Hounds In The Kitchen » Spirits

How To Make A Mint Julep

Rachel — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:08:11 +0000

Kentucky Derby coming up…

Forest of mint growing already in the herb bed…

A long day filled with appointments…

Bottle of Eagle Rare bourbon in the cabinet…

This afternoon, all signs pointed to a Mint Julep. Here’s how I make them:

Fill a low ball glass with a quarter cup or more fresh cleaned mint leaves.

Add a teaspoon of turbinado sugar.

Muddle well, then fill the glass with crushed ice.

Top it off with 2 – 4 ounces of high quality bourbon.

Cheers!

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How To Make A Mint Julep is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
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Make it Yourself: Fruitcake

Rachel — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:42:28 +0000

Two years ago, my aunt brought fruitcake to our holiday celebration. I can’t say I had ever tried fruitcake before, but this was delicious! Juicy, rich, alcoholic, and sweetened by real fruit not sugar or fluorescent candied stuff - what could be wrong?

Last year, I made fruitcake myself. I split the batter between one large and two small loaf pans. Because of my unpredictable oven, the smaller ones burned on the bottom. I was disappointed but planned to enjoy the larger loaf even more.

Sometime in the brandy basting process, the dastardly Food Hound struck again. That’s right, Devie consumed the entire large loaf. A pound or more of dry fruit, alcohol, butter, all of it. AGHHH!!!! I hoped she would die of overeating but it never seems to bother her.

This year I am determined to bake and eat the fruitcake. This year’s attempt is currently aging in an upper cabinet. (Don’t you wish you had opposable thumbs now, Devie?!)

I use a slightly modified version of Alton Brown’s Free Range Fruitcake recipe, below. I dare you to make it yourself – no one re-gifts this cake!

Ingredients

4 pounds dried fruit (Choose your favorites. This year, I used golden raisins, cranberries, apricots, and a berry mix from Trader Joe’s.)
Zest of one lemon, chopped coarsely
Zest of one orange, chopped coarsely
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped
1 cup bourbon (gold rum is traditional and called for in Alton’s recipe but bourbon is my favorite)
1 cup sugar
5 ounces unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks)
1 cup unfiltered apple juice
4 whole cloves, ground
6 allspice berries, ground (if you are local and want some of these I have plenty to share)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, broken (Alton’s recipe calls for pecans)
Brandy for basting and/or spritzing

Directions

Combine dried fruits, candied ginger and both zests. Add bourbon and macerate overnight.

Place fruit and liquid in a non-reactive pot with the sugar, butter, apple juice and spices. Bring mixture to a boil stirring often, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for at least 15 minutes. (Batter can be completed up to this point, then covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before completing cake.)

you could stop right here and have a delicious topping for ice cream

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients and sift into fruit mixture. Quickly bring batter together with a large wooden spoon, then stir in eggs one at a time until completely integrated, then fold in nuts. Spoon into a 10-inch stoneware loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done. If not, bake another 10 minutes, and check again.

Remove cake from oven and place on cooling rack or trivet. Baste or spritz top with brandy and allow to cool completely before turning out from pan.

When cake is completely cooled, seal in plastic wrap or a tight sealing, food safe container. Store far away from evil dogs.

Every 2 to 3 days, feel the cake and if dry, baste with more brandy. The cake’s flavor will enhance considerably over the next two weeks.

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Make it Yourself: Fruitcake is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
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What is Local?

Rachel — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:57:55 +0000

little hound sniffing a local (backyard) pepper

Part of the purpose of Hounds in the Kitchen is to advocate for local foods and local eating. ‘Local‘ is subjective and prone to green-washing as are so many other terms. With the advent of Local Foods Week coming soon (see below), now is a good time to talk about what is local.

Some define local in terms of miles: In 2005, authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon spent a year eating only what was available growing in a hundred mile area surrounding their home. They chronicled their journey in the bestselling book Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet, a highly recommended read. They maintain an informative website, 100milediet.org.

The challenge of a 100 mile diet is that many foodstuffs a kitchen relies on are not available year round within 100 miles of every location. Smith and MacKinnon made many a winter meal of the same few ingredients. While they did have access to a wide variety of foods in the US northwest, there are many locations where a 100 mile diet might be so limited as to not give enough variety to maintain optimum health.

Some define local in terms of their city, state, or country. Wanting to challenge ourselves to drink locally, we started the year 2008 with a resolution to only drink spirits, wine, and beer produced in the United States. We chronicled our progress at All American Alcohol (an old blog, posts now transferred here) but abandoned the cause in the spring when we drilled down into the local foods issue. We realized that California wine travels more miles to get to us in Ohio than French wine. Same with the one brand of American made agave spirit produced in California vs. Mexican tequila. We still often choose drinks that do not travel far, but we are no longer limited by geographical boundaries.

a local meal - veggies from the garden, US bread, Wisconsin mozzarella

Here’s our current version of local: Eat foods that come from as close as possible. Make purchases directly from the grower as often as you can to ensure the freshest quality and direct economic impact.

On many days this summer we were able to eat dishes where we grew nearly every ingredient organically in our own backyard. That’s local!

We visited pick your own farms to pick large quantities of local in season favorites and preserved them for the winter. PickYourOwn.org is a fantastic resource of places to pick and methods of preservation.

But as autumn comes (first frost warning tonight!), our yard will provide less bounty. We will use our summer preserves and continue to put up fall favorites for enjoyment far into the winter. We will shop the farmers markets to buy direct from Ohio growers as much as is possible. We will continue to purchase eggs and milk directly from a farmer friend. We choose organic produce in the supermarket when Ohio produce is unavailable. LocalHarvest.org is a good source of farmers growing unique commodities across the US and I plan to buy some non-Ohio produce in bulk (like cranberries) from Local Harvest growers this year.

There are several ingredients that we knowingly consume from thousands of miles away. Coffee and bananas, for instance, come from oceans away and are sometimes farmed with environmentally and ethically degrading means. We choose fairly traded, organic versions of these long traveling ingredients and savor them.

When making the decision about what to buy from where, we choose local + organic first, local but not organic next, and organic fair trade but not local third, and if not other choice exists, not local or organic. As much as possible, we apply the same standards to processed food.

During the summer, we eat about 70% local (by ingredients used). That percent declines in the winter or when we are busy.

It took years of changing eating and shopping habits to acheive our current level of local food eating. I plan to write several posts in the future about small steps you can take to change your habits if you are so inclined to eat more locally. I hope you do because local food is often more delicious, healthy, and supportive of the local economy.

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A few Columbus local food advocates met last week to talk about Local Foods Week. ‘What is local’ was one of our points of discussion. Lisa the Restaurant Widow has already written a post with the same title. Others may also write their interpretations of local soon and I will link them up here.

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Local Matters, a central Ohio organization advocating for urban agriculture, local foods in schools, and access to local farm foods, is celebrating local foods with a week of activities for Local Matters Local Foods Week coming up October 3 – 9.

They have an impressive lineup of events, starting with the Market to Market bike ride Saturday the 3rd and concluding with a Finale at the Dublin Whole Foods Market on the 9th. In between you will find benefit dinners, kitchen tours, a school garden tour, and a wine tasting.

Part of the motivation for Local Foods week is to build Local Matter’s donation program. They are selling $1 paper Local Matter’s sprouts at a variety of locations. If you join their 1000 Friends of Local Matters ($10/month or $120/year) during Local Foods Week, you can receive a special punch card for free Jeni’s Ice Cream.

No matter where you are in your journey to eat more locally, education and support is key. Participate in some of the events during Local Matters Local Foods week and you will enjoy the company of other local food lovers. Subsrcibe to the Hounds in the Kitchen feed for year round encouragement to eat locally.

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What is Local? is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

Camp Food

Rachel — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:13:30 +0000

This weekend we went to our annual Labor Day Camp with family and friends. Every year we have a theme night with costumes and related food. This year our friend Leonard went all out on the theme, Hawaii.

I could write about the tiki hut trike, our chant to counter the hellfire and brimstone preaching group across the way, the 25 mile bike tour including a confederate prisoner of war camp, or the bald eagles we saw fly over East Harbor State Park many times. But since this is largely a gardening and eating blog, I will focus on the food.

We started our drive early Saturday morning. With some extra pizza dough as inspiration on Friday night, I made a pear and mozzarella pie to take on the road. I chilled the cooked pie overnight in the fridge. It was filling, yummy, and easy to eat in the car.

The camp stove saw heavy use in the mornings at camp. Breakfasts are my favorite because someone else (usually my dad or grandfather) always does the cooking! Being that I have food and only food on my mind early in the morning, I took no pictures of our actual breakfasts.

It is harvest time here in Ohio, so the food table was laden with seasonal fruits and vegetables. My grandmother brought some delicious yellow melon pictured below.

Camp lunches for us are simple sandwiches, fruits and veggies, and chips.

For the Hawaiian themed meal, Alex braised a pork shoulder with pineapple and cinnamon.

on the campfire, about half way done

Other theme dishes included mai tais, beanie weanies with cocktail umbrellas, and a poi substitute: mashed potatoes with a beet adding color.

alcohol = not allowed in state parks

The next night we had grilled meats, salads, fork mashed guacamole and roasted corn.

Dad preparing the fire for water soaked ears

Grandma brought her famous gingersnap cookies, my favorite of the snacks.

And there were s’mores, of course.

What do you eat when you are car camping?

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Camp Food is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

Infusing the Harvest

Rachel — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:26:42 +0000

The harvest this time of year is so perfect and precious, it’s hard not to eat every morsel of herb, berry, and pepper. If you can spare a bit of the garden raised, CSA, or farmer’s market bounty, consider making some alcohol infusions.

Herbs, berries, flowers, and veggies all release their flavors into alcohol. Making homemade infusions couldn’t be simpler and in the middle of winter you will appreciate tasting a little ‘summer’.

Here’s how I do it:

Pick your poison I prefer infusing into vodka because it has minimal flavor and is uncolored. Any liquor will do, of course, so feel free to experiment or use what you have available. Top shelf isn’t necessary, but swill will not be improved by flavor, so choose something in the middle. I picked up some Tito’s at Weiland’s market for the summer infusions this year because then I can say they are 100% made in the USA.

Prepare the infusant (yeah, we made up that word) Wash and dry a handful of prime in-season herbs, fruits, and/or vegetables. Remove stems and pithy parts. Add them to a jar or bowl you will not need for a week. Mascerate with a fork to release juices.

Add infusant to liquor This year I plan to make small batches of about 2 cups vodka to a handful of infusant, but use your best judgment. So long as all the infusant is covered by liquor you won’t risk spoilage.

Wait Close the jar and shake once a day or so. Taste and add more infusant as needed. Heavy aromatics like peppers or hard herbs need only a few days. Lighter flavors from berries and soft herbs can stay in the jar a week or more.

Strain Remove the fruit from the liquor. (If you’re a lush like me, turn the vodka soaked juicy fruit bits into a blended drink.) For perfectly clear infused liquor, strain again through layers of cheese cloth.

Label Anyone who has been preserving for awhile has mystery jars sitting around. Save yourself the trouble of tasting and guessing! Label with the ingredient(s) and date.

Enjoy Flavored liquor is great as an aperitif, mixed into a cocktail, or made into a spiked sauce. Flavored vodka in pretty jars make good holiday gifts too.

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Infusing the Harvest is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

A note about All American Alcohols

Rachel — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:34:18 +0000

In late 2007 we decided to start a blog about All American Alcohols. It was our resolution to drink only american made spirits for 2008.

The resolution only lasted until April, and the blog petered our in May. You can read the old posts by clicking on the category ‘all american alcohols’ to the left.

Applicable posts from the old all american alcohols blog are also cross posted in the Spirits category. You can find a few reviews, some recipes and general info about US made spirits there. We’ll add more as we can, hopefully including a homebrew series sometime in the spring.

Cheers!

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A note about All American Alcohols is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

Ciao

Alex — Sun, 04 May 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Work is too crazy and we don’t have time to keep up with this blog. We’re still trying to drink local, but this will be the last blog post. Take it easy.

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Ciao is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen

We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an [...]

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Ciao is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

Haven't posted in a while and travelling to Florida

Alex — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:01:00 +0000

We haven’t posted in a while because of illness and a busy schedule. On a brighter note, I will be in Florida all next week on business (West Palm Beach). Anyone got suggestions for a good local hooch? Post an idea or send it to alex@bayinghound.com.

What am I drinking right now? Bulleit Bourbon. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a good qulity yet inexpensive bourbon.

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Haven't posted in a while and travelling to Florida is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

Wines traveling by sail boat

Rachel — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:02:00 +0000

The folks at 100 mile diet just posted a story about a new/old trend in Europe to ship wines by sail boat. This is how ancient wines were transported, of course. Some winemakers are reviving the trend to reduce their environmental impact (and shipping costs, presumably) by eliminating petroleum transportation fuel.

We say, “Fantastic!” Columbus Ohio isn’t likely to be reached by sailboat any time soon, but wind farms are being built here to generate consumer energy.

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Wines traveling by sail boat is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.

Bourbon Country Kentucky

Rachel — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:45:00 +0000

At the end of March, we will travel to Kentucky Bourbon Country. The bluegrass region of Kentucky is home to dozens of small bourbon producers. It also happens to be a scenic area perfect for biking.

We hope to visit three or four distilleries and stay in a bed and breakfast. Do any of you lovely readers have recommendations?

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Bourbon Country Kentucky is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen
We love to hear from you! Please add your comments or send Rachel an email.