Soda and Juice: Fruit and Otherwise

We don't drink a lot of soda or fruit juice, but occasionally we like to try it. We particularly like to try new or unusual varieties. So the following are sodas and juices we've tasted over several years, some of them very fun. I tend to think that the more juice in the drink the better, but a recent article makes the claim that "even natural, no-sugar-added fruit juice is little more than a sugar delivery system that's almost as harmful as soda." For example, "one cup of apple juice contains 110 calories and an eye-popping 26 grams of sugar. These calorie and sugar counts are almost identical to what you'd find in the same size serving of cola." I still have a bias for real fruit juice, but with that behind us, let's jump into some soda and juice:

One of my favorites. I buy this at the Ranch Market, heavily geared toward the Hispanic buyer. It has a strong apple taste and a nice carbonated bite to it. Primary ingredients, in order are: carbonated water, natural sugar and apple juice from concentrate. 

I'm not a major fan of apple beer. I'll take the Sidral above anyday.

On the apple side, this would be a distant second to the Sidral. Its primary ingredients are: carbonated water, glucose syrup and apple juice concentrate.  The super red coloring is a little bit of a turn-off, but it is not bad.

I've had this several times - in San Francisco and recently in Los Angeles. The blood orange taste is very weak, it is primarily a carbonated water. It is okay with something rich and heavy, like good cheese or beef jerky. 

We just recently tried this for the first time. It is 11% juice. Primary ingredients are: carbonated filtered water, sugar, and blood orange juice concentrate. Pretty good. 

Leninade is just orange soda, no juice, and its sole attraction is its fun message.

Here is the other side of the bottle.

We got this ginger soda in New Hampshire and it very good as far as ginger soda goes. I'm not a huge ginger soda fan, but I would order this again.  

Other side of the bottle. 

This Superior ginger ale is pretty good - not overwhelmingly strong. 

Reed's Extra Ginger Brew - Jamaican Style Ginger Beer is actually pretty good quality as far as sodas go. It is 25% juice. Ingredients are: sparkling filtered water (sweetened by a blend of cane sugar, pineapple juice from concentrate and honey), fresh ginger root, lemon and lime juices from concentrate and spices. The only thing I have against it is it has a very strong ginger flavor and ginger is not one of my loves. If I loved ginger, this would be my drink. 

This is another soda we got in New Hampshire - Meetinghouse Rhubarb. The ingredients are water, rhubarb, can sugar and lemon juice. No preservatives. Has a rhubarb taste with a carbo kick. Very good.  

I am a sucker for grapefruit soda. For me, it has just the right amount of flavor, carbo zip and a refreshing quality. After a hike, my drink of choice is a cold Squirt. This particular Filbert's has carbonated water, sugar and/or corn sweetener, citric acid, citric oils and downhill from there. Not great ingredients, but I sill love it. 

Ting is carbonated water, sugar, 6% grapefruit juice and so on. I love it. Even better than the grapefruit soda with no real juice.  

Filbert's Blue Raspberry soda is carbonated water, sugar and/or corn sweetner, citric acid and so on, including Red#40, Blue #1 and sodium benzoate as a preservative. This sicky color makes it hard for me to take it seriously and to enjoy. Not one of my favorites. 

The ingredients are water, carbonated water, sugar, pear juice concentrate, glucose syrup, ginger, dandelion & burdock flavor, dandelion strong infusion, burdock strong infusion, aniseed flavor. I don't particularly remember this, so it must not have been overwhelmingly good or bad. 

I had this for the first time in St. Augustine, Florida. It was very cold (the soda) on a warm day and it knocked my socks off. I think it may be my very favorite soda. I ordered a second one before I left. I had it again later in the year in West Virginia. Ingredients are carbonated water, cane sugar, pure birch oils, etc. I don't really care what's in it. This is good stuff. I'm glad we don't have it locally, because I could get addicted to it. I think it could surpass grapefruit soda for being a nice refresher on a warm day.

Judy brings this stuff home because she knows I'm interested in weird sodas. I don't think I would buy it. Just the name and the color create a negative connotation for me. Thumbs down. 

This mango soda is okay. Not at the top of my list, but certainly several steps above blue raspberry and key lime cream soda.

This is another seriously good soda. Ingredients are carbonated water, northwest pears, cane sugar, organic lemon juice and vanilla. It contains pear pulp. We got it in San Francisco several years ago. I would be a regular if we could get it locally.

We try lots of kinds of root beer and just don't take pictures. I enjoy root beer, including root beer with a carbo kick, but I am still very fond of Hire's without any carbonation. Root beer is middle of the road for me. Some of the fruit juice sodas are much higher on my list. 

Yeah, I know, this looks pretty gross. Nothing like the name Beefdrinker Teriyaki Beef Jerky Soda to get the taste buds firing. I bought this just recently at a small store in the foothills of our local mountains. Even the guy at the cash register raised his eyebrows when I bought it. I don't think it flies off the shelves. Judy took one sip and said it was enough. I managed to get the rest down. I don't think I would get it again, but it wasn't that bad. Ingredients are carbonated water, cane sugar,  and downhill from there. I guess I can kind of get the beef taste out of it, but not really. But fun because it is so weird. 

This coconut palm juice - coconut syrup (nectar) is another of my extreme favorites. It is relatively thick and very sweet.  It is all coconut, no sugar, preservatives or added color. No carbonation. The only place I've had it is a Thai vegan restaurant in Upland. This goes wonderfully with Thai food. Normally I kind of enjoy the carbonation, but carbonation would ruin this drink.

I think I got this mangosteen juice at an Asian market in Los Angeles. It is water, 30% mangosteen juice, sugar and citric acid. Not carbonated. I enjoyed it, didni't love it. Would certainly drink it again.

I enjoy lilikoi or passion fruit, but this soda is just okay. It is water, natural cane sugar, 5% passion fruit juice concentrate, ascorbic acid and citric acid. It is not carbonated, just a little sweet and quite bland. It is not something I would buy, but when it is around, I will drink it on occasion. 

This is 100% watermelon juice. As much as I hate to say it, I was not real fond of it. Watermelon is not real sweet, is very mild and that's about the best I can say about it. Give me a little carbo or more sweet. 

Complete opposite reaction to pomegranate juice vs. watermelon juice. 100% pomegranate juice is kind of sweet with a tart kick to it. I love it. Perhaps my second favorite 100% juice without carbonation, after apple juice. 

Last year we stopped at Carolina Cider Company in Yemassee, South Carolina when we were driving between Charleston and Savannah.  We bought the ciders they had available at the time in 10 oz. bottles and brought them home with us: cherry, apple, blueberry, muscadine (grape), blackberry and peach. They were out of strawberry at the time. Although they are listed as 100% juice, they are not 100% of the juice on the label which disappointed me a little bit. I think the only one that was 100% of the label was apple, and maybe muscadine, a type of grape. We did a taste test and I can't find it right now. But I was surprised at the result. My favorite was apple, and a close second was muscadine. Peach may have been my least favorite, a surprise, since I love peaches. Blackberry was probably next on the list of favorites. When it comes down to it, real, unpasteurized 100% apple juice, particularly if it has some tart apples in it, like Jonathans, is hard to beat. 

Food in Zagreb - Best Western Premiere Hotel Astoria

On our trip last spring to the Balkans we stayed three nights at the Best Western Premier Hotel Astoria in Zagreb, Croatia. A very fine breakfast was provided with the cost of our room and one night we also paid to have dinner at the hotel. We found the food to be very good and it appears representative of Croatian food we found elsewhere. 

The breakfast buffet was actually quite a good lunch, or even a dinner. There were more breakfast type foods available, I just tended to focus more on foods I like or that interested me more. Note the cured meats, cheeses, marinated zucchini, slices of tomato and cucumber.

A pretzel roll, more cured meat, various cheeses, an egg and a crepish pancake. Hiding on the plate about 1:00 are roasted vegetables.  

I made little sandwiches with the great, crusty bread, cured meats and cheese, and enjoyed the fried egg mixed in with the grilled vegetables. 

Rice with vegetables and meat, olives, German-type wurst and more grilled vegetables, mushrooms and egg. 

We had plenty of fruit, various types of cereals and breads, eggs cooked in various ways and also some desserts.

The Best Western Premiere Hotel Astoria was a nice place to stay, as well as eat, and it was located reasonably close to the tourist section of Zagreb. 

Cheese: Kinsman Ridge

Kinsman Ridge is made by Doug and Debby Erb at Landaff Creamery in New Hampshire. It is a raw cow's milk washed rind cheese that is allowed to develop a growth of white mold near the end of its aging. It is aged in a cave contructed by the Kehler brothers at Jasper Hill. It is very similar to Tomme de Savoie. The paste is pale yellow and semi-firm. 

Kinsman Ridge

It is aged about three months. It is described variously as: (a) "'earthy' - buttery and milky...a deep flavor of the caves in which it ages, a pleasant mustiness and depth..."; (b) "rich, milky flavor graced with notes of earth, mushrooms, and pungent wet straw;" (c) "herbal and spicy notes of onion, garlic, dill, mustard, saffron; additionally the nuttiness of browned butter, the texture - pliant yet creamy; perfectly salty." I bought ours at DTLA Cheese in Los Angeles. When I initially tried it I thought it was just okay. But now, 2 1/2 weeks later I'm trying it again and absolutely love it. Amazing what a little aging will do. Looking at the descriptions above, buttery, milky, nutty, pliant yet creamy and perfectly salty all apply. Even earthy kind of applies, although it is not nearly as earthy as some other wash rind cheeses I've tried.   

Jerusalem Restaurant - Kissimmee, Florida

I've been to Kissimmee, Florida for seminars, each for a week in January, the last two years and I've eaten at Jerusalem Restaurant three or four times (for both lunch and dinner). During that period I also ate at King O' Falafel, another Middle Eastern restaurant, about seven or eight times. For freshness, friendliness of staff, salads, hummus, and falafel sandwiches, King O' Falafel is much better. 

However, for meat, Jerusalem Restaurant is the place to go. 

This last January I had a very nice plate of sauteed chicken livers, not something you normally find in a restaurant. Normally when you find liver, it is beef liver, which is larger and has a stronger flavor. These chicken livers were cooked nicely and there was a lot of it. 

Sauteed chicken livers.

I also got lamb shanks, something a little more common than chicken livers, but still not something regularly on restaurant menus. The lamb shanks were nice and big, cooked well and probably my favorite food item that week in Kissimmee. 

Lamb shanks.

Finally, I got lamb chops. They were small and over-cooked, but I still enjoyed them. Lamb is so good that it is hard to destroy it. 

The service at Jerusalem Restaurant is slow, the place is dark and the staff is not very friendly. I get the feeling I've barged in as an uninvited guest. 

Sous-Vide Blackbuck Ribeye

I previously did a blog on fried blackbuck ribeye. Blackbuck is an antelope from India and this meat likely came from blackbuck raised in the wild in Texas. The steak is very small, virtually free of fat and very mild, surprising when compared to other antelope I've had. Nilgai antelope and pronghorn antelope may be two of my least favorite wild meats so far. 

The blackbuck steaks after being removed from the sous-vide bath.

I cooked the meat sous-vide for two hours at a temperature of 54 C (just under 130 F). I purchased them already vacuum packed, so I cooked them as they came, rather than opening them up, seasoning them and repackaging them. Then I fried them briefly on each side in some canola oil in a frying pan. 

Blackbuck steaks after frying briefly in a frying pan.

The taste was pretty much the same as when I fried them, mild and without the gamy taste of other antelope, but the done-ness was more evenly distributed throughout the steak, except for the outside which had been fried briefly. This resulted in a nicer eating experience as I did not have some of the rare/raw spots I got when I only fried them. I think that the sous-vide cooking is going to substantially enhance the wild meat cooking experience.  

Blackbuck steaks - nice, even cooking inside.

Sous-Vide Leg of Lamb

Judy got me a sous-vide cooker for my birthday and I immediately had to try it out. Easter was coming up and we had a leg of lamb in the freezer, one I got from a friend who raised the lamb on his farm. And there is nothing better than leg of lamb for Easter, or for that matter, any time. 

Sous-vide cooking involves putting food in a plastic bag, having it vacuum sealed (sous-vide means "under vacuum" in French), then immersing it in a water bath kept at a constant temperature. If kept in the bath long enough, the heat from the water transfers to the food until it is cooked through at the water temperature. It is impossible to overheat the food, no matter how long it is cooked, because the temperature will go no higher than the temperature of the water. Further, no moisture from the food is lost, the food can be cooked evenly throughout, despite an odd shape or uneven thickness, and spices are more readily absorbed into the food .

Bone-in leg of lamb seasoned with pepper, salt and rosemary.

Vacuum sealed.

I seasoned the outside of the lamb with ground pepper, ground Himalayan sea salt and rosemary, then vacuum sealed it in a bag and put it in the sous-vide at about 55 C (approximately 131 F), which is low medium rare, just above rare. I left it in the sous-vide about six or seven hours. When finished, I put it on my outdoor gas grill for several minutes on each side to help caramelize the outside and give it more of a barbecue flavor. The meat was very good. No real raw and bloody spots, a problem we usually deal with when roasting a leg of lamb. It was a successful first try!

The sous-vide machine attached to the side of a pot and the bagged lamb floating in the water.

The cooked lamb in the bag.

After being cooked on the gas grill to caramelize the outside.

The inside is pretty uniformly pink.

The remaining bone.

About a week later, I noticed boneless leg of lamb at Trader Joe's and decided to try it on the sous-vide. I figured it was there only because Easter had just passed and was an opportunity to do some more experimentation. This lamb was already bound up in twine and seasoned, but I found a blog where a boneless leg of lamb was unraveled, stuffed full of herbs and then sous-vide cooked for a very long time, about 24 hours.

Boneless leg of lamb from Trader Joe's.

I cut off the twine binding, cut the lamb open and smothered it with seasonings. I put ground pepper, ground Himalayan sea salt, basil, sage, rosemary, thyme and I cut up a number of shallots and cooked them briefly in the microwave with some butter and spread the combination inside. I then added some long strips of Iberico cheese (part cow, goat and sheep milk) and slices of butter and folded it back up and bound it together again with twine. I cooked this at a higher temperature, 60 C (140 F), for low medium and cooked it for about 17 hours, substantially longer than the first leg of lamb. I then put it in the oven on high broil for about three minutes and turned it over and broiled it on the other side for three minutes. I think the broiling was a better way to go than the grill.

Cut open and covered with herbs.

Shallots and Iberico cheese slices added.

Trussed up with twine.

Vacuum sealed.

The meat was cooked evenly through and most of the red was gone. The meat had a mushy texture which I did not enjoy as much, one of the down-sides of cooking it so long. It also was absolutely saturated with the flavor of the herbs and spices, too much so. It really packed an herbal wallop. Judy made gravy from the drippings which were all retained in the plastic bag and the gravy was marvelous. The cheese didn't add much. I envisioned it being gooey and oozing out. It was more clumpy and did not really add anything that I could notice.

The cooked product. Note all the drippings in the bag.

The sliced lamb. Note that it is more cooked and that it is chock-full of herbs.

I learned that over-cooking with the sous-vide mushes up the meat and that the herbs really do embed their flavor throughout the meat - I need to put in less herbs in the future.

It was a fun set of experiments and I'm looking for more of the same.