A Paleo Twist on a Classic Fountain Drink

I’m from Long Strong Island – the Mecca of small, silver-bullet diners. Most are open 24 hours per day, owned by Greek families, and serve the same. exact. food. You can get an omelet at midnight, a banana split at 6am, and a slice of apple pie for lunch, if you so please.

My usual go-to meal at a diner would be a grilled cheese sandwich and a vanilla egg cream, the latter of which my father introduced me to when I was a kid. At that time, I never cared what was in an egg cream (I honestly assumed there was egg in it) – all I knew was that it was freaking delicious; however, the basic ingredients are…

• seltzer
• syrup (usually chocolate)
• 2% milk or cream

Basically, they get combined in a glass. Stupidly simple. You know it’s a good egg cream if it gets a nice foamy head on top. (See the Wikipedia article for an awesome photo of it!)

Well, I hadn’t had an egg cream in who-knows-how-long before finally discovering my new favorite restaurant (which, though not owned by a Greek family nor open 24/7, happens to be a silver-bullet-style diner). I fell in love all over again! It’s not a paleo-friendly food (pasteurized reduced-fat milk + syrup), but now that I’m trying to determine my ratio (paleo:non-paleo), I’m back to the drawing board with creating yummy recipes for things I enjoy.

Enter the paleo egg cream, version 1, with a surprising little twist!

BLUEBERRY-COCONUT EGG CREAM
Makes one egg cream

• 1/3 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract, or 1/4 of a vanilla bean’s worth of seeds
• 3/4 cup seltzer, sparkling water, or whatever you want to call it

Using a fine-meshed sieve, squish the blueberries, letting the liquid drip into a glass. Keep on squishing until every last bit is in the glass (minus the skins, of course!), remembering to scrape the underside of the sieve as well. Discard the skins.

Add the coconut milk and vanilla to the glass, whisking thoroughly until completely combined. Add the seltzer and stir with a spoon to combine. Serve immediately.

Yeah, yeah, mine didn’t have a head on it, but I used the last bit of my seltzer that was originally opened 3 days ago, so it was a little flat. If you use good, brand-spanking-new seltzer, you will have a prettier end result!

The recipe needs a little bit of perfecting, but I really enjoyed the end result. I will definitely make this again and will try some other additions to it (different berries, maybe some coconut flakes… who knows!).

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