It’s citrus season! I love all the delicious citrus fruit that shows up this time of year, and one of my favorites is Meyer lemons.
Back in November, I got my yearly email from the Lemon Ladies, announcing the start of their harvest. Lemon Ladies are a group of women who tend and manage a Meyer Lemon orchard in Emerald Hills, CA, a small community near San Mateo in the greater SF Bay Area (map). Their groves are 100% dedicated to Meyer lemons, and I have been extremely happy with the quality of the fruit I’ve received from them. This year’s lemons were fantastic—gorgeous sunny yellow oblong orbs that smell amazing. And they taste wonderful!
I’ve done a variety of things with Meyer lemons over the years—they are perfect for preserved lemons, make amazing lemon curd, and I’ve even dried them (dried Meyer lemons are really good added to a glass of water). But what I really wanted to do with them this year was to make marmalade. I almost made it a couple of years ago, but got scared off, thinking the process was too difficult. I couldn’t have been more wrong—at least with the recipe I used this year, it was a breeze! It just took a little planning. Continue reading “Making Meyer Lemon Marmalade”
My friend Joseph writes about his experience making limoncello.
On NPR’s The Salt we’re told not to wash our chicken, and that Chipotle is keeping its meat antibiotic-free.
Eat the World visits Wasabi Point in Elmhurst and partakes in Bhutanese cuisine.
NPR’s Cosmos & Culture revisits the the topic of sugar’s problematic nature in “Obesity And The Toxic-Sugar Wars.”
101 Cookbooks has a recipe for yellow tomato bloody mary, which sounds delicious to this non-fan of bloody marys.
Serious Eats stops by Sunnyside’s Romanian Garden for sour cream topped donuts and apple strudel.
Food & Wine‘s Raw and Charred Zucchini Salad sounds divine.
Daily Good tells the story of The Nine Nanas in West Tennessee, who have shared gifts of kindness and poundcake anonymously for the past 30 years or so.
I thought I’d update you a on my plum shrub syrup. It certainly has changed over the past couple of months. It’s gotten sweeter and less vinegary – that tang is still there, though, but it’s certainly mellower.
I really like how it’s changed – I think it’s much more balanced and actually more syrupy. It goes great in sparkling water; I haven’t tried it with alcohol. When I use it in sparkling water, I find that these days I want to use more syrup than I did at the beginning of its life. When it was younger, a little went quite a long way.
I would say to those who experiment with the shrub and find it way strong for their taste, just wait longer and the syrup will mellow out. And become more delicious, of course.
I’ll definitely be making shrubs again for many summers to come.
Lately, I’ve been on a preservation kick. So far, I’ve made jam/preserves, simple syrup, vinegar pickles, and now… shrubs. Actually, just one at this point.
Yes, shrubs. It sounds like a plant, but it’s a fruit syrup that basically consists of fruit, sugar, and vinegar in a 1:1:1 ratio. It’s another way to preserve seasonal fruit, hooray! And it’s easy to make.
My main reference in learning how to do this is this great article on Serious Eats, Cocktail 101: How to Make Shrub Syrups. Apparently the shrub was popular in Colonial America. They’d mix the shrub syrup with water, making for a refreshing summer drink. It pretty much got forgotten after refrigeration and products of the industrial food system became more and more popular in this country.
The shrub has been sort of “rediscovered” here in the 21st century – I actually first heard about the shrub at The Queens Kickshaw after our food swap. Ben, one of the owners, was experimenting with them. I tasted a few he had put together and they sure were vinegary and tasty, but I like the tang of vinegar, so it was all good with me. It wasn’t until I was poking around online that I came across the Serious Eats article that talked about making shrubs in more depth.
So, we got a lot of plums in last week’s CSA share, and by the beginning of this week, they were really starting to ripen. I wanted to do something with them to extend their life – I didn’t have enough for jam really, so the shrub was a perfect solution. I had a cup of raw apple cider vinegar in the fridge, too, and some organic sugar on the shelf. Everything I needed!
I decided to make my shrub with the cold-process method. This way, the raw vinegar would get to stay raw. There is a way to make a shrub by cooking the fruit, too, which is preferred by some people. With the cold-process method, the brightness of the fruit will shine through and be a strong match for the vinegar.
Yellow plums, washed, depitted, and quartered
I started by washing, pitting, and quartering enough yellow plums to make a cup of fruit. I then combined that with a cup of organic sugar. I stirred it together, put it in a glass bowl, covered it in foil, and set it in the refrigerator.
Plums mixed with organic sugar
I let the fruit macerate for 24 hours. At the end of the 24 hours, I was looking for fruit sitting in syrup created by its juices and the sugar, which is what I found.
Plums after 24 hours of macerating
Really ripe fruit would probably take less time to exude its juices and make a syrup, but even then you can leave the fruit in the fridge for a day. Even two or three days, it will be ok.
I then drained the fruit over a large stainless steel bowl, pressing the plums a little to get the last bits of juice out.
Draining the fruit
There was a bunch of sugar sitting on the bottom of the glass bowl, so I scraped that out and into the syrup.
Plum syrup
I then added a cup of raw cider vinegar to that, whisked it, then poured it into a bottle and capped it. Finally, I vigorously shook the bottle, attempting to dissolve some of the remaining sugar.
Plum syrup with raw vinegar added
I’ll likely have to shake the bottle more times to get the sugar to dissolve. The acids in the juice and vinegar will dissolve it all eventually.
I tasted it – it was tangy! And fruity. Reminded me of kombucha when it’s got a big tang. The shrub will mellow, though, and I’ll likely notice a substantial change in that direction after a week.
All in all, this is very exciting. I can see myself making shrubs all summer long. I expect the syrup would be great mixed with sparkling water, or make into this suggested cocktail from Serious Eats:
Pair a small amount of shrub (about half an ounce) with 2 ounces of vermouth or sherry. Top that with some seltzer or club soda.
It also might be good in wheat beer (just a splash) or with some gin.
Shrubs should last quite a while – at least a year in the fridge. Some believe you can keep it on the shelf instead, but I like my syruped drinks cold, so I’m just going to store mine in the refrigerator.
As far as the science behind the drink goes, here’s a great explanation from mixologist Neyah White:
When a shrub ages, it is like an ecosystem. The ambient yeast (yeast on the fruit itself and yeast from the air) turns the sugar into alcohol, and the acetobacter (the bacteria in unpasteurized vinegar) turns the alcohol into more vinegar. Eventually this will stabilize and not turn the whole shrub into fruit vinegar since the bacteria-induced pH change will stall out the yeast’s fermentation process (and thus the bacteria’s acetic acid-producing pathway).
Very cool. I like it when people talk about ecosystems in food.
So there you have it – shrubs!
This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Refined sugar has probably been the most challenging food I deal with, even after spending the past two and a half years focusing on eating more nourishing foods. I definitely have a sweet tooth, and always have. I love cookies, caramels, cakes, and ice cream; I can’t remember a time when I didn’t like sweets. When I was a little girl and into my early 20s, it seemed like I could eat sugary treats with no limit.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more aware of the affects food has on me. Sugar is the most distinctive and has the strongest physical effect on me, even moreso than white flour.
From time to time I get up the gumption to eliminate refined sugar from my diet. Every single time, I feel better when I get rid of the sugar – I’m calmer and less quick to judge on things, I can concentrate better, I’m more balanced emotionally, and my skin and hair quality improves. I also lose weight. Results are 100% positive.
So, why do I always return to eating sugar? Well, it tastes good, for one. Sugar is also said to have addictive qualities, but I’m not completely convinced on that one (at least compared to addictions like tobacco and heroin). Sugary treats are also a big part of our social traditions – celebration cakes, ice cream in the summer, cookies with milk after school. And I appreciate the skill and tradition behind the pastry arts.
My biggest challenge is handling my desire for something made with sugar with the knowledge of how it negatively effects my body when I eat it. I tend to “conveniently forget” how I feel after I eat it, and down the hatch it goes. Yet at the same time, I have learned that complete denial of anything sweet is a recipe for disaster for me.
One solution to “having my sweets and eating them, too” (aka balance) is to eat things made of unrefined sugars. My body tolerates these sweeteners far better than it does refined sugar, in part because when I eat unrefined sugars, I ingest them in much smaller quantities than I would with a refined sugar.
And I think the quantity is important. Maple syrup, white sugar, honey – they’re all sugar on a basic level and have effects on the body. Whole fruit is fortunate to have its sugars combined with fiber, which helps slow down the absorption.
My favorite raw honey from Lost Hollow
For me, unrefined sweeteners include maple syrup and honey (usually raw, sometimes not). Sucanat (sugar cane natural) and coconut sugar are pushing it a little bit further to the edge of my body’s comfort level, but in small amounts they are ok. Still, I find that Sucanat has a slight bitter aftertaste, so I have shyed away from it in the past.
Another option I’ve found is carob, which is naturally sweet. I know a lot of people don’t care for it, but I think the key is not thinking about it as a chocolate or cocoa replacement. It’s flavor is much earthier and less sophisticated, but I love it.
Then of course there is fruit, which is naturally sweet and completely unprocessed if eaten out of hand. When fruit is ripe and in season, though, there’s nothing better.
Amazing strawberries from my CSA
As I’ve learned from Shauna, the Gluten Free Girl, after learning it would be wise to cut certain foods out of one’s diet, focusing on what you can eat is not just preferable, it’s freeing. Obsessing on denial and what I can’t have deflates me and brings me down, making me generally miserable. So why not embrace what sweet things I can eat, that plays well with my body? As I mentioned above, fruit in season is wonderful – and I have a fruit share with my CSA to provide me with seasonal fruit. It’s going to be amazing.
This is your life. This is your body. This is your new reality. If you wake up and decide you’re going to love it (you have no idea how much better you are going to feel without the gluten), then you will.
Accept it. Shout about it with those string of expletives if you want. Allow yourself to grieve. But do that all with clear eyes. This is your life. Accept it.
For me, I replace “gluten” with “sugar” and it’s completely applicable to my life. Although, I already know how much better I feel without the sugar. It’s remarkable.
So, I’ll be focusing on the can instead of the can’t. When it comes to social events, I’ll take each one on a case by case basis. If a friend of family member has lovingly prepared something sweet for me, especially if we are in a celebratory mood, I’ll likely take a small taste (and refuse to feel guilty about it), and be grateful for that’s person’s efforts to honor someone in my community.
For me, it’s all about feeling good and respecting my body, while finding balance. And it’s a journey; I look forward to navigating these next steps.
For further reading: Is Sugar Toxic? by Gary Taubes [NY Times]
This week was an unusual one – I had a bunch of evening meetups, so there wasn’t much cooking going on at my house. I won’t deny it – I love going out to restaurants – but I also love cooking at home. Next week looks busy too, but I hope I can get more cooking in, despite.
Probably my favorite dish I made this past week was a gluten-free tabbouleh. I tested this recipe for the upcoming cookbook by Shauna and Danny Ahern last July; I loved it then, and it’s just as good now. I did make some adjustments – upped the amount of a few things, primarily, to match my personal tastes. It was great with some greek yoghurt on the side. I can’t give you any more details until the book comes out (maybe in October? I can’t remember exactly), but when it does, I’ll post the recipe.
As for my garden, the little plants in the ground are slowly growing up. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and tomatillos have loved the recent hot, humid days, and I hope for more hot (though not necessarily humid) days to encourage growth. I see tomato plants from nurseries, and experience a little bit of “size envy”, but I have to remember that those plants were probably grown quickly in a hot house and not from seed in paper pots in someone’s backyard.
I’ve added a couple of things to the site itself – at the top of the right sidebar is a line of icons leading you to the Harmonious Belly twitter feed, Facebook page, RSS feed, and a new contact form. The contact form is the best way to get in touch with me with questions, comments, or suggestions. That and formspring.
Finally, I made the decision to eliminate sugar from my diet again. Even the little bit I’ve been eating seems like too much right now, so I’m going to go back to just abstaining. My plan is for doing this for two weeks, and at that point I’ll see where I am. I think it will only be a positive adjustment, especially with respect to my running and general feeling of well-being. Perhaps this will usher in a new era of kombucha brewing!
This is going to be a relatively short post, as I’ve just been very busy this week and very tired from getting over some sort of monster bug. It sucked a lot of my energy, so I spent more time sleeping this week and last than in recent memory.
I’ll take this opportunity to tell you about the Harmonious Belly Facebook page and Harmonious Belly Twitter feed! Please feel free to become a fan and to follow me. My social network presence is still in the early stages, so I hope for the quality of my content to grow and mature as time goes on. I value the support I receive from you!
I mentioned above that I’ve been sick. I do not know what it was exactly but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I often cut out dairy when I’m sick, but this time I cut out all refined sugar and most unrefined sugar; I only put a little raw honey in my tea to help soothe my throat. I think this was an excellent decision, and apart from feeling better a couple days earlier that usual, I’ve noticed other positive benefits – improved skin quality, less crazy cravings, and less mood swings.
Also, ditching the sugar makes everything else taste… better, sweeter – it’s pretty amazing. I’ve now been off refined sugar for 12 days and hope to extend that as long as possible. I do anticipate eating sweet things again, but my focus will be on unrefined, traditional sweeteners – maple syrup, raw honey, and coconut sugar. However, the best fruit season is quickly approaching, so I expect that fresh fruit will accommodate my altered sweet tooth. We’ll see. 🙂
Now, I’m not saying that staying off refined sugar has been easy; I’ve definitely been tempted, mostly by chocolate. Being bed-ridden for a few days, and sleeping as much as possible, kept my mind off of the sweet stuff. This past week has been the most challenging – for instance, when I was bagging my bulk cashews, the chocolate-covered almonds were calling my name! I was able to resist, though, thank goodness.
I try to keep in mind how much better I feel when I don’t eat refined sugar, and how I feel when I do ingest it at higher quantities than my body can take (answer: not good). It can be quite overwhelming, physically. I understand that it suppresses the immune system, too – in fact, I ate a big bowl of commercial ice cream the day before I got sick! Coincidence? Hmm…
I will talk more in future posts about my struggle with sugar – it has been the most difficult thing to tame since eating a more traditional diet. There may very well be some truth in the idea that sugar acts like a drug.
I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Photo is of the Topa Topa Mountains in Ojai, CA, one of the most beautiful places on earth.
This post is participating in Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.
