Recipes « (y)our food choices™

We happened upon our first shrub (the drink) on a visit to Washington, D.C. a few years ago while lunching at America Eats Tavern. The shrub is a throwback to our Colonial American past. The English settlers preserved fruits and berries in vinegar for the off-season and those fruit infused vinegars were strained, mixed with sugar, and reduced into a syrup before being stirred into cold water or booze to create a refreshing drink.

Now that spring has finally arrived, the markets will be filling up with strawberries and rhubarb. Putting up jars of them now, packed in vinegar, will yield tart, fruity bases for thirst-quenching coolers in the summer months to come.

If you’re like us, you can’t help but buy more berries than you can eat while still at their best. Creating shrub syrups puts all those juicy berries to delicious, good old-fashioned use!

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Strawberry Shrub
2 cups fresh strawberries, quartered
1 cup ultra fine sugar
1 cup of red wine vinegar

Place the strawberries in a clean, sterilized jar with sugar. Smash strawberries with a muddler (a bartender’s pestle). Add vinegar and place in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours and up to 4 weeks.

Strain the liquid into a clean sterilized container. Refrigerate up to 4 weeks or more.

Rhubarb Shrub

2 cups fresh chopped rhubarb
1 cup ultra fine sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 white wine vinegar

Add the chopped rhubarb, sugar, and rice vinegar to a sauce pan over low to medium heat. Smash the rhubarb using a muddler as the sauce heats. Once the sugar is dissolved, take the pan off the heat and muddle some more. Pour the liquid into a clean sterilized container and add the white wine vinegar. Allow to cool before closing the lid. Store in the fridge for at least 48 hours and up to 4 weeks.

Strain the liquid into a clean sterilized container. Refrigerate up to 4 weeks or more.

Strawberry Rhubarb Gin Cocktail

2 ounce good gin
1 ounce strawberry shrub
1 ounce rhubarb shrub

Place some ice into a cocktail shaker. Add the gin and shrubs. Give the shaker a few good shakes. Stain into two chilled cocktail glasses. Top with sparkling rosé wine.

Cheers!

Inspiration for the recipes from:

Serious Eats; Cocktail 101: How to Make Shrub Syrups
the kitchn; How To Make a Fruit Shrub Syrup
BuzzFeed; Here’s What You Should Be Drinking This Summer

We eat a lot to steel cut oats. Though primarily thought of as breakfast food, they end up in a lot of other dishes in our repertoire. They’re nutritious and delicious when prepared well. Far tastier than their pre-cooked, rolled counterparts. While we really never tire of the straightforward flavors of the oats, our breakfast bowls have morphed over the years into something entirely different from the bowls of mush we grew up on. The oats’ neutral, nutty flavor opens them up to endless flavor pairings and we’re having fun experimenting with them.

Bananas are another pantry staple. And they regularly get to an overripe stage that renders them total mush, destined to the freezer to become sweetener for future smoothies. But the good ones often find their way into a bowl of breakfast oats along with toasted walnuts or almonds. Their natural sugars and creamy texture are ideally suited to a bowl of porridge.

We recently used overripe banana to sweeten a batch of oatmeal. Added to the pot at the beginning of the cooking process, the bananas break down into a sweet sauce that scents the oats with a subtle tropical fruitiness. No added sugar necessary. We garnished the bowl with toasted pecans, a big dollop of Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of toasted coconut. The result was amazing!

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Tropical Oatmeal
serves 2

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup steel cut oatmeal
1 bay leaf
1 small cinnamon stick (or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
pinch of salt
2 cups hot water
1 ripe banana
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1/4 chopped fresh pineapple
2 tablespoon chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

Place a pan over medium heat and add the butter. Once the butter has melted, add the steel cut oats and gently toast for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add bay leaf, cinnamon and salt. Add the hot water carefully (the water will sputter). Stir until everything is mixed. At this point you can turn off the heat and allow to sit over night.

The next morning, return the pan to heat and cook adding the banana and a little water, if necessary. Cook for about 5 minutes or until creamy.

In a small sauté pan, over medium low heat, gently toast the walnuts for 2-3 minutes before adding the desiccated coconut. Toast for an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute. Do not look away from the pan because the coconut toasts very fast and will burn if left on the heat for more than a minute or two.

Serve the oatmeal in a warmed bowl and top with greek yogurt, pineapple, and toasted walnuts and coconut (or any other fruity, nutty combination). Enjoy!