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Mimi’s Ginger Lemon Tea

29 Aug

I used to work with the most wonderful woman named Mimi.  She was a writer, a teacher, a lover of books, and, back in the ‘70s, she was a single mother who shared with her son a small apartment on Haight Street in San Francisco while she worked, went to school, and took care of her child’s chronic breathing problems that eventually resulted in him being fitted with a tracheostomy tube.  Mimi was, and is, an admirable woman.

When we worked together, Mimi would bring by the gallon the most wonderful ginger lemon tea, kept cold in the work refrigerator and available for free to whoever wanted to partake of it.  No matter the season, this tea was like a magical tonic that cured all ills, mental and physical.  In the summertime, consumed over ice, the tea was the most brisk and refreshing thing you could ever imagine drinking.  Though it seems impossible when I really think about it, I swear it actually perked people up enough to actually want to work more (a feat you’d definitely find impossible to believe if you knew where exactly we worked.  Ahem).  In the wintertime, warmed in a mug in the break room’s microwave, the tea was a soothing, calming respite from the persistent gloom and chill of Pacific Northwest winters and the ever-present insanity of the holiday season.  If you were feeling under the weather, a mug of Mimi’s tea made you feel, while not completely healed, at least a bit more cared for and comforted.

After years of telling Mimi how much I loved her tea, and how appreciative I was of her always sharing it with everyone, she surprised me one day by pulling out a pad of Post-It notes and conspiratorially leaning in to me and saying, “You know what?  I’m going to give you the recipe.”

One Post-It note, four ingredients, and years of enjoyment later, I can’t help feeling that the time has come to share Mimi’s recipe with the world.  In part, I am doing it because I want to share this fantastic and borderline magical recipe with the world, but there is no small part of me that is doing it because I haven’t seen Mimi in over four years and lately I’ve been missing her.  An old email address no longer connects me to her, and several stabs at a Google-fest involving her name have led me to only past employers and dead ends.  I have only Mimi’s tea left to connect me to her, and, while I enjoy the tea immensely, I have to admit, I still feel as though something is missing.  The tea is just not the same without the conversation, care, and compassion that Mimi supplied to go along with it.

Mimi’s Ginger Lemon Tea

This is the recipe exactly as Mimi wrote it down for me many years ago.  As you can see, it makes a batch of tea by the gallon-plus.  In the interest of moderation, I generally quarter the recipe and make a generous quart of tea.

Though this tea is perfect as-is, there are a number of delicious ways to dress it up.  In the wintertime, served hot with a splash of bourbon, it’s the prefect night cap.  In the summertime, chilled ice cold and served with a few leaves of fresh basil muddled in the bottom of your glass, it makes for a brisk and refreshing cooler.  All in all, however, you’ll never go wrong just drinking it as Mimi wrote it.

1 gallon water

1 cup fresh ginger, peeled and sliced thin

2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice

16 ounces (2 cups) honey

Combine water and ginger in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Simmer for 30 minutes, then remove from heat and strain into a large bowl.

Stir in lemon juice and honey.

That’s it.

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Spinach Basil Pesto with Lemon and Almonds

23 Jun

Having a child who happens to absolutely love pesto is both a blessing and a curse.  On the one hand, it’s nice to have a child who will stick a toe in the pool of adventure and happily dig into a sauce that is not only bright green, but also more complex in flavor than the average preschooler’s preferred pasta dish of buttered noodles with cheese.  On the other hand, have you ever been driven to eating pesto three times a week because you live with a tiny person who is prone to bouts of tyrant-like behavior when it comes to food?  No matter what the food, if you are forced to eat it enough, its gloss will soon begin to fade.

Maybe it’s just the repeat performances wearing me down, but I’ve long felt that pesto, that much-maligned sauce of the ‘90s, is in dire need of a makeover. Being a sauce of few ingredients, there are as many ways to make pesto shine as there are ways to make it dull and unexciting, and, much to the world’s misfortune, most pesto ends up suffering the latter lot rather than the former.  It’s too oily.  It’s garlicky enough so as to be considered borderline caustic.  It’s bland.  It’s boring.  It’s predictable.

Guess what?  It doesn’t have to be any of those things.  Breaking apart the simple components of pesto and then dressing them up as you put them back together can yield some fantastic results, and the seemingly endless ways one can Frankenstein together a new type of pesto are limited by only what you may or may not have in your refrigerator on a given day.  Starting from a very basic level of pesto-making, just changing up one or two ingredients can provide your standard recipe with a nice bit of change.  Arugula can get swapped for basil.  A handful of fresh mint can join in.  Fresh tomatoes and walnuts can be tossed into the blend.

Though history may have proven that your kid will eschew spinach in its regular form, you can hide a ton of the vitamin and nutrient packed green in your sauce and, so long as you never let loose your secret, no child will ever be able to detect the difference between spinach pesto and regular pesto.  You know that as long as your pesto still looks like pesto, chances are your kid will never be the wiser.  To appease the adult palette, swapping out roasted almonds for pine nuts not only makes your frequent pesto consumption easier on the wallet, but the hearty taste of the almonds plays nicely off of the subtle nuttiness of the parmesan cheese.  Add in lemon zest for brightness, and you’re on your way to something reinvigorated and fantastic.

This is not pesto from a jar, or tired pesto from a restaurant that seemed to run out of menu ideas sometime during the Clinton administration.  This is pesto refreshed, yet still utterly recognizable as an old standby who you will always welcome, albeit now with a tad bit more enthusiasm.

Bonus information!

This pesto freezes extremely well.  I have been known to make several enormous batches of this pesto at the end of our gardening season when I harvest all our greens.  After I make a huge batch (or two) of the sauce, I pour it into individual serving sizes and freeze it.  Though I have absolutely no recollection where it came from, this silicone baking mold is great for portioning out pesto for freezing:

After the pesto has frozen (at least three hours, or up to overnight), I release the pesto from each cup (this process is super easy when using a silicone mold, by the way, because the silicone cups just peel back and pop the pesto right out), then place the pesto servings in a thick Ziploc freezer bag and toss them back into the freezer.

The pesto will last in the freezer for several months.  When you want to use a block of your pesto, just place one in a microwave safe bowl and defrost for about a minute on high heat.  Alternately, if you are good about planning ahead, you can just place one of your blocks in the refrigerator to defrost overnight for the next day’s meal.  The molds I have are able to hold just a smidge more than 2/3 of a cup of pesto each.  2/3 of a cup of pesto will coat a moderately dressed pound of pasta, or you can cook 3/4 of a pound of pasta and enjoy your pasta a bit more heavily dressed.

Spinach Basil Pesto with Lemon and Almonds

¼ cup slivered or sliced almonds

1 tightly packed cup of fresh basil leaves

2 tightly packed cups of fresh spinach leaves

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped

zest of 1 large lemon

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

½ cup shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

In a dry pan, toast almonds over medium high heat until they are golden brown.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor or blender, combine basil, spinach, garlic, lemon zest, and olive oil.  Process or blend for 15-20 seconds to combine and chop.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add cooled almonds and Parmesan cheese.  Process or blend for another 20-30 seconds, scraping down as needed, until pesto is uniformly combined and no large chunks remain.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour sauce over your favorite pasta and toss to coat.  Taste for seasoning.

If desired, top with chopped tomatoes, more Parmesan cheese, and additional toasted nuts.

Makes 1 cup of pesto, enough for 1 pound of pasta.

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Six Threes Ice Cream

3 Jun

Dear Summer,

Did we do something to anger you?  I only ask because it seems as though you have been avoiding us.  Here we are, the first week of June, and you are nowhere in sight.  I can’t help but think that maybe you are feeling a bit hesitant about joining us this year.  Maybe you had a great time hibernating during the months you were not with us, making you decide that you’d rather stay asleep a few more weeks instead of prodding your good friend The Sun in the ribs and making a good argument for spending some time with us.  We’re pretty fun, you know.  We like going in the pool and hitting baseballs in the backyard while our skin warms in the heat of the afternoon, and the hammock is all cleaned off and good to go.  Basically, we’re ready whenever you are.

Look, I even made a little something to celebrate your arrival.  My husband’s family has this great ice cream recipe that I had been dying to make.  I first tasted it at a family reunion last summer—remember that?  You were sort of there, Summer, but mostly in name rather than in feel (it was extremely cold and wet last August, as you may recall, but I promise I am in no way holding that against you).  Anyhow, my husband’s family made a huge batch of this ice cream.  They took turns hand churning it, and when it was done they called to all of the children to come and have an inaugural taste of the ice cream straight from the dasher.  All of the children were feeling uncharacteristically shy, so I swiped my finger against the dasher and demonstrated how non-poisonous and definitely delicious the ice cream was.

As you may also recall, the children had a rather difficult time getting to the ice cream covered dasher after that, such was my devotion to gobbling that thing clean before anyone else could snitch a taste.  I wouldn’t say I went so far as to push any children aside while protecting my ice cream sample, but that was only because I happened to be taller than all the children, allowing me to conveniently hold the dasher up much higher than they could reach, rendering unnecessary any sort of pushing or jostling on my part.

So, I decided that, in anticipation of your arrival, I would make some of this ice cream.  It is dead simple to assemble, and it tastes supremely fresh and cooling.  The ice cream is egg-free, but it has the smooth, soft, creamy texture of a custard-based ice cream. Do you know what the secret is, Summer?  It’s the banana.  The banana makes the ice cream so rich and luscious, you’d never know it was devoid of eggs.  I tell you, this is the perfect ice cream to start with if you’re feeling hesitant about making homemade ice cream.  It really is foolproof.  Plus, the taste bears a strong resemblance to that of a Creamsicle, which not only gives it points for childhood nostalgia, but also for maximum enjoyability.

I hope we see you soon, Summer.  Rumor has it you’re going to be making an appearance this weekend, but, quite honestly, I can’t really bring myself to believe that prediction, what with how little we’ve seen or sensed of you thus far.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to see you, but I don’t know if I can handle any more stilted anticipation.  If you do happen to show up, believe me, I’ll be more than happy to eat my words—right along, in fact, with a nice bowl of this delicious ice cream.

All the best,

EM from Savory Salty Sweet

Six Threes Ice Cream

The original recipe, which uses three of each measure of ingredients, makes enough ice cream to fill a very large hand cranked machine.  Since the ice cream machine I own only holds 1.5 quarts of finished product, I had to scale the recipe down by two thirds.  This, technically, does not make the ice cream I made a combination of six threes, but rather six ones.  However, since that name does not have nearly the clever ring to it as the original name, I have decided to just stick with calling it six threes ice cream.  Still delicious, just not as abundant.  If you have a larger ice cream maker, you should, by all means, scale the recipe up to make as much ice cream as you can.

Note: Be sure to follow the directions and keep the dairy and citrus ingredients separate until the dairy has been partially frozen in your ice cream machine.  If you add the citrus to the dairy beforehand, the acid in the citrus will cause your dairy to curdle.

1 ripe banana

1 lemon

1 orange, the zest finely grated or chopped

1 cup milk

1 cup cream

1 cup sugar

In a medium bowl, blend or mash the banana.  To this, add the finely grated or chopped zest of the orange.  Squeeze juice from lemon and orange, and combine with the mashed banana and orange zest.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine milk, cream, and sugar.  Whisk steadily until sugar is completely dissolved.

Add cream mixture to your ice cream maker, and allow to churn until it reaches the slush stage.

Add the fruit mixture to the slushy cream mixture, then churn according to manufacturer’s instructions (until, that is to say, you have ice cream).

Makes about 1.5 quarts of ice cream.

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