4. Use chopsticks or long-handled tweezers to insert 1 to 2 teaspoons of your choice of halo-halo fixings into your plastic bags or ice pop molds. Again, the more fixings you add, the sweeter the overall ice candy will be.
5. Using the funnel, pour the milk mixture into the plastic bags or ice pop molds. Make sure to leave room for the mixture to expand in the freezer, about two-thirds of the way. If using the bags, either twist tie or zip them closed.
6. Lay the bags or molds flat in the freezer and allow to freeze at least 6 hours or overnight.
7. Enjoy!
Adeena’s Brew-ha #1 （aka The Lila Special）
The Brew-ha #1 is an extra-refreshing spin on iced coffee, diluted with coconut water instead of plain water. It’s perfect for those blazing hot days when you could use some extra electrolytes. A baller move—and the way my protagonist, Lila, prefers her drink—is to use both coconut water and coconut milk for a naturally sweetened, lactose-free, and vegan-approved beverage.
YIELD: ROUGHLY 3 CUPS OF CONCENTRATE
Ingredients:
5 to 10 pandan leaves （depending on length）， well rinsed 4 cups filtered water
1 cup coarse ground coffee
Coconut water （can be replaced with plain filtered water） Coconut milk
DIRECTIONS:
1. Blend the pandan leaves with the water, then mix with the ground coffee in a lidded container. Stir so that the grounds are fully saturated.
2. Cover the container and steep for 24 hours at room temperature, then another 24 hours in the fridge.
3. Using a fine mesh strainer or colander lined with coffee filters or cheesecloth, carefully strain the mixture into a clean pitcher or container, pressing down on the grounds and leaves to extract as much liquid as possible. Feel free to strain it a second time for a more grit-free mixture.
4. Now you have pandan cold brew concentrate to use however you like!
5. However, we’re making the Brew-ha #1, so fill a glass with ice （if making the iced version） and add the cold brew concentrate, coconut water, and coconut milk in a 1:1:1 ratio. Stir and enjoy!
6. If you’d prefer it hot, heat the concentrate and coconut water together until steaming and pour into a mug. Steam and froth the coconut milk and pour on top, in a fancy pattern if you so please.
Keep reading for a special preview of
Blackmail and Bibingka
Coming soon from Berkley Prime Crime!
Chapter One
Adeena, can you please shut that off? If I have to listen to that Mariah Carey song one more time . . .”
I scratched out the third mistake I’d made while trying to finalize the menu for the annual Shady Palms Holiday Bash. It tied with the Founder’s Day Festival as the biggest event in my tiny town of Shady Palms, Illinois （population 18,751）， and this was the first year my business—my dream—the Brew-ha Cafe would be participating. Considering what a mess the Founder’s Day Festival had turned out to be, I really needed to wow at this party. Despite obsessing over it for the past month, I had less than two weeks till the big party and hadn’t finalized anything.
My best friend and business partner, Adeena Awan, turned the cafe’s speaker system down to a decibel that didn’t make my ears bleed. “Way to be a humbug, Lila. Ms. Mariah cannot and will not be silenced. Her lambs will make sure of it.”
“Hon, you don’t even celebrate Christmas. Why do you have all of these?” Elena Torres, Adeena’s girlfriend and the third and final member of the Brew-ha Cafe crew （aka our voice of reason）， scrolled through the cafe’s playlist on Adeena’s laptop. It currently had no fewer than ten Christmas music compilations that she’d had on repeat since December first. It was only December fourth, and I was ready to ban her from programming the shop’s playlists ever again.
Elena raised her eyebrows at the mix of both religious and secular Christmas songs. “Were you secretly raised in an intensely Catholic family like me and Lila? Because this is a lot.”
Adeena laughed and handed Elena her morning cup of yerba buena tea. “No, I just like the music. It started as me being rebellious as a kid. Well, as rebellious as you could be in my house. You didn’t grow up here, but Shady Palms has a pretty big Muslim and Jewish population, so it was really easy to keep Christmas out of schools. But there were still all the commercials and Christmas specials on TV, so I got kind of obsessed with the holiday. I’m mostly over it now, but I still love the music and movies. And also the parties because Lila’s family goes all in on the holiday.”
Despite my “humbug” response, as Adeena put it, I really did love the holidays. The food, the parties, the gifts, the karaoke, the fantastically cheesy and comfortingly predictable holiday romance movies . . . What wasn’t to love? Though I was finding it hard to get into the holiday spirit ever since my long-lost cousin Ronnie came back into our lives a few days ago. Fifteen years of nothing, only for the prodigal son to show up on our doorstep like nothing had happened, saying he’d bought a winery just outside of town and would be staying in Shady Palms for the foreseeable future.