Relish Recipes — Drinks

This healthy and creamy immune-boosting smoothie made with almond milk is naturally sweetened with frozen fruit, but we like to add a "booster" shot of our local Backyard Honey Company honey. Local honey is antiviral, antibacterial and especially helps with sore throats. So keep all those sniffles at bay while sipping away.

Eggnog is pretty much synonymous with Christmas. What other time of year do you get to drink something that’s basically custard spiked with alcohol? A good eggnog is made up of just a few simple ingredients – alcohol, sugar, cream and raw eggs. Now if you are skeptical of drinking something with raw eggs, take note that the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) tested copious amounts of homemade eggnog  to find that the addition of alcohol basically wiped out the risk of any contamination. And if all this isn’t enough to entice you, December 24^th is National Eggnog Day. So go ahead and indulge a little – it’s the holidays.

 From Jam Bake by Camilla Wynne, Penguin Random House, 2021

This jam is a great solution for those times when you come home from the farmers' market with a half pint of every berry you couldn't resist buying but aren't sure what to do with them. I came up with this recipe when I moved to a house to a house with my first real honest-to-god garden in the ground and started planting the berries I'd always of growing; black and golden raspberries, black currants and jostaberries. The trouble is, most berries take a few years to get established, so I only had a handful of each the first few years. On their own, each bush's harvest was just a snack, but together they made a jam. This recipe also works well with frozen fruit. If you buy an extra half pint of berries every time you go to the maket, throw them into the freezer and come November, when you're facing the true onset of winter, you can make what tastes like British summer pudding - a mixture of juicy sweetened berries encased in soft white bread. - Camilla Wynne

DOWNLOAD RECIPE CARD Rhubarb infused gin is the quintessential flavour (and colour) of spring in Ontario. Enjoying the delights of a home-grown harvest of rhubarb in May and June is one of those joys that makes us look forward to the warmer months ahead. Its not-too-sweet, not-too-bitter flavour profile is a perfect pairing for many London Dry Gin labels on the current market. A rhubarb G&T is a perfect way of enjoying the end of each day. And why buy one of those over-priced pink gins from the LCBO when it’s so easy to make your own! I have explored...

DOWNLOAD RECIPE CARD We have been having fun teaching the some of the food featured in the recent CNN "Search Stanley's Italy" with actor Stanley Tucci. Our first class focused on Naples and Amalfi Coast, so we thought we'd share our recipe for homemade Limoncello while lemons are just reaching the end of their peak season. The only thing better would be to be sipping on it in one of the beautiful cities like Positano, Ravello or Amalfi while overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea in the Gulf of Salerno.  Ingredients... 8 lemons, preferably organic 1 bottle (750 mL) vodka 2 1/2...