Tag Archives: summer

Homemade Lemonade and Limeade

5 Aug

It seems a little weird to me that I am posting a recipe for what I consider to be the most basic of beverages, a beverage only about one notch simpler than, say, turning on the tap to fill a glass with water. Still, it was recently brought to my attention that there are a lot of people out there who don’t know how simple it is to make homemade lemonade. Maybe it’s the status of lemonade as a heralded summer drink that makes it seem like a daunting challenge to create at home, or perhaps it’s just a bit too easy to succumb to the allure of a bottle or two of the organic stuff that seems to be on sale at the market all summer long. Regardless, whether you’re making homemade lemonade by the glass or by the pitcher, you only have to keep track of a simple ratio in order to assure a perfect lemonade experience every time.

1 cup of water to 1.5 tablespoons of freshly-squeezed lemon juice, plus 2 tablespoons of sugar. That’s it. And here’s an odd little secret: the more you increase the volume of this recipe the more a surprise fourth ingredient begins to come into play. That ingredient? Salt. When you’ve got 8 cups of water diluting ¾ of a cup of lemon juice, the mixture starts to need a bit of perking up, and there is nothing more effective at perking up a nice, big pitcher of lemonade than a hefty pinch of sea salt. If you are making limeade instead of lemonade, that bit of salt becomes even more important, bringing out all the right notes of the lime’s flavor, and perfectly balancing it against the sugar.

Of course, once you’ve made yourself some lemonade, there is basically nothing stopping you from using it as the basis and inspiration for all types of wonderful drinks and treats. Muddle some fresh mint and fresh or frozen raspberries in the bottom of a glass, top it off with lemon or limeade, then drink as is, or add a splash of vodka. Or pour into popsicle molds and prepare yourself for some hot weather, perhaps even freezing the popsicles only halfway, then dropping some chunks of fresh fruit into the molds before popping everything back together and freezing completely. Once those babies are totally frozen, you’ve got yourself some fruit-filled citrus popsicles that are just to die for.

Last Year: Deep Dish German Pancake

Homemade Lemonade Recipe

I love making this with a mix of both lemons and limes, which, as you can see, is what I have done in these pictures. Also of note: I prefer a less sweet lemonade, so the amount of sugar you see here will result in an only mildly sweet drink. You can, of course, up the sugar content to suit your own personal tastes. The flavor of this lemonade will get more rounded as it is allowed to sit, so, if you’re making it for an event, I suggest making it a day ahead and allowing it to rest in the refrigerator for a day.

For a single serving:

1 cup water

1 ½ tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons sugar

small pinch of sea salt

Combine ingredients in a tall glass or cocktail shaker, then stir or shake until sugar is completely dissolved. Add ice, if desired, and drink.

For a pitcher:

8 cups water

¾ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ heaping cup sugar (or, to be more precise, ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons)

¼ teaspoon sea salt.

Combine ingredients in a large pitcher. Stir together until sugar has completely dissolved.

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Best Food to Pack on a Road Trip

23 Jul

Many people may find this to be an admission of pure insanity, but I like a long road trip. That’s not the insane part, though. I like a long road trip with my kid.

Perhaps it is because, for the first year or so of his life, my kid hated riding in the car. Most people I know swore by putting their baby in his or her car seat and driving around in order to silence their kid’s fussing or screaming, but my kid had the exact opposite reaction to riding in a car. Whereas he would start out a car journey in complete calmness, by about 30 seconds in he would start fussing, then crying, then screaming in total agony. The whole time, I might add. The screaming wouldn’t stop until the journey came to a stop. Because of this, my husband and I, for the first year of our kid’s life, never went anywhere in the car. The only traveling our kid did was via a stroller or Baby Bjorn. Since it was impossible to make trips to the coast or the mountains via stroller, I think we’re still, all these years later, making up for lost trips. Because now? My kid is a champion road-tripper.

We’ve become pretty adept at it, too. We’ve learned which east and west-bound routes serve us best, which rest stops along I-5 have the most pleasant surroundings (I highly recommend the Randolph C. Collier Rest Area in Northern California for both lovely scenery and unsurpassed cleanliness), and most importantly, what types of foods to pack that will bring us not only energy, but also pleasure.

I try to pack a good variety of foods for our trips, and I try to arrange them into two categories: meals and snacks. Depending on how long our road trip will be, I might end up packing two meals and a handful of snacks, or sometimes just a good amount of snack foods.

For meals, I find it difficult to go wrong with a nice sandwich, packed with crisp vegetables and a nice slip of meat or cheese (or both). For our recent road trip to Eastern Oregon, I packed individual sandwiches on little ciabatta rolls (in the past, I have made these black bread rolls for sandwiches and, man, were they good). Much like with this stuffed picnic sandwich (which is also a great item to pack on a road trip), I like to tear a bunch of the bready middle out of the center of each roll, allowing for a tidier nest in which to nestle in your chosen sandwich fillings. If you are going to be forced to actually eat your meal in the car while driving, this also makes for a much tighter sandwich packet that is easier to contain. For the sake of ease, you can make make your sandwiches the night before you leave, wrap them up, then just toss them into a small cooler on the morning of your trip.

I have also had good success rolling some of these Indian turkey burgers into a tortilla with chunks of cucumber and strips of lettuce. If you are horrified by the idea of mixing Indian food with a tortilla, just close your eyes (but not if you are driving) and pretend that the tortilla is a chapati and you’ll be fine.

For a simpler spread, sometimes I just fill one bag with a selection of crackers, another with squares of sharp cheddar, and call it good. These are great with sliced vegetables while picnicking, or, if you’re traveling with other people, they can be stacked up and handed to you as you drive. For a different riff on this idea, try slices of sharp cheddar piled on top of slices of this no-knead apple bread, or perhaps this no-knead flatbread.

For snacks, I tend to lean heavily in the direction of things that are satisfying without being heavy or sweet. These granola bars are a huge hit on road trips. Lately I have taken to baking the granola bars in a 9” by 13” pan and baking them for a slightly shorter amount of time. This makes for a crisper, flatter granola bar that is great for a little snack while hiking or on the road.

I also like to make my own trail mix out of a cup each of roasted almonds and pecans, sometimes pumpkin seeds, and then a handful of various dried fruits (dried cherries, dried cranberries, and chopped up dried apricots are all good additions). I used to also add a handful of dark chocolate chips, but they tended to get a little messy after being tossed around in a warm car (also, my kid would pick out all the chocolate chips and then launch into a chocolate-fueled frenzy, which is something you want to avoid while trapped in a moving vehicle).

Fruits and vegetables are also important snacks. I have learned that the less juicy the fruit, the better. This means no peaches, nectarines, pineapple slices, or watermelon. Better choices can be found in grapes, blueberries, raspberries, sliced apples, or even sliced peaches and nectarines (so long as they can be eaten without being dropped because, oh, man, how unpleasant is it to accidentally sit on a peach slice in a hot car?). Basically, choose fruits that are unencumbered by pits or seeds, since you don’t want to have to deal with those things while driving.

If you don’t have room for fruit, or you don’t want to deal with it, you can always opt for a nice selection of fruit leather.

As for vegetables, baby carrots are standard for our trips, but blanched green beans are another crisp, delightful option. Sliced bell peppers and sliced cucumbers are also nice to have on hand, and they pair wonderfully with the aforementioned cheese and crackers.

And, because I am me, I can’t have a road trip without a little treat. These Mexican chocolate zucchini muffins are a delightful thing to have on hand, and their low sugar content won’t make you feel crazy while you sit in a car for several hours after eating them. We also took this tangerine zucchini bread on a recent trip, and it was great to have on hand for a little something sweet, yet not cloyingly so. The same goes for these carrot muffins, another pleasing, not-to-sweet treat.

We’re gearing up to take our annual summer trip to San Francisco, and you can bet that a wide variety of these foods will be coming along with us. Not to hammer in my previous mention of suspected insanity, but the drive is 12 hours long—each way—so the food we pack can make or break our enjoyment of the drive. It also helps that, without fail, we always hit a Dairy Queen as a special treat while driving through the hottest parts of the state. A small dipped cone (vanilla ice cream, chocolate dip) can perform near-magical  wonders in the heat.

Last Year: Grilled Peaches and Sausages with Almond Herb Bulgur

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Tangerine Zucchini Bread

19 Jul

Our refrigerator is broken. This is certainly not a good thing, but it is, to be totally glass-half-full about it, certainly an interesting thing. Why? Because while perusing the contents of our warm refrigerator, I came across some long forgotten items that had been, over time, shuffled towards the back regions, never to be seen until disaster struck and I was forced to reckon with them.

But that’s all right! Because if one should make lemonade from lemons, one should also make delicious, moist, toothsome tangerine zucchini bread from freshly picked zucchini and long-lost tangerine marmalade.

The original recipe for this bread called for standard orange marmalade, but I think this tangerine boost really takes the bread over the top. In fact, if you can locate (or, if you are the marmalade-making type, conjure up on your own) different types of marmalade, like mandarin orange, satsumas, or any other citrus fruit, I’d bet this bread would take to it nicely. Even apricot jam, which the original recipe lists as a substitute for marmalade, would be a great addition.

I hate to cut this short, but the contents of the refrigerator and freezer are currently sitting in two coolers that are rapidly becoming no-so-cool, and I now have to figure out what I am going to make with a dozen eggs, half a head of cauliflower, two types of chutney, five bottles of hot sauce, three bunches of lettuce, a bunch of carrots, half an orange bell pepper, a jar of Dijon mustard, four jars of jam, a jar of fish sauce, a huge bottle of soy sauce, and some organic ketchup. And that’s just about half of the stuff from the refrigerator, never mind the freezer. Wish me luck.

Last Year: Highlights from a 1985 copy of Joy of Cooking, in which we learn how to cook muskrat and raccoon

Tangerine Zucchini Bread Recipe

Adapted from Tartine

As usual, I reduced the amount of both sugar and oil in this recipe. The original recipe called for almost a full cup of sugar total (¾ cup in the bread, plus 2 tablespoons sprinkled on top), but I cut the sugar content down to only 1/3 cup, swapped the granulated sugar for light brown sugar, and omitted the dusting of sugar on top. The result is just perfect, and with the marmalade and shredded zucchini to round things out, so moist and flavorful, it’s impossible to detect any loss of either sugar or oil.

1 ¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 large eggs, at room temperature

½ cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup light brown sugar

½ cup tangerine marmalade (or any other marmalade of your choice)

2 ½ cups grated, fresh zucchini, lightly squeezed to remove some of the excess juice

½ teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease and flour the bottom and sides of a 9” by 5” loaf pan, knocking out any excess flour.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon in a sifter, then set aside on top of a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar, and marmalade until combined. Add the zucchini and salt, and whisk to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Sift the flour mixture mixture directly into the bowl containing the egg and zucchini mixture. Fold the flour into the zucchini mixture until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smoothing the top as much as possible. Bake in the center of the oven until a cake tester comes out clean, about 60 to 65 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan for about 20 minutes, then invert on to a wire rack, turn right side up, and allow to cool completely.

Serve at room temperature.

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