Shrubs and berries

I've always loved the concept of shrubs, of which there are two basic varieties:

"One type of shrub is a fruit liqueur that was popular in 17th and 18th century England, typically made with rum or brandy mixed with sugar and the juice or rinds of citrus fruit.^[1][2][3]

The word "shrub" can also refer to a cocktail or soft drink that was popular during America's colonial era, made by mixing a vinegared syrup with spirits, water, or carbonated water.^[1][4][5]The term "shrub" can also be applied to the sweetened vinegar-based syrup, from which the cocktail is made; the syrup is also known as drinking vinegar.^[3][6][7] Drinking vinegar is often infused with fruit juice, herbs and spices for use in mixed drinks.^[6][8][9]"

Sorry, but wikipedia is helpful sometimes to save me time in explaining things, and it provides helpful links if you want to learn more. I'm more interested in the vinegar kinds that were popular in America before refrigeration left them all lonely and forgotten (until modern times, yay) and love the utilitarian nature of them. Plus, the leftover fruits make a wonderful topping for yogurt, granola, and ice cream type things.

I'm working on an elderberry shrub that I plan to toy around with and mix some interesting syrups and sodas and tinctured flowers I have lying around. Maybe just a simple elder vinegar with a ginger syrup or hibiscus syrup or liqueur to give it a nice zest.

There are a couple ways you could go about this. Wikipedia says that it was made by pouring the vinegar over the fruit and letting it sit overnight or for a few days, straining, and then mixing with the sugar or syrup. A more modern resource recommends sugaring the berries for a few days and THEN mixing in the vinegar. I, being a firm believer in playing around with all the things, did both! I have elderberries mixed with sugar, and elderberries steeped in vinegar.

I'm working on getting better pics but my phone is the sucks. 

 

Khichdi Congee Jook Porridge

I adore congee, jook - or whatever your variation is - however simple or fancy you make it. I could eat it every single week (not day, because that's boring) and be very happy. It is just rice with some flavorings cooked with more water (and for much longer) than is standard and is served often to young children, the elderly, or just when you have a nasty flu. I have already posted a recipe for a basic jook and often add additional spices to help me feel better when I AM sick. Today, when my partner complained of feeling rather ill, I was low on rice and I decided to google "lentil jook," and boy-oh-boy, I was super into what I found.

What I found was multiple recipes for khichdi, which adds spices and lentils to the rice. Often it's prepared vegetarian/vegan, being Indian in origin, and was apparently the inspiration for kedgeree (also tasty). It's very similar to jook, but with more lentils than rice. However there are many, many versions, and some are not cooked down as much as this one. Most recipes advise toasting the spices (always a good call) but I was short on time, so I just sprinkled in some turrmeric and black pepper.


2 chicken thighs*
1 1/2 inch knob of ginger, minced
4 large cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 cup rice
3/4 cup red lentils
4 cups water or stock
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
soy sauce or salt to taste

Throw it in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, partially covered and simmer on low-medium for 40 minutes. If desired, toast your spices in the pot first and then add the remaining items.

Azrael Abyss is into it. 

*And these things are so tweakable; that's why I love this sort of cooking. You can omit the chicken, substitute mushrooms (particularly shiitake), add lemongrass, chilies, and in the future I'll be playing around with more types of Indian spices. This was just what I had on hand today to whip up quickly for my sick partner.

Asoefetida, fenugreek, and mustard seeds are things I will be adding in subsequent makings, but I think this would be great with a pinch of garam masala or curry powder, if that's all you have!

Crescent tea cookies with lavender vanilla moon sugar

I absolutely adore shortbread cookies. I also love nuts. This is pretty much a basic Russian tea cake type recipe, that shapes into crescent moons instead of balls. Use coconut oil instead of butter if you want to vegan it up!

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter or coconut oil
1 cup ground almonds or hazelnuts
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)

Moon Sugar:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 vanilla bean pod
1 tsp lavender buds

Whisk together flour, nuts and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together sugar, butter and extracts. Mix bowls together until well blended. Shape into ball and chill for 30-60 minutes in fridge.

When they are 15 until done chilling, preheat oven to 350 and make moon sugar: split vanilla bean pod in half and scrape the little black seeds into bowl of sugar and lavender buds. Cut pod into 1 inch pieces and mix into sugar.

Form dough into 1 inch balls and then shape into a 3 inch long roll. Lay them out onto a cookie sheet and shape into crescents.

Bake 10-15 minutes until set. Sprinkle with moon sugar. Once cooled, if you desire more sugar, roll them around in it or sprinkle some more on right before serving,

Big Grove Brewery Review

The Big Grove in Solon has been a favorite of mine since not long after it opened. They tend to put a fresh, modern twist on tried-and-true bar food staples like reubens, wings, and chicken salad sandwiches. Often they take inspiration from Thai and Korean flavors, which I'm suuuper into. Best of all, Big Grove is also a brewery, so there is always decent, well-priced beer on tap. The chef obviously knows what he is doing and manages to keep the menu current, fresh, and innovative. No weirdness or trendiness for the sake of being weird (or trendy). Staff is pretty ok, but can be kind of hit or miss. But hey, they're trying, and it's hard in small town Iowa to find regular, reliable talent. Should be easier in Iowa City, but the service here was my biggest complaint.

The set up is a bit unique and we were greeted by a friendly hostess who informed us that we could just wander around and grab a table wherever we could find one. Despite the gigantic space with mile high ceilings and probably about 50 tables scattered around, there were only two left, and we snagged one by the enormous tv and four ping pong tables. Our server was very nice, and promptly greeted us and told us how it works, asked if we needed a few minutes and we said yes and asked for waters. After a little bit, he quickly dropped off the waters, but then spun away and rushed off before I could ask for a bloody mary.

Instead of ordering with our server, we walked up to a few registers that you could see the kitchen right behind, and placed our order, paid, got a buzzer. It would be pretty quick, they assured us. And it was. The server never came back, although a more managery person came up at one point and asked if everything tasted good. It totally did. At that point, I'd decided water was probably for the best anyway, as my poor Jesse can't drink while on some medication. And it's our vacation, so I'm trying not to rub it in. I mean, I could have just walked up to the bar and grabbed one at any time. It was right behind us, but I wasn't really that excited about a drink anyway. I haven't been drinking beer lately and that's kind of their specialty. There's a few interesting cocktails. The whiskey sour with a pinot noir float is tragically very hip right now in this town, and they had a nice sounding old fashioned, but I was left a bit underwhelmed by their limited, uninspired selection. Still better than most places in this town.

It did make me wonder what the tip situation is. They obviously wouldn't know who our server was; no one asked and we wouldn't have been able to tell them his name, if they had. And since we tipped anonymously at the register, I wondered whether people were actually giving a full 15-20 or using it as an excuse to be shitty cheapskates. Hey man, I've worked at HuHot and I know that people regularly would leave 5-15% - if we were lucky - because the perception was, "Why should I pay you if I'm getting my own food, hey I see a tip jar by the cooks that I get to watch make my food, hell yeah, that's who deserves my money," and yep they certainly did. But the cooks got paid $9 an hour while we got paid $4 because tips*.

Ahh the joys of being in the service industry. It got me thinking: did the servers only get tipped on drinks that they served from the bar? Is that why our server, assuming that I wasn't planning to get anything to drink after my boyfriend announced, "I'll just have a water, thanks," lumping me in because of my gender? He was probably just busy. But it did feel like he stopped caring after it seemed like we wouldn't be ordering drinks, though I actually had been planning on it. Oh well. As much as I like to defend servers because I am not personally motivated much by money, I do know how deeply others are or can be. So I wonder about the system. I like the concept. But it might get hectic. Only time will tell.

*Not to mention the fact that we Huhot servers were forced to explain the whole process, and go get the drinks, soups/salads, and the damn bowl of rice (hand sprinkled with scallions) that came with each meal before the folks got back from their journey around the grill.