older and could stay longer. And they did a good job of serving punch for an hour before I released them. You should’ve seen them bolt. The next thing I knew Sophie had on her muck boots and a school sweatshirt (over her dress mind you) throwing snowballs at the boys outside. No really.
You’ll notice there’s not one ounce of greenery to decorate the punch bowl which is slightly disappointing but I flat out ran out of time not to mention there was snow covering all my greenery outside so it just didn’t happen this year. But the good news is that we all lived even though the punch bowl wasn’t decorated. My Mom might not have lived through it if she was here because she’s the queen of decorating and would’ve found something green to put on that punch table.
So here’s your new easy punch recipe that the whole world quite possibly already knows about. I’m typically about ten years behind on a good day. But if I have a soul mate out there that is equally behind you’ll be glad to know about this punch recipe that will save you lots of time and still produce a good punch your guests will enjoy.
Punch (1) 2 litre cheer wine; (1) can of pineapple juice.
Mix together. You can freeze the pineapple juice to make it slushy. Just pull out a bit before serving.
No really. I’m not kidding. That’s all.
Oh well there is the ice ring should you choose to use.
The ice ring: Mix a packet of lemon-lime Kool Aide according to directions on back and pour in a jello mold then add a few cherries to make it look like a wreath. Mine didn’t keep the green color though. As soon as I put it in the punch the whole thing turned red. I had to chip at it to make the green show up.
My friend who gave me the recipe showed up to the open house and we were talking by the punch bowl. I was waxing not so eloquently about the process of making the punch and how much I loved the recipe but that my ice ring wreath wasn’t green and the whole time I’m chipping away at the ice ring with the ladle to unveil the green underneath. She’s still standing there the minutes later patiently waiting for a cup of punch. Finally I realized the mesmerized state I had put myself into and said, “Oh my word, you’re waiting on punch. So sorry!”
My 11 year old did a better job of serving the punch than I did.
I’m so thankful my friend freed me from my seven year punch bondage and that she waited ever so patiently for a cup. Maybe it was worth the seven year wait.
Go make yourself some punch friends! I’m toasting to you as I type.
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