So I realize that I’ve been very food-focused recently and haven’t posted much about fitness. That’s because there’s nothing to post. After running the half-marathon, my life turned into a whirlwind of wedding, moving, and starting school and my exercise has dwindled to zero. I suck, people! I don’t know what happened! Anyway, I’ll come up with some brilliant plan soon and tell you aaaaaall about it.

In the meantime, here’s another Wiggs Original that – if made – will change your life. I am so awesome sometimes it hurts.

I call it…

Pineapple Cucumber Agua Fresca.

I know you’re intimidated by the overwhelmingly creative name. Me too. (I’m sort of ashamed I couldn’t come up with something more clever. Pineumber Juice? Cukapplesca? Yeah. I’ve got nothing.)

And, okay, while we’re being candid here I should admit that this isn’t a Wiggs-Original in its conception. I had pineapple cucumber agua fresca over lunch with a lovely friend at Xoco, Rick Bayless’s new restaurant here in Chicago. But I couldn’t find a recipe, so I figured it out on my own. First things first, though: the ingreeds.

• 1 pineapple
• 1 cucumber
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 9 cups water
• A blender and a fine mesh strainer (I know these aren’t ingreeds, but I hate reading whole recipes only to discover that I don’t have one of the pieces of equipment needed)

So I won’t lie: pineapples are sort of annoying to work with. And woe be to the fool who plunges her hand into a pile of chopped pineapple when she’s sporting a hangnail. That shizz will burn like an STD. But friends, TRUST me – I am a patently lazy person and the effort was all worth it. Yes, this is a drink that takes 30 minutes to make and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Step 1: Put 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of water and bring to a boil on the stove. When all of the sugar is dissolved, remove from the heat and set aside. Congratulations, mofo! You’ve just made simple syrup!

Step 2: Put on some sort of hand protection (I used oven mitts but you could use some chain-mail gloves or alligator-skin mittens if you have a pair laying around). Twist the top of the pineapple off, which will be surprisingly easy to do, and cut the fruit into eighths. My pineapple conveniently came with instructions, so I’ll let Dole take it from here:

Like I said above, I cut mine into eighths – it was easier to cut off the skin without wasting a bunch of meat.

Step 3: Peel the cucumber and slice it in half lengthwise. Use a spoon to scrape the seeds out into the trashcan, but don’t accidentally drop your cucumber into the trash and then get it out and rinse off the dust and hair from when you swept the floor earlier. And you don’t have to be anal retentive about getting all of the seeds, since we’ll be straining the ever-loving life outta the cucumber later.

Step 4: Dump all of that crap, plus the simple syrup, into your blender. If it doesn’t all fit, you need to reevaluate your choice in blenders (not really, just do two batches and combine them in the next step). Hit liquefy and let ‘er rip.

If you MUST, add enough water to ensure that everything is liquefied – but try your hardest to keep this to a minimum.

Frustrated photography note: if I had a nice camera, I would have taken blender pictures like the ones in this amazing recipe. Instead, you get photos of my blender clearly sitting on my floor because that’s where the light was best. [shaking fist at the heavens] “WHY GOD?! WHYYYYYYYYYYYY???”

Ahem. Sorry. Step 5: strain the mixture into a large bowl (or your drink jug/pitcher if it holds 12 or more cups). I started with my uber-fine mesh strainer, got impatient, and switched to my mesh colander. If the word “mesh” has never entered your kitchen vocabulary, you can use cheesecloth. Actually, if “mesh” isn’t in your lexicon then “cheesecloth” DEFinitely won’t be. Use a woven kitchen towel draped over a bowl. Make sure you give it a good squeeze, though, to get all of the juice out.

That bowl of sludge to the right is what was leftover after straining. A little tip: throw it away before your husband sees it. Otherwise you’ll have to stick the pulp into the freezer and watch him attempt to choke it down, pineapple skin particles and all, later that evening. Another thing to note: the mixture immediately after blending will be very foamy (you can see that above). If you want to save yourself some hands-on time, you could let the bubbles die down for 30 minutes before straining.

Step 6: stir in the remaining cups of water. Taste for sweetness and add sugar or water until you want to die with deliciocity.

Serve as cold as possible, over ice. If you don’t drink all of it immediately (in which case, what’s wrong with you?) make sure you stir it before pouring.

And, yes, you can definitely make this with Splenda, or agave nectar, or any other sort of sweetener. I know many of you are against chemically processed food, and more power to you, but in my opinion Splenda (used in moderation when you’re not pregs) is a fine way to cut some calories. Let the commentroversy begin.

Agua fresca, previously: melon at Smitten Kitchen, watermelon lime at Culinerapy, cucumber/mint, strawberry/rosemary, and watermelon/basil at Furey and the Feast, mango at Whole Foods, and Jamaica at Recipes by Leslie.