What To Do When Not Enough People Drank The Kool-Aid

     One of the most common drinks in churches is some type of Kool-Aid like soft drink. You can make a punch out of it by adding any fruit juice, sorbet, or soda pop. The addition of dried, fresh or canned fruit makes it even more special, as will the addition of a cup or two more water and any type of gelatin dessert powder (which is a good save if you've run out of the powder and need more drink made up in a hurry.) If you want to make a milk punch, you can add gelatin powder or drink mix to milk, which children really like. Good fruits to add are any of the citrus family, except for the bitter grapefruit. Be careful adding small fruit, like grapes, which can pose a choking hazard. Bananas are just gross. Likewise raisins. Okay, now that we've solved the issue of having enough to drink, what do we do if there is leftover Kool-Aid?

Mixed Up Liquid Drink
    You can always make ice cubes. Nice, but boring. What is more fun is adding more sugar, boiling it down until syrupy and add pectin to it to make jelly. (freezer jelly, not the canning type) Or, boil it down by half or until syrupy, with cored and peeled pears or apples in it to make poached fruit. (The leftover syrup from this is Delicious on pancakes, waffles or sno-cones!) Then again, in the case of red, orange or grape Kool-Aid, you can boil it down by half or until syrupy, add fifty percent plum jam, fruited ham sauce, cranberry sauce or jelly and a splash or two of white vinegar and chicken stock and make a wonderful sweet and sour sauce for chicken or pork. To take this a step further, you can add tomato sauce or catsup to it and make a very nice barbecue sauce.  If it isn't syrupy enough, you'll probably have to add some cornstarch to thicken.
If your church is blessed with a good blender, you can always use the ice cubed drink to make smoothies, if you have some extra bananas or such.
     In the case of the lemon, orange or lime flavors, you can boil these down by fifty percent or until syrupy, add them to similarly flavored gelatins, jams or jellies in a two to one ratio, (two cups liquid to one pack of flavored gelatin) freeze them and make a nice sorbet-with the addition of strawberries or other type of fruit, these are delicious. This works also if you have made a milk-type punch and you have some left over-freeze it, mix it with the gelatin or jelly, scrape it with a fork, and you have a lovely dessert. It melts quickly, so dish it up right at serving time.
     If your church is blessed with an abundance of bread, chop it, mix up the drink with some milk, eggs and extra sugar (if needed) and bake up a flavored bread pudding.

Drink Mix Powder, Unsweetened
     You can add a packet of orange, lemon or lime to pre-sweetened tea, or hot apple cider.  You may need to add a little sugar to the cider, if it is especially sour.
     
     Mix a packet of drink mix, a cup of sugar, and any sort of chopped fruit or berries to make the base for any fruit cobbler or pie, such as apple.

Powdered, Sugared and Un-  

     You can cook two cups of sugar and water to the hard-crack stage and flavor it with a packet of drink mix-any flavor will do. Likewise, you can use the pre-sugared variety for this-you may need to adjust the water a bit, though. One cup of water may do, where you would definitely need more water and sugar for the flavored packet alone.

Some Savory Uses As Well 

     Remember, the lemon powder in the small packets is still in its sour stage, so you can use it to flavor lemon filling for lemon pie, lemon sauce for chicken ( with chicken stock and either reducing it or thickening it with cornstarch) or for adding to plain gelatin, chopped chicken and assorted vegetables to make a sort of chicken aspic salad. A half-teaspoon of the lemon drink packet makes a lovely flavoring for any quiche, chicken salad or chicken soup, and you can mix it with pepper and garlic to season fish or chicken before baking, or when poaching as an ingredient the poaching liquid plus stock. Just remember, when using the actual powder, that a little goes a long way. Its concentrated mojo must be contained! Remember to always TASTE TASTE TASTE and adjust the seasonings as you go. What it tastes like before reducing the liquid is a mere shadow of its intensity after boilage. Taste again!

Craft and Other Uses

      Drink mix powder can be used to color sugar for topping cupcakes, coloring homemade clay, use with water to make watercolor paints (that smell good!) and rubbed into your hair to temporarily dye your hair! You can also use it with cider vinegar to color Easter eggs!