Burnt Noodles and Fruit Lupuls

The one thing I love best about summer ending is that despite it also meaning the end of all that readily available fresh produce and delicious summer cooking is that when the weather starts getting cooler and you end up bundled up inside buried in a hoodie instead of lounging in front of a fan wishing there was any possible way you could budget yourself just one more day of air conditioning, you get to make fall food. And fall food is awesome.

Fall is when you get to bust out all the heavier, spiced foods; soups, potatoes (especially sweet potatoes!), squash, super crusty breads...the list goes on.

So anyway, when I saw this garbanzo bean soup recipe over at Vanilla Garlic, my first thought HOLY CRAP GARBANZOS! (I've inexplicably loved them since I was about five, and thought that there was nothing weird at all about ordering the salad bar at a restaurant so I could mix croutons, garbanzos, cucumbers, and those weird little Asian crispy things together with ranch), and second, FALL FOOD!

I made it immediately, and then couldn't think of what to drink with it. Neither tea nor coffee sounded right, nor did juice, and I was sure as hell not drinking my roommates' Mountain Dew. What's fall drink? I asked myself - and the answer, my friends, is cider.

Except all we had was buy one get one free $1 apple juice from Meijer.

Even that, can be remedied, though, I have learned: you can mull apple juice too. It certainly isn't as good, but it's damn well better than what you started with.

YOU NEED:

1 3 inch cinnamon stick
Allspice (to taste)
Nutmeg (to taste)
Cloves (to taste)
1/4 cup brown sugar

Basically it's as simple as real cider: throw all that in a pot with a quart of apple juice and let it simmer for 20 minutes. I like to add a bit of orange zest, too - and when it's possible, use whole cloves, etc. - today it wasn't.). Then you can strain and serve! It's always a little sweet since it's made from gross artificial apple juice, but it tastes a hell of a lot better, and goes awesome with hot soup and crusty bread.

Posted by Steph at 2:10 PM |  

Labels: Drinks, soup