Friday, March 20, 2009

Marchgaritas

This will be a quick blog for my reference and be expanded later. What do you need to know beforehand? I'm making "presidente" margaritas with homemade orange-infused brandy, blue curacao and sweetened lime juice.

I've worked on this recipe for several weeks and finally came up with one that yields a pleasant, but challenging flavor, relatively pleasing color and a decent kick.

When serving this drink to small groups of guests (3 or fewer) the proportions are as follows:
4 parts tequila
2 parts orange brandy
2 parts bluecuracao
4 parts lime juice
3 parts simple syrup

I double the mixer portion when creating for larger groups. Not because I'm cheap and trying to save liquor, but because I don't need a bunch of rowdy people, drunk on tequila in my house. Mixer is so much more of a pain than dealing with liquor.

The large group recipe is roughly converted to English from metric (liquor bottles are metric/my drinking habit is English) for a 3 gallon quantity:
8 cups tequila
4 cups orange brandy
4 cups blue curacao
16 cups lime juice
16 cups simple syrup

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Pizza Omelet

I'm a big fan of omelets. For the last eight months or so, every Saturday and Sunday morning, I make myself a healthy serving of French press coffee and an omelet. I figure this is an important life skill.

Here is the scenario: you find yourself at 10:30am the morning after a bender that started with some sort of Italian dinner. You're not entirely certain what you had for dinner or for drink, and if there is someone next to you in bed, you may or may not know her name. Hopefully, over breakfast, this is all information you can divine.

As a bit of an aside to the young ladies reading this. If a young man makes you breakfast in the morning, he's probably a keeper. Even a gentleman knows how to gracefully part ways with an undesired paramour in the morning before even a glass of water is offered, but breakfast is another story entirely.

To resume our story, in your possession is half a pack of pepperoni, a half dozen eggs, some random bits and pieces at the bottom of an otherwise empty jar of banana peppers, a nearly-gone bag of shredded (2% please) mozzarella cheese and some leftover marinara. There may have been either pizza, a strange baked pasta dish, or simply minestrone souper rice the night before, but you've got all the ammunition you need.

Pizza Omelet
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2 eggs (beaten like a red-headed stepchild)
half a dozen pepperoni (diced up)
2 or 3 banana pepper rings (or more if you're like me)
handful of shredded mozzarella
handful of fresh (albeit leftover) baby spinach

In a small non-stick pan, crisp up the pepperoni and banana peppers and set aside. Make an omelet. Seriously. Do I have to tell you how to make an omelet? There are instructions somewhere on the web, and I'm sure Alton Brown and Emeril Lagasse would be more than happy to tell you the right way to do it.

At the end of it all, plate the omelet, add a drizzle of marinara, a dash of hot sauce and a splash of basalmic vinegar, serve with garlic toast and a bloody mary.