Liquid Ginger

A few years ago while visiting Vermont, I was introduced to the most unexpected and, as it turned out, heavenly concoction known as Organic Ginger Syrup, a product made a company called the Ginger People. Think maple syrup, except ginger and not maple. Crazy, right? I can tell you’re intrigued. I honestly don’t know what caused me to think of this product a few weeks ago…. craving? sense trigger? insatiable lust for ginger? Whatever the case, I needed to have it, so on the internet I went. After several weeks of waiting from backorders and shipping, it finally arrived. Three bottles of it! And just as good as I remember.

Now the next hurdle: what to do with it? This isn’t technically *that* difficult of a question since there is a laundry list of things one can do without much of a stretch, the most obvious being to use it wherever you would use maple syrup or honey: pancakes, waffles, sweetener for ice tea, cakes, cookies, frosting. But, as you know, the starving artist thrives on creativity and thinking at least slightly out of the box. And besides, this is a whole new ingredient I’ve invested in – throwing it on pancakes simply was not enough for me. 

So, as I always do, I poked around my kitchen and noticed that I had some fresh cherries and blueberries in my fridge. Combined with the peaches on my counter, I do believe I had a fruit salad.  And what better way to dress a fruit salad than with some ginger syrup? I simply prepped the fruit and tossed it altogether with a generous pour of syrup and a few dashes of ground Cardamom. A divine summer breakfast, or a perfect complement to any barbecue/picnic.

But this is only the beginning. With three bottles of this in my cupboard, you can expect this to special ingredient to be popping up again in the future. And do share any ideas you might have in the comments below.