Gooseberry Gin Fizz

One of the best things about having a home garden is that I can grow things that are kind of hard to find in the market. Take gooseberries, for example. They're easy to grow, slightly harder to pick because they have huge thorns, and a total treasure in my yard. Those huge thorns help to keep birds and critters from stealing my bounty... like they did with my cherries this year, grrrrrrrrr...

Rhubarb Vodka Tonic and a Homemade Rhubarb Ginger Liqueur

Rhubarb is an amazing thing to have in your garden.  It comes back bigger and better every year, and the more you use it, the more you will get.  It's one of the first edibles to sprout in the spring, and mine tend to produce well through summer into fall.  The rosy red stalks make me smile, and I love sneaking their aggressively tart flavor into treats of many sorts.

Come springtime this year, my inbox suddenly was filled with rhubarb inspired drinks, and that made me go into mad scientist bartender mode.  I looked at a few and then decided that they weren't quite what I wanted, so I set about making my own Rhubarb Ginger Liqueur.

First off, I chopped up a bunch of rhubarb from my garden, as much as my first harvest held, which was about a pound and a half.  

Then I made a quick simple syrup by heating a half a cup of sugar with a quarter cup of water until the sugar dissolved.  

I took a big jar and put in the rhubarb, the simple syrup, 3 cups of vodka, and a half cup of ginger liqueur.  

Put the lid on, give it a good shake, and let it sit at room temperature, shaking daily, for about 2 weeks, until the rhubarb has released all of its color into the liqueur.

Then I strained it through a fine mesh strainer and bottled it up to store.

But whoops!  It couldn't all fit in the jar I chose, so I had to sample it in a little beverage.

Take the rhubarb ginger liqueur, top it off with some tonic, and BOOM: Rhubarb Vodka Tonic.  I garnished mine with a little rhubarb twist from harvest #2 for the year.

It's tart and sweet and everything that I love about rhubarb, with the smallest hint of ginger to keep things interesting.  And that color...so bright and cheery!

Cheers to spring, my friends!

Decadent Hot Cocoa with Coconut Milk

It's still cold outside.

I am one of those extra-annoying people who love winter.  I love all the seasons, in their own time, but my love for winter seems to especially annoy my friends.  I can't help it.  Snow is like a magical covering that makes everything beautiful and sparkly.  Plus, what better excuse is there to stay in by a fire and eat all the delicious warming foods and drink amazing hot drinks...like hot cocoa!

Hot Buttered Rum - Hot Buttered YUM!

*Warning*
This recipe is full of things that are not great for you in excess that taste delicious together.  I will make no health claims, but I will anecdotally tell you that when I feel myself getting the chills and possibly coming down with something, a hot buttered rum tends to chase it off.  Use judiciously.

In all seriousness, our highs this week are barely in the positive single digits.  The world is covered with a blanket of sparkling icy snow, and school has been cancelled because wind chills today are supposed to hit -30.  So the kids and I are bundling up and heading over to have a no-school playdate with friends.  And, well, mom friends need a little fun and warmth too, so I'm bringing the fixings for hot buttered rum!

An Evening with A Hollow Leg

I recently had an opportunity that I just couldn't pass up.  If you follow From Scratch on Facebook, you might remember that this past summer, I was asking people to vote for a local Chicago drink slinger, Devin Kidner, in Slow Food's Ark of Taste Cocktail Competition.  At that point, I was just happy to be supporting someone who used KOVAL liquor, Seedling cider, Ellis Farms honey, and other local ingredients to make what sounded like a pretty great drink.  Devin contacted me, and we were able to meet up in person.  It didn't take long for me to realize that we shared a lot of the same interests and beliefs about local food, about heritage strains of plants, and about supporting local farmers, and I felt like we could have chatted for days.  Turns out, Devin's drink took first place, earning her a trip to Italy to be a USA delegate at Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto!  And that kicked off a boozy whirlwind of exciting opportunities for her, including being invited to moderate the Speakeasy workshop of Terra Madre, becoming head mixologist at KOVAL distillery, being invited to design drinks for an event in NYC, teaching classes for Rhine Hall (another Chicago distillery) and starting up Hollow Leg.  Hollow Leg is Devin's way of packaging all her passion and knowledge about local drinks and presenting it to people who want to learn.  She offers classes on mixology, some basic and some more in-depth, but all meant to give the students the confidence to experiment with their drinks with Julia Child-like curiosity and conviction.  She has a line of classes called Hep Hops, that focuses on the up-and-coming trend of beer cocktails, and offers services to corporations looking to impress their clients.  She also has what I think is one of the coolest ideas ever: Cocktail Whispering, where she will talk to you, find out a bit about you and what you like to drink, and then design you your own personalized cocktail.  You get to name it and everything!  How cool is that?!?!

Strawsmopolitan and a Splash Party

Do you ever feel like someone pushed the fast forward button on your life?  This summer has been totally like that for me.  I don't know where the time has gone, but I know that it's gone too quickly!

You know what this calls for?

A drink poolside.

Lovely Lavender Lemonade

I love summer evenings, where you can still feel the heat of the day, but it's lost its edge, and you can just sit outside and enjoy being where you are.  There's nothing much better than kicking up my feet in my hammock and watching the kids play around.  Unless, of course, you add in a tasty cool drink.

Today I was inspired by the lavender in my yard.  Lavender lemonade sounds lovely, doesn't it?  Sweet, tart, and floral.  Ooh, and let's kick it up a notch by adding a little gin.  Wink wink.

Strawberry Bonanza Part 5 - Strawberry Gin Fizz

So, remember that roasted strawberry syrup?  No?  Oops, because I haven't posted it yet.  Have to fix that...

So, toss a couple of cups of chopped strawberries with 2-3 Tablespoons of sugar and the seeds of a whole vanilla bean.  Spread them out on a parchment-covered baking sheet with edges, then bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.

Strawberry Bonanza Part 1 - Quick and Easy Strawberry Malts

This post is going to be short and sweet.  You see, the kids and I went strawberry picking today, and I may have been a little greedy...we picked 8 buckets of berries, roughly 54 pounds in all, in just under an hour out in the fields.

Turns out, 54 pounds is a LOT of strawberries.  So I've spent most of the day in the kitchen, trying to get them taken care of, because fresh strawberries don't keep well for very long.  So I'm pretty beat.

But after we got home from picking, I made a special treat for the kids.  All right, it was as much for me as it was for them.  Strawberry malts.

Cheers! Root Beer for Grownups only!

There are several things, culinary-wise, that blow my mind.

This weekend, at Old Sugar Distillery, I had a drink that falls smack into that category.  Root beer.  But not the soda pop kind...a fully adult, packs-a-punch cocktail.  I couldn't wait to try making my own version at home!  I still can't wrap my head around the idea that the ingredients that you put into it end up creating the taste sensation that it does.  But somehow, they do. 

3 ingredients, plus ice.  Go for quality here.  If you, in any way, can get your hands on Old Sugar's Americanaki Ouzo, do it.  It is the smoothest, most delicious ouzo that I have ever had, and I'm pretty sure it contributes to how fantastic this root beer turns out.  The hubs is not a fan of ouzo, and even he enjoyed sipping on the Americanaki.  

Traveling Tuesday: Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee

For several years now, my kids and I have enjoyed tagging along when my hubby has business trips, making the most of the hotel room, whenever we can.  It just so happens that he has an event in Milwaukee annually, and we've found a ton of fun things to do in this city.

One of our can't-miss Milwaukee moments is the polka fish fry at Lakefront Brewery.  Well, the fish fry and the brewery tour, that is!

Lakefront Brewery started in 1987 when one of the founders gave his brother a "Beer Brewing for Dummies" book.  Which makes me love it that much more.  They worked on their beers, started and grew production, gained fans, and eventually ended up where they are now, in an old Power Plant building on the river in Milwaukee.  And as grungy as that may sound, it's actually a gorgeous place.

Field Trip! Koval Distillery Tour

Today, my hubby and I did something that I've been wanting to do for a long time.  We went to Koval Distillery in downtown Chicago for a tour and tasting.  We had been familiar with Koval's great whiskeys and liqueurs for a couple of years now, after finding them at Green City Market; a little booth with a policeman overseeing the sale of beautiful bottles filled with amber-colored concoctions tucked among the sea of farmers selling fresh produce and artisan foodies marketing their wares.  I was intrigued by their story.  The first distillery in Chicago since Prohibition, certified organic, kosher, and dedicated to their craft.

Sham-Shamrock Shake

I used to live for that time of year when a certain fast food green shake would make it's appearance.  My birthday happens to be exactly a week after St. Patrick's Day, and spring is my favorite time of year, so getting one of those sweet treats became a tradition of celebrating the season.  A sign of good things to come.

But then, once we started eating more "real food", those shakes just didn't taste as good.  I know a lot of people say that about things and mean it as some kind of metaphor, like their guilt over having it didn't outweigh the enjoyment of drinking it, but I mean it the straightforward way: the shake just tastes artificial to me.  I can taste the food coloring in particular, and it just doesn't match up to the idealized version of it that I have in my head.

So then, last year, I stumbled across this recipe for Drunk Shamrock Shake.  I'm a convert, full on in my new-found affection for this reincarnation of that minty green shake.  If the original shake left me feeling empty and cheated, this one fills my soul and makes me feel...well...happy.

Celebrating Sochi with some Boozy Borscht!

So, in case you haven't heard, there's some winter Olympics going on in Russia right now...

Also in recent news, my hubby bought me a great little recipe book called Apothecary Cocktails: Restorative Drinks from Yesterday and Today for this past Christmas, and I've really been enjoying trying some of the concoctions in it.  One, in particular, seemed like a perfect fit for this event: Roasted Beet Borscht with Sour Cream and Vodka.  I mean, ALL THE RUSSIANNESS!!!!

Takin' Care of Business

Please tell me that I'm not the only crazy person with a huge stack (okay, let's be honest, stacks) of recipes clipped out of magazines and papers and such.  Mine have gotten out of control.  So, after having a long weekend and seeing as how the first snow fell here yesterday, I'm ready to dig in and start trying some of them in hopes of thinning out or *gasp* organizing the mass.

Here's what I'm hoping to try this week:

Yumpkin Milkshakes

Sometimes, you're feeling all fallish, and yet it's still 80 degrees outside.  Sometimes, you might yearn for that PSL from SB, but with a chill on it.  And sometimes, you just need a good milkshake.

Milkshakes have a bad rap.  Fast food milkshakes have all kids of scary stuff in them, and most of the time, they taste pretty meh.  But (here comes the control freak in me again), when you control the ingredients, a milkshake once in a while can make for a pretty awesome treat or afterschool snack.  I love milkshakes and smoothies as a vehicle for getting extra fruits and veggies in my kids, and pumpkin is one of those things I always tend to sneak in there, because I usually have plenty on hand, frozen.

Today, I decided not to sneak it in.  No sneaking at all.  I went full out and made a pumpkin pie malted milkshake!

Drink Your Citrus!

Some of you may follow From Scratch on Twitter or Facebook, and you might remember that I was experimenting a couple of months ago with making my own limoncello and blood orangecello.  Which was one of those ideas that could either turn out awesome or a horrible failure, with very little in-between.

I'm happy to say that, at least as far as the blood orangecello goes, it was a huge success!

So, I'm proud to share my method with you, so that you too can get a delicious, orangy (or whatever flavor you decide to try) buzz from your own homemade liquor.

I started by googling "homemade limoncello".  I know, total creative genius.  But, as it turns out, there are at least 487,000 different recipes on the internet in English for "homemade limoncello".  Huh.  So, not as easy as I thought.  Some of these called for Everclear.  Which my well-stocked liquor cabinet does not have.  And I was feeling too thrifty (i.e. cheap and lazy) to go out and buy some.  We did, however, have an overabundance of vodka, as a couple of friends of ours always seem to come over with a new bottle, drink a couple of drinks, and then leave the rest at our house.  Some of the recipes mentioned that you could substitute vodka for the Everclear, so good to go there.