What could be less labor-intensive than making ice? Just about nothing, so why not chill out this Labor Day and do just that?

If you haven't experimented with flavored ice cubes, you're missing an easy accent that creates a memorable touch for thirsty summer guests. When it comes to your meal, bring in the take-out or serve up prepared foods, but top off beverages with these slippery saviors; you will have excellence with virtually no effort.

In these cost-conscious times, not only is ice the way to go for low-labor recipes, but low-cost ones as well. A discussion, for instance, took place about this hot topic on the penny-pinching website Thrifty Fun (http://www.thriftyfun.com). Frugal fun-seekers even reminded each other that extra cubes could be bagged and saved for future festivities.

You can even save money on liquor. Instead of having an unlimited flowing bar, freeze up cubes of sangria or other wines and spirits to infuse flavor into lemon-lime clear sodas or ginger ale for adult guests.

Grab a few ice cube trays. Plain ones are fine, or you can even find specialty ice trays, which freeze liquid in the shape of letters, hearts or circles, at gourmet and home stores.

Start with either water as a base or a puree of ingredients. To water, consider adding edible lavender, lemon slices, mint leaves or fresh berries before freezing, as "Tea Party" (Clarkson Potter, $27.50) author/event planner Tracy Stern does for her top clients.

Alternately, you can blend a batch of ice cubes. Watermelon-Mint ones were featured in Relish Magazine (http://www.relishmag.com) from a camp that serves them at events every summer. Seeded, diced watermelon, water, honey, sugar and fresh lemon juice (use all to taste) are pureed until smooth. Place fresh mint leaves in ice trays, pour the mixture over them and freeze.

Flavored ice cubes give you the opportunity to double your beverage flavor. Make one quick favorite summer beverage for the cubes and then plop them in another compatible beverage. This is a much better trick, too, than just having plain water ice cubes melting in your party drinks and diluting them. A refreshing iced tea-apple juice punch recipe from "The Cowgirl's Cookbook: Recipes for Your Home on the Range" (Two Dot, $9.95) is one of my favorites to freeze and use as a topper for lemonade.

You don't even have to go to the trouble of making a beverage yourself, though. Get take-out iced coffee or Thai iced tea — highly flavorful and creamy due to sugar and the combination of both condensed milk and evaporated or whole milk that is usually used. Divide the beverages into ice cube trays, perhaps adding a dash of ground cinnamon. The iced coffee cubes are especially great toppers for root beer, and the Thai iced tea bricks perk up iced green or herbal teas.

Finally, if you want to make a really big splash with a big cube, consider an easy and homemade ice bucket made from real ice. It's a fruit-filled frozen carton that serves as a dazzling "low-labor" Labor Day centerpiece/ice sculpture; it also keeps your bottled beverage refreshingly cold. Give it a try.

FROZEN ICE BUCKET CENTERPIECE

1 bottle vodka, or your favorite alcoholic or non-alcoholic bottled beverage

1 empty, washed 32-ounce milk or juice carton, with top cut off

Water to fill carton

About 2 cups grapes or mixed citrus fruit slices (oranges, limes and lemons)

6 sprigs fresh green herbs

Yields 1 frozen ice bucket for centerpiece and bottled beverage cooling.

Place the vodka bottle in the empty milk or juice carton. Fill the carton around the bottle (leaving neck of bottle sticking out) with a combination of water, grapes or citrus slices and herbs.

Freeze until totally solid, and then remove the carton. Place the bucket on your bar table or center of your dining table on a white or silver plate, which is deep enough to catch the liquid as it melts.

—"Tea Party: 20 Themed Tea Parties with Recipes for Every Occasion, from Fabulous Showers to Intimate Gatherings" by Tracy Stern with Christie Matheson (Clarkson Potter, $27.50).

ICED TEA-APPLE JUICE PUNCH ICE CUBES

1 1/2 lemons

2 cups very strong brewed and chilled iced tea

2 cups chilled apple juice

2 cups unsweetened pineapple juice

1-liter bottle club soda

Yields about 48 ice cubes.

Slice lemons thin and then quarter each slice. Set aside.

In a pitcher, combine the remaining ingredients; stir well. Place lemon slices in ice cube trays. Pour punch into ice cube trays. Freeze. Good served as ice cubes in lemonade.

— Adapted from "The Cowgirl's Cookbook: Recipes for Your Home on the Range" by Jill Charlotte Stanford (Two Dot, $9.95)

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "Cooks' Books" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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