I can’t believe my restlessness! I just want summer to be here. I think I have the springtime blues. We have had such lovely days here in Oregon. 60 and 70 degrees, no rain, clear and partly cloudy. And it’s so rare!
It’s a little scary (global warming??)… and yet… like the beginning of a good scary movie, so hard to turn away from. Sun, light breeze, blue skies. The shoes come off and the toes come out! The other night I actually made turkey burgers with basil creamed corn! What!? I should be deep in the Shepherd’s Pie/Roasted Chicken/Rhubarb crisp rotation (oooh I actually might still make that…) yet I am here, in my kitchen with avocado all over my hands and tomato seeds on my cutting board (still too early. I keep wishing, though).
One thing that works, and is in the right spring-time mind: strawberry-rhubarb. Yes, right? It’s like March comes and suddenly this is the song in everyone’s heart. It’s so spring!
Here’s what you do:
You take 10 cups of brewed kombucha. If you need to brew some, check out this post: The basics of kombucha.
Then you add a bunch of frozen fruit. I used about 1.5 pounds of frozen, sliced rhubarb and 4 cups frozen/partially thawed strawberries.
Add a little kombucha to the bottom of the blender so that it blends up nicely.
Put all the blended fruit goodness into a large jar (about a half gallon size to a gallon size will work well)
And let it stew or ferment for 2 more days (in a not too hot time of the year. In summer, this may only take a day).
Strain out the fruit. Rhubarb can be a bit fibrous, so I prefer to strain it. Then I bottle it and let it carbonate in the bottles for another few days. It didn’t take as long to carbonate for me since I started with a pretty strong brew of kombucha.
This is soooo good. It’s like drinking jam. Or pie filling.
- 10 cups (already brewed and fermented for at least 10 days) plain kombucha
- 1 and 1/2 pounds frozen and sliced rhubarb, or fresh rhubarb
- 4 cups frozen or fresh hulled and sliced strawberries
- Equipment:
- Blender or food processor
- half gallon or gallon sized jar for fermenting
- fine-mesh strainer
- bottles or jars for bottling
- Put 8 cups of the kombucha into the large jar. In a blender or food processor, put all the fruit, plus the remaining 2 cups kombucha. Blend, pulsing at first to break up the fruit, until you get a smooth puree.
- Pour the puree into the jar with the rest of the kombucha and stir. Cover the jar with a paper towel, kitchen towel, or cheesecloth and secure around the outside with a rubber band or string. Let it sit for about two days to flavor the kombucha.
- After two days, strain out the kombucha using a fine-mesh strainer into a new, clean container. I like to use another large gallon jar. Bottle your kombucha into clean bottles, leaving a one-inch space at the top. Screw on all lids tightly. Let it carbonate for two to three days (depending on how warm your kitchen is) and then test it. If it doesn’t taste carbonated enough, continue with bottles on the counter for another day and re-test. When it tastes carbonated to your liking, move the bottles to the fridge and consume within 4-6 weeks. It will continue to get sourer the longer you leave it in the bottles.
- Serving ideas:
- Mix a bottle with some chia seeds and let it sit over night for a chia seed kombucha drink! Very tasty. Add some to lemonade for a strawberry-kombucha lemonade. Super refreshing. Mix up a cocktail with this kombucha by adding vodka, light tequila, or gin. Make a wine spritzer by adding a little rose or chardonnay to the strawberry rhubarb kombucha.
- **update: 8/4/2015: you don’t want this to hang around in your fridge too long. Because of the sugars in the fruit it is easy to let these guys over carbonate and if you are using glass bottles, they WILL explode (mine did on the counter, after taking it out of the fridge, and also after opening the cap they fizz up quite a bit.) So please use caution and consume within 6 weeks! Mine had been hanging around about twice that. 🙂