Someone’s In the Kitchen with Daddy

#1 Dark n’Stormy - Barritt’s Ginger Beer and Black Seal Rum.

If the fates should look unfavorably upon you, and you run out of Barritt’s Ginger Beer skip the advice of the bartenders on your Bermuda cruise, and instead of opting for Root Beer, Go instead for Coke or Pepsi (not diet) and have yourself a:
#2 Rum and Coke/Cuba Libre or a slightly weaker (but still quite intoxicating Black Seal and Coke (2 oz Rum, 6 Oz coke (instead of 4 oz in the former)

if you only have diet coke on hand, reach instead for the:

#3 Root Beer – Not exactly the recommended substitute, but a tasty drink in it’s own right. An all natural version would be great – Jones makes one with Sugar Cane! not HFCS
#4 A Ginger Gale (the Ginger Ale version of the classic made with Ginger Beer – not remotely the same drink, but otherwise made exactly the same way. Some variety here, whether you use one of the supermarket staples, or a spicier or smaller more “handcrafted” offering from the likes of Vernors, Blenheim, Reeds, Blue Sky or Boylan.

#5 If you only have diet soda (and I’ve become a diet soda drinker lately), drink it (the diet soda) straight, over ice or even with lime, but don’t add the rum. please. ;P

future tests (or things to do until I finally break down and crack open my last can of Barritt’s) Mountain Dew and a variety of flavors from “back home” Polar Beverage Company – Orange Dry, and others.

(well – 52 weeks to the day) 

Bartender – 1 Dark n’ Stormy please!

on second thought… make it 36, to go.

Backstory?

Here’s a collection of links to food blogs and other online recipes that I’ve made, or intend to make: Kudo’s to you if any of yours are linked here, and thanks for sharing!

If this list starts to become too cumbersome, I may incorporate it into the regular blog, to make it more searchable by ingredients and season.

Bread

• Banana Roll – a different spin on Banana Bread!
• Beer Bread - I’ve made the whole grain version many times
• Cheesy Beer Bread – two cheeses
• Guiness Bread – Beer for breakfast – toasted!
• (White) Chocolate Chip Bread – another breakfast treat!
• Whole Wheat Beer Bread (I got plenty o beer)

Breakfast

• (Spiked) Egg Nog French Toast
• Mocha Chip Muffins
• My Favorite Granola (I won’t buy it anymore, ever)

Soups

• A good soup for the sick – cranberry beans
• Bermuda Fish Chowder – fills an 8 Qt pot up to the brim, sooo good spicy and a little sweet.
• Pea soup (2nd version) I tried a hybrid of both – making the stock first, then adding the split peas…
• Roasted Butternut Squash Soup – with apples – similar to my recipe, adapted from The Silver Palate

Salads

• Chipotle shrimp with a citrus pomegranate salad

Pizza:

• Late Summer Pizza with Four Cheeses, Sweet Cherry Tomatoes and Fresh Oregano

Chicken, Turkey and other two legged things:

• Bacon, Basil, and Bleu Cheese Stuffed Turkey Burger – So good I made them twice in a week!
• Chicken Marbella - the infamous, or so I’ve heard

Entrees, Veg:

• Ratatouille - le tian ou confit de Remi (et Fanny)

Entrees, Carne/Omni:

• Not your Moms Meatloaf – A rolled, stuffed meatloaf (I’ll use Turkey), wrapped in Bacon
  

Desserts

• Beeramisu (do I dare?)
  
• Chocolate Silk Pie
• Coco Crispy Riccota and Brownie Torte – Oh my!
• Gingerbread/Stout Cake (use Guinness or brew your own!)
• Guinness Chocolate Cake – Courtesy of NPR, adapted from King Arthur Flour

Cookies

• Chocolate Chip simplified basic recipe – made several batches Christmas 06! (add a splash of baileys too!)
• Chocolate and Peanut Butter Biscotti - my fave from Christmas 06, Interstingly, good with coffee
  
• Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheel Cookies Try Baileys instead of Peppermint!

Drinks (21+ and N/A)

• Dark N’ Stormy (as If I’d forget
• “New Orleans” Cold Brewed Iced Coffee – good base for iced coffee drinks – lots of sediment, filter well.
  

Seek not, and ye shall find, An (local) end to my quest?!

A fifth of Black Seal and two cans of Barritt’s! A Dark N Stormy Kit!

The proportions are rather odd – enough rum to make twenty-five drinks, but alas, ginger beer for four…

(maybe I’ll have to try the cran/orange/rum drink also on the package – 2 oz of each juice, 1.5 of rum)

though, after months of searching and waiting, I’ll take it! (and found about a half-hour from home) I don’t think I need to “save it.” But Oh, I’ll savor it!

now, I’m off to find a lime!

in case you don’t want to scroll back (or google) the recipe:

1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, won’t vouch for any others i’ve tried to date, still looking…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

I asked and, while there isn’t any of my favorite mixer in NH, there are several places that carry it in Mass. – granted they’re at least an hours drive from here – but since most of those liquor/package stores are close to family, I’m all set!

WooHoo!

So if anyones wondering what to bring to Thanksgiving dinner (or any impromptu cook-out this summer) just swing by:

Blanchards, 103 Harvard Ave, Allston, MA 02134
617 782 5588.

Charles Street Liquors, 143 Charles Street (Beacon Hill), Boston
617 523 5051

Liquor Land, 874 Harrison Ave, Boston
617 445 0560.

Haley’s Liquor Store, 116 Washington Street, Marblehead
781 631 0169.

Kappy’s, Rt 114 – 175 Andover Street, Peabody
978 532 2330.

Austin Liquors
20 Boston Turnpike Road, White City Shopping Ctr, Shrewsbury, MA
508-755-8100
&
117 Gold Star Boulevard, Worcester, MA
508-853-8953

and It can get a little Dark N’ Stormy around here – despite being a bright, sunshiney day!

As mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been on an on-and-off quest to remake my precious Dark N Stormy. Today came version number… pick one, I’ve lost count.

This afternoon I found myself trolling the aisles of WholeFoods, which always makes for a glorious day – especially since It’s been about a year since I’ve set foot in one. (Note to Whole Foods: You just opened up a new store across the pond in London… can we get one in New Hampshire? Please!!!)

I grabbed, among other things, some fantastic sushi for dinner (car food supreme!) and my choice of water to wash it down, I spied a “new” ginger beer. I say new, its from a company that’s been making it for over 100 years in the UK. I only bought one bottle – trying to invoke Murphy’s Law to hedge my bets that it would be a good one…

(but as I’ve learned you can’t invoke Muphy’s Law – you can’t wash your car to Make it rain)…

And so, once again, the Dark N Stormy comes up short. Drinkable, but just not right. Probably akin to using fat-free milk in a Sombrero. I’d previously found (and tested) another ginger beer with the mysterious quillaia, close but not quite. Now i’ve learned that the ginger mash needs to ferment in Bermuda stone vats before bottling… Today’s gingerbeer from Fentimans was indeed fermented – in stone bottles no less – But alas, not in Bermuda stone.

I drank this one, despite the frustration – others have been poured down the drain, so this one was above par at least. I did some more google searches for the beloved Barritt’s to see if there were any more clues to either it’s availability – or it’s secrets.

I’ve also stumbled across other sites where equally frustrated Bermudian ex-pats, and tourists alike are unhappy with the state of other ginger ales and beers. Misery and company. Depending on which sites you read (and choose to believe), Barritt’s products are simply unavailable in the US or the UK… or they are available in select liquor stores (despite being a non-alcoholic product) across the US, and it’s territories. (I’m thinking positive here… and even made an inquiry to the companys help line as to the nearest vendor – fingers crossed it’s not in Montana).

So now I’ll be checking out the local liquor stores, whilst waiting for a response from the company (or an order form) before I lose hope.

No, I won’t lose hope… Worst case (or perhaps best case?) I’ll be taking a flight (or cruise) back to the island, and I’ll be bringing an empty suitcase (or two) with me. Customs restrict the number of bottles of alcohol one brings back into the county (Black Seal, while touted as hard to find, is available locally) however there’s no restriction on bringing in cases of soda!

Having polished off 2 Bottles of Barritt’s Ginger Beer that I brought back from Bermuda (along with a Taste for one of their national drinks, the Dark and Stormy – ginger beer, dark rum and lime) I have been looking around for a surrogate (while trying to source some more of the real deal.)

I’ve figured out the proper portions of ingredients, and the proper mixing method, (see previous posts on the subject) but I haven’t figured out what makes ginger beer, ginger beer.

Barritt’s is not like ginger ale, but only seems to differ in having quillaia extract (a type of bark, methinks) and uses sugar cane rather than corn syrup (much better to do it old-school with the sugar cane in my book). That, and it’s made in Bermuda by Bermudians. Which is something any “local” rum cannot claim.

When I asked around on the cruise ship what to use, they all said to use root beer (presumably, they already knew how hard a time I would have, and knew that Schweppes or Canada Dry just wouldn’t cut it… so after milking those 2 precious liters for as long as I could… off to the natural food store I went.

First attempt – Boylans Ginger Ale (yes an ale is not a beer)… but this was made with sugar rather than HFSC, so worthy of consideration… just not worthy of the drink. Kinda bland. Neither dark, nor stormy.

Second attempt – Stewarts Ginger Beer, has the precious quillaia, but unf. has the non-beloved HFCS. Closer to what I’d hoped for… and spicyier. Nice, but a little too much with the spice. My wife tried (and liked) this one, It didn’t leave me wanting another – perhaps I should try this again with food, alone it was too spicy.

I tried a third with the Polar Old Fashioned Ginger Ale – which follows an old Irish recipe. (remembering that ginger beers are reported to only come from Bermuda, New England (somebody please tell me where) and the UK, this might be a good option…. nope.

The Stewarts was the best, but not close enough for my taste, even tried tempering the spiciness by combining the old fashined gingerale…

If I can’t get anymore Barritt’s, maybe rootbeer wasn’t such a bad suggestion afterall?

The “other story” begins…

To explain, allow me to pull a large portion from a previous blog entry almost verbatim:

I’ve been making myself a nice (very nice if you ask me) Dark and Stormy since October. The recipe hasn’t changed, but I perfected the preparation, and somehow, that has made all the difference. I smuggled two bottles of Black Seal Rum and 2 liters of Ginger Beer (not the same as Ginger Ale, as one patron at the Grocery Store informed us. “That is not Jinjah Ale, that is Jinjah.”)

The simple recipe is to take 1 glass, fill with Ice. Add 2 oz rum, 6 oz Ginger beer, and a twist of lime. Enjoy.
I’d combined the rum and ginger beer in a measuring cup, poured over the ice, only to have it form a foamy head atop the drink.
After finding inspiration in various places (Food Network mostly), I’ve learned to modify the drink as follows:
1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, can’t vouch for any others, yet…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

*note to any federal agents, or legal types reading this post, I only use the smuggling term in jest, a pirate reference, having been to sunny bermudy on a boat and all that… I got my two bottles all proper and duty free like, with the knowledge that this Rum was described as “hard to find”… outside of the NH liquor store that is… So 1/2 of the equation is taken care of – futurewise, that is. As for some nice Jinjah beer, that is another story.

The small bit of research I’ve done so far has taught me that Ginger beer is made in Bermuda, England and also (of all places, Mass and RI. Yay, close to home. (Triangle trade route anyone?) I’d figured the (exact) rum was going to be the toughie… searching the web, well, the soda merchants aren’t exactly easy to find. (Despite one of them in RI mentioned in an episode of one of Rachael Ray’s shows)

So far I’ve tried one Ginger Ale I found at Trader Joes – missing one ingredient – Quillaia bark (whatever that is), but does contain sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup (also missing from sodas made in and around the tropics). The verdict. Nope. Not even close. I was told that Root beer would also work, but I didn’t milk these 2 liters of jinja just to resort to some A&W or IBC.

There is a natural foods store up the road from me that carries a ginger ale with the mysterious quilllaia, but does regrettably have the HFCS I’d rather it not. So I’ll give that a shot next, but in the meantime, does anyone have access to anywhere that sells the real deal (Barritts) or perhaps knows of a micro-soda-brewery making the good stuff, and willing to ship?

(or why we need to make resolutions)

The weeks leading up to Christmas and New Years found me in the kitchen even more than planned. I wrote up a list of what I was planning to cook/bake, and when, if only to minimize the time I’d be cooped up, and maximize the tastes and aromas that speak Christmas so much more than words can convey.

My favorites this year, turns out, are recipes that have little to do with Christmas, or family traditions at all!

First off, The 12 days of cookies newsletter found it’s way into my in-box, the Chocolate Chip first caught my eye, mostly because it was a simplification in terms of prep (and touted ease – have the kids come help) so I envisioned time with my little one, rolling out sheet after sheet of cookies.

My new mixer (Oh, how I still love thee) really simplified prep. A triple batch in one bowl! Lets make two! (so I did).

In the end, most of my cooking was done solo – too much in the house, (primarily the 25 days of Christmas countdown on ABC family) to catch and hold the attention of the little one.

This left me time to improvise a bit. The addition of espresso powder to the basic dough, combined with two kinds of chocolate chips (whether semi-sweet and Bittersweet or white) turned out to be an inspired one.
And a new holiday, no, year round staple was born.

Also on the cookie front, AB inspired me to make up a batch of his sugar cookie pinwheels – again, I thought I’d have some “help” with cookie cutters, but in the end, a roll was made, to slice and bake, but in lieu of peppermint, I added Baileys. Yum!

My favorite new discovery, I have to say, also courtesy of Food TV, was the Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti. These were a lovely salty/sweet counterpoint to all the sweet I’d been noshing thus far.

Having my fill of cookies, and needing a break from them, I decided to start off the new year right. Soup sounded like it would fit the bill, so for New Years Eve, I managed to perfect the two recipes I left Bermuda with. I tried my hands at making a Fish Chowder reminiscent of the one I had on our Oct vacation (cruise). (The conch fritters that rounded out that meal would have to wait.)

Vegetarian or not – being a good New Englander, chowder must have a nice creamy base, at least where Clam and seafood chowder is concerned (sorry Manhattan, San Fran…). But, that said, the tomato broth of this Fish chowder works for me. Not being such a big seafood person, my wife was a little uneasy when I first brought up making the recipe (especially with no side dishes for her to fall back on), but the addition of the hot sherry peppers sauce had its appeal.  I replaced the water and beef consomme of the recipe with equal parts chicken stock and vegetable broth, but otherwise followed the recipe as written. I would have doubled the recipe (I almost did) but fortuanately I decided against, as the recipe nearly came to the brim of my 8 quart pot!

The verdict – a winner!

Perhaps it was the spiciness of the sherry peppers sauce, perhaps it was the fact that the fish cooked down into such tiny pieces she didn’t know them for what they were, or perhaps it was the rum!

Speaking of rum. I’ve been making myself a nice (very nice if you ask me) Dark and Stormy since October. The recipe hasn’t changed, but I perfected the preparation, and somehow, that has made all the difference. I smuggled two bottles of Black Seal Rum and 2 liters of Ginger Beer (not the same as Ginger Ale, as one patron at the Grocery Store informed us. “That is not Jinjah Ale, that is Jinjah.”)

The simple recipe is to take 1 glass, fill with Ice. Add 2 oz rum, 6 oz Ginger beer, and a twist of lime. Enjoy.
I’d combined the rum and ginger beer in a measuring cup, poured over the ice, only to have it form a foamy head atop the drink.
After finding inspiration in various places (Food Network mostly), I’ve learned to modify the drink as follows:
1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, can’t vouch for any others, yet…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

*note to any federal agents, or legal types reading this post, I only use the smuggling term in jest, a pirate reference, having been to sunny bermudy on a boat and all that… I got my two bottles all proper and duty free like, with the knowledge that this Rum was described as “hard to find”… outside of the NH liquor store that is… So 1/2 of the equation is taken care of – futurewise, that is. As for some nice Jinjah beer, that is another story.