3.14.2010

Culinary Countdown To Summer Sundays

Do you hear that? That tiny background buzz that has come over the bald Canadian prairie? It may be the wind, after all, this is, as I mentioned just a second ago, the bald Canadian prairie! But it's different, warmer than the wind that's for sure, and uplifting! It’s in the wet splash of car tires on the melting road, and the musky smell of dead grass poking out from under all that snow! It's the buzz of summer on its way!

I love this time of year, for me this is resolution time! January, while the official 'new year' is always so bitterly cold a depressing that it is really hard for me to look forward and feel energized, because let's face it, in January the rest of the year is still stuck somewhere after February, and February is stuck under quite a few feet of snow.

Mid-late March though? Mid-late March is an excellent time for looking forward and feeling energized and making hopeful resolutions, as the oppressive weight of the dark winter cold is melting away and flowing in babbling steams down the sewer drains and out to wherever it is that sewer run off goes.

The sickening pulse of the morning after Saint Patrick’s Day is also pretty helpful in stealing ones resolve towards positive changes in their lives! Not that I get to have hangovers anymore, but I do have vague memories of them.

One resolution I've made for myself is to spend more time on this blog. And I figured a good way to do this would be to have a challenge or series or some other such thing as a kind of assignment for myself to keep the words flowing.

It seams like a really good idea, but the reality is that more than a year after starting the Grace in Small Things challenge I've only completed 37 of 365 entries. And after only one actual contribution to (w)rite-of-passage I have all but given up on having any real time to devote to something so creativity intensive.

So what fun thing can I come up with that will equal content without being labour intensive and something that requires a bit less than 365 days worth of time commitment?

How about a culinary count down to summer? Because when one does nothing but watch endless hours of food network TV between diaper changing and breastfeeding, there is no shortage of really awesome cooking ideas!

I am going to start off with something easy, because I really like to cook but have no patience for anything overly fussy everything I make is easy! But this one is particularly easy, it's the quintessential taste of a hot summer afternoon, tasty homemade lemonade with a ginger twist!


It’s simple really; Find a bunch of lemons, some sugar and water and you’re laughing! Well, not exactly but pretty damn close, you will need:


4 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice

4 cups simple syrup – (equal parts water and sugar)

Frozen grated ginger

Lemon zest


The 1st step is to create simple syrup by heating equal parts sugar and water in a large sauce pan. As your syrup is heating grate in your ginger and lemon zest, don’t worry about measuring it out, just add as much or as little of each as you would like.


Once that has heated to a boil, you can add your fresh lemon juice and set aside to cool. Once cooled simply add 4 cups of water, some ice and tada! Yummy ginger lemonade.


Once you have your lemonade there are an infinite number of delicious things that you can do with it. Like adding Grenadine to make your home-style lemonade into home-style pink lemonade.


Das
Piper suggests you add Gin. . . Lots of gin, and some club soda, to make yourself a Tom Collins.

3 comments:

Malcolm+ said...

Until well into the 1700s, the new year was marked at "Lady Day," the feast of the Annunciation (when the Angel announces to Mary that she is to have a child) on March 25.

Wild Mama said...

Yummy recipe! When I can smell & taste again I'll definitely try it :)

dk said...

mmmmm. I'm thinking that lemonade would taste even better on a hot deck with a couple ounces of bombay ;)