The Zima Challenge

A co-worker and I decided to initiate what we call "The Zima Challenge" - an effort, using standard homebrewing techniques, to replicate the (in)famous alcopop Zima.

The rules I am holding myself to are as follows:

1. Don't buy any new equipment
2. Use ingredients available to an homebrewer
3. For the love of Pete, don't make more than a gallon

Today, I brewed.

I assembled my ingredients:

1 Gallon of water

3 1/4 cups of sugar

Then came the most difficult step - I brought the water to a boil and added the sugar:

This took a great deal of concentration, and one beer.

 After letting the sugar boil for about half an hour, I cooled the solution to 80F:

This required another beer.  Being patient is hard.

 Then added the zest of one small lime:

Mmm, limey goodness.  Not Kate Winslet, unfortunately.

 Next came some dry ale yeast and a vigorous shaking to mix the yeast in and oxygenate the syrup (honesty prevents me from calling it wort):

 
It was already fermenting nicely a few hours later:

Further updates will be posted as we go along - I anticipate about a week in the first jug, then a second week to clarify, another 2-3 weeks for bottle conditioning and carbonation.

Something that didn't occur to me until the Mrs. asked me today is this:  Who is going to drink it?

That's a good question.  A very good question.  Anyone here in Austin that remembers what Zima tasted like want to be a guinea pig?

Freezer Jam!

No, not a concert featuring cryogenically frozen rock stars.

It's jam you make and store in your freezer, that's all.  I've been doing freezer jam for several months now - it's quick and easy, and costs less than boughten jam.  A quick Google* will give you dozens of recipes, but they all come down to about the same proportions.  Today, I used this one to make Strawberry jam, which gets consumed at an alarming rate at my house.

I started with some organic strawberries**, some sugar and some pectin.

Cut up the strawberries and mash them in a bowl***, then mix them in with the sugar:

Bring the water and pectin to a boil and add that to the strawberries and sugar:

Then you just put it in jars:

Let it sit for 24 hours, then stick 'em in the freezer.  Bing bang boom, you got some jam.  

* - Yes, I know we're not supposed to use "Google" as a verb, but I will anyway.  Deal with it, Google.

** - "Organic" as in, grown according to organic farming principles, because all food is organic.  I took chemistry, me.

*** - IT HAS BEEN 8 DAYS since there was an injury requiring medical treatment in my kitchen.  Shut uuuppppp!

It's A Crazy Idea, But It Just Might Work...

Planning for our New Year's Day get-together, and I'm thinking I'll make a lucky soup, because everyone could use more of it.  I set up a poll on Facebook to get some ideas for tasty ingredients that might touch on the  "luck" theme.  I'm starting with duck broth, so pop on over and voice your thoughts.

Holiday Prep and Woolgathering

Despite the best efforts of retailers to convince me that it's already Christmas and I need to ZOMG BUY SOME STUFF OH GOD PLEASE BUY SOMETHING, I'm focused entirely on Thanksgiving.

No, Wait, Not This Turkey Day

This year, it's Turkey Day Proper at the In-Laws', where my FiL will cook up a tasty turkey, and there will be all the usual trimmings - cornbread stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberries, green bean casserole, bread pudding and gravy.  Melissa will be bringing her unique baking wizardy to bear in the pie department (chocolate and pecan, I hope), and I think I'll be throwing together these honey rolls.  Friday, we're having our annual Day-After Leftoverpalooza, a casual affair with no set ending, and lots of turkey soup and a clearing out of leftovers and free-flowing wine and (I hope) enjoyable conversation.

I've always preferred Thanksgiving to Christmas - don't get me wrong, I love Christmas as a time for being with family, but it's a little too... frenetic for me.  Thanksgiving, though - a day dedicated to a good meal and just eating and enjoying.  I don't have many bad Thanksgiving memories - I'm lucky enough to have a pretty stable family, without the drama and simmering fights that some people have to suffer through (and to those unfortunates, you have my empathy - I'd gladly invite you over to my place for a drama-free meal, as long as you don't torch the furniture or drink all the booze).

My parents have never been afraid to have a non-traditional Thanksgiving.  We had our share of turkey-and-all-the-trimmings growing up, but we also did some pretty offbeat celebrations as well.  One of my favorites was during my high school years.  We drove down to St Mary's, Georgia and camped nearby, then on Thanksgiving Day, took a ferry to Cumberland Island and spent the day hiking.  It was cold and blustery, but I remember enjoying it, despite my status as a Surly Teenager and desperate desire to Not Enjoy Anything Suggested By Parents.  We hiked to the northern end of the island and near lunchtime, found a spot on the beach sheltered by dunes and set out a picnic lunch.  I don't remember what we had - maybe turkey sandwiches -I just remember it was something we could easily pack in our backpacks.  As we ate, a stranger rounded the dune and asked if we minded if he sat down out of the wind and ate his lunch.  My parents got to talking, and invited him to share our meal, and we got to know him.  He was retired, from New England, and was driving a friend's car down to Florida for them, and had decided on a whim to stop and see the island.  We spent the rest of the afternoon hiking with Bob, and after we left, he and my parents kept in touch.  Several times, he stopped over at our farm on his way north or south.  In my memory, that Thanksgiving memory stands out the most - not for the food, but for the feeling of it.  As I look back, I think on how that welcome, and the friendship my family got out of that, sums up for me what Thanksgiving should be about.  For me, it's about finding commonality with people - with family, with friends, with complete strangers - and finding things to be joyful about.

So that's how I approach Thanksgiving.  No matter what, I see it as a chance to, if only for a brief while, acknowledge the things that are going right.  The rest of the year, I worry, and stress out, and get agitated.  Right now, though, it's noticing the things that I don't have to worry about.

Beautiful Sou-oop!

Tonight, we had a few friends over, and I made soup. Beautiful soup. We've started this as a new social thing, so once a month, we invite some friends over for a meal. Last month, I made pizza. Tonight, it was soup.

Stock is pretty easy, and you can make it from leftovers and unused bits from other meals. I buy chicken breasts with the bone in for meals, and in the summer stick the bones in the deep freeze until it's cool enough to use the stovetop for several hours at a time. Like, say, this week, when it's been delightfully cool, with lows in the forties. Easy-peasy, just drop some bones and some vegetable scraps (tops of onions & carrots, and potato skins leftover from preparing other meals - I've also added basil, bell peppers and other veggies that I've had laying about) in a stockpot, add water and boil it for 30 minutes, then let it simmer for 3-4 hours, adding water as needed to keep it at a constant level.

I measure it into freezer containers, let it cool and skim the fat off the top, then freeze it.

Tonight, it was chicken vegetable soup and potato-leek soup.

The first is super-simple (NPI), just cut up 2-3 carrots, 3-4 potatoes and a large onion into 6-8 cups of stock, add some chicken (I had about half a roast chicken left over, and chopped that meat into nice little bits) and bring to a boil, then simmer for several hours with the lid on, and season to taste - I used a little bit of sea salt, some black pepper and a pinch of thyme. Your Spices May Vary.

Potato-leek soup is a little more work, but rich and creamy and worth the effort.

Slice 2 leeks, all the way up until you're cutting the green part and mince a clove or two of garlic.  Melt half a stick of butter in a stock pot and drop in the leeks and garlic, cook them until they're getting soft, but before they start to caramelize.  Pour in 6 cups of chicken stock and add 3-4 large potatoes, peeled and sliced.  Cook until the potatoes are mushy (that's a technical term) and remove the stock pot from the stove and run the soup through a blender a cup or two at a time until it's thick and, well, soupy.  Pour the blended soup into the stock pot and put it over low heat for a bit, then pour in a couple of cups of half and half, and then a cup of heavy whipping cream.  Get it heated all the way through, stirring it to keep the cream from scorching.  Serve hot with some sharp cheddar or Double Gloucester, or serve cold with sour cream and bacon crumbles.


I baked bread to go with it, using Julia Child's recipe from The Way To Cook.  Two round loaves, and 4 mini baugettes.  


Super tasty, but I might be a wee bit biased.


I'm very happy now that it's soup season again.  There's a Cajun deli near my house, so I'm thinking I'm gonna pick up some Andouille sausage and make some Cajun minestrone this winter.

BBQ Sauce

As even a casual BBQ eater knows, there are a variety of sauces, rubs and dips available out there.  They originally varied geographically, but in our mobile society, you can find then everywhere.  Purists make their sauces from scratch, simmer them for hours, can them and age them.

I don't have the time for that, so I'll tell you how to make your own sauce, the way I learned.  The basic recipe I got from my father, who in turn learned it from his friend Mickey, who grew up in Tennessee.^*  I've made my own modifications, and never written it down before now.  There aren't any exact measurements, because it's not about precision, it's about taste.  I taught this recipe to a friend once, and he spent the entire time writing down everything I said, estimating "so, about a quarter cup of sugar?" and stuff like that.  I almost couldn't do it - it's like the story about how the centipede could walk just fine, until someone asked him how he coordinated his legs, and then he was thinking about it so much, he couldn't walk.


* - Correction, the recipe here is based on my father's own recipe, Mickey's recipe was mustard based.  This is what happens when you rely on your memory instead of asking questions.