Delicious drinks
Posted by Lauren on 24 Apr 2008 at 04:00 pm | Tagged as: comestibles
Late last summer, we bought half a flat each of blackberries and strawberries at the farmers’ market, and zipped them up with our handy FoodSaver and froze them. I’m on a clean-out-the-freezer kick lately, combined with a don’t-waste-food-from-the-CSA project, and it has led me to get creative with fruit. The delivery box includes pears, which I am not very good about eating fresh, and Mark Bittman suggested a clafoutis. I didn’t have quite enough fruit the first time, so I dumped in a couple cups of blackberries from the freezer. I didn’t drain them, so it was soupy, but delicious. The next time the pears piled up, I thawed and drained the berries before putting them in. This time I saved the juice and used it to make simple syrup, which is not even work a full-fledged recipe — equal parts liquid and sugar; simmer until sugar is dissolved. I used the blackberry juice and some water to total 2 cups. It turns out to make a very delicious Italian-soda-like drink when mixed with tonic water, soda water, or plain seltzer (is that the same as soda water?).
I also made lemon simple syrup with a few bits of lemon peel when I made lemonade to celebrate the warm weather a few weeks ago. Simple syrup is the cure for gritty lemonade or iced tea or coffee. Sugar won’t fully dissolve in cold drinks, but plain simple syrup in the iced tea/coffee will sweeten evenly and not leave crunchy bits. If you can, put in the syrup and the liquid to mix it with before putting in the ice; the cold makes the syrup thicker and it doesn’t mix quite as well.
I haven’t tried the lemon syrup in an Italian soda yet, but I have put it in a vodka tonic, and it was great.
I’m thinking about getting a seltzer maker so I can make lots of fruit flavors throughout the summer: we have pear, apple, and plum trees, plus blackberries and raspberries, and might get blueberries. Oh, and I’m getting a lemon tree. I thought about getting one of these, but it seemed kind of spendy and big to have on the counter all the time. This one is smaller and cool-looking, but ordering cartridges doesn’t seem to be quite as easy. Seltzer makers in general have been popular on the food blogs lately, to mixed reviews. Does anyone have experience with any of these models?
I. Pears
Poached pears? I’ve never done it, but they are delicious (I eat them at every opportunity), and I’ve read that it’s easy.
II. Water
We like the fizzy around here, and I looked into getting a seltzer maker a while ago. We decided to go with an old-fashioned seltzer-delivery company, but they seem to have whimpered out of business, so we’re back to the marketplace. I remember thinking that the penguin looked like the best option (it has glass bottles instead of plastic, and is an option at the first site you link to). But Cyrus has since found plans for a make-your-own-carbonation machine, and so we’ll see…
Yeah, I keep thinking about poached pears, which is right next to the clafoutis recipe in Bittman, but for some reason never do it. If we truly do have a pear tree here, I’m sure I’ll have plenty experiment with.
The clafoutis is good because the leftovers make a decent breakfast when cold, as well as a good dessert when fresh & hot.
The Penguin is cute and looks awesome, but seemed expensive to me. Building one sounded fun but I am pretty sure we won’t have time for another project until fall/winter. I don’t know. I’m overwhelmed with options. Information overload!