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
Friday, March 20, 2009
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
--------------
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.
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
--------------
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.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
On Losing Gracefully
It may not seem to be common amongst the gentry to lose at anything, but I'm a firm believer that everyone either loses at something or fails to attempt to ever win at anything. Those who appear to be winning all the time are doing one of two things.
A) Not accepting any challenge that they are not confident they can succeed at
or
B) Losing gracefully.
I love billiards. I'm not good at it even remotely, but I bought a pool table last weekend because I enjoy it so much. My friends may even say I'm a decent player, or that I've won a game or two against them, but that would be a little bit more than somewhat innaccurate.
Everyone is well aware in the game of eight-ball that scratching on the eight ball or sinking the eight ball out of turn constitues loss. While I'm not at all unfamiliar with being on the perpetrating end of such losses, I've more often than not been on the receiving end of victories based on these rules.
That is to say, the only games of eight-ball I can really recall winning involved someone else fucking up.
I won my first legitimate game of eight-ball against my roommate last week. I believe I may or may not have won a second game, but there was alot of Canadian Club involved in the equation and my memory is fuzzy beyond the point that I recall crying out "That was the first game of eight ball that I've ever won legitimately!"
I much prefer nine-ball, or (when paying per rack) six-ball because you can always clean up and win after your opponent has done the rest of the work for you previously.
I say all this to say that losing gracefully involves more than just being a good sport and not a sore loser. We learn all of this in kindergarten, and it still astounds me to this day how many grown adults act like children when confronted with both victory and loss. It's not even about "getting back on that horse."
The most important thing about losing gracefully is learning how to lose. Learning how to "give it the old college try," and standing up to challenges that seem ridiculously difficult.
Another good example of this occurred during the purchase of my pool table. My roommate, Lance, and I went to Sports Authority (I usually don't name names, but the salespeople went above and beyond the call of duty delivering my pool table. That is another story entirely).
Whilst waiting for the sales associate to check if the pool table I wanted was in stock, Lance and I wandered over to the weights section of the store. Mind you, there's a bench press in my garage and I see no further need of weights beyond my 25lb. hand-weights; I can bust out 35 military-grade push-ups (albeit on my knuckles.. personal preference) in one set and can do crunches until I lose track of what number I was on, but I was curious about getting a pull-up bar.
It's good to balance any workout, and pull-ups (at least to me) seem to be the antithesis of push-ups. I grabbed a pull-up bar and found that, despite my proficiency at push-ups, I could only do one. Lamenting this, I exclaimed, "Well, I guess I should wait on buying that pull-up bar."
It was then that Lance said something profound. I've forgotten the exact wording, but the meaning was profound enough for me to absolutely butcher the syntax and still deliver a decent bit of advice:
To do pull-ups, you only need to be able to do one pull-up. After you can do one pull-up, you can do pull-ups. It may take weeks and weeks of trying, but eventually you'll do two or maybe three. There's no reason to not do pull-ups simply because you can only do one.
The advice could be taken further and more deeply into abstract warm-fuzzies to say that if you can only do one pull-up, you should make it the best pull-up you can do, but that goes without saying. Everything you do should ALWAYS be the best you can do, otherwise you're just half-assing it and wasting your own time and energy.
The second most important thing about losing is to not advertise it. I'm not telling you to deny that you've ever lost, but simply don't announce it to the world. This is somewhat analogous to the school-yard advice to not be a sore loser, but it takes it a step further. I was taught long ago, that when you miss a note while playing in a band, don't make a face or apologize. It may be that no one noticed in the first place; if you make a face, everyone will realize that you screwed up.
Competitive point-sparring is a good example of this. It is incredibly subjective and largely arbitrary in the three- and five-point style rounds, but when struck by an opponent, one should NOT stop fighting until the judges call "break" or "yame." If you continue fighting even after struck, there is a chance that you could land an even more visible point on your opponent; this gives some likelihood that the judges will not notice your opponent's point and award you the point instead. If you DO stop fighting immediately upon your opponent landing a point, it is incredibly likely that the judges will award your opponent the point, even if they didn't actually see the point land. You essentially admitted defeat when it may or may not have been necessary.
To bookend this with my billiard story. Most of my friends, (save the ones that have repeatedly seen me jump the cue ball off the table) don't realize how truly awful I am at the game. Simply because I never turn down a challenge, I enjoy the game whether I win or lose, and I make sure they drink heavily so they will have little memory the next day of my astounding defeat.
To summarize: lose, lose early, lose often and get used to losing. It will make winning occasionally that much more enjoyable.
A) Not accepting any challenge that they are not confident they can succeed at
or
B) Losing gracefully.
I love billiards. I'm not good at it even remotely, but I bought a pool table last weekend because I enjoy it so much. My friends may even say I'm a decent player, or that I've won a game or two against them, but that would be a little bit more than somewhat innaccurate.
Everyone is well aware in the game of eight-ball that scratching on the eight ball or sinking the eight ball out of turn constitues loss. While I'm not at all unfamiliar with being on the perpetrating end of such losses, I've more often than not been on the receiving end of victories based on these rules.
That is to say, the only games of eight-ball I can really recall winning involved someone else fucking up.
I won my first legitimate game of eight-ball against my roommate last week. I believe I may or may not have won a second game, but there was alot of Canadian Club involved in the equation and my memory is fuzzy beyond the point that I recall crying out "That was the first game of eight ball that I've ever won legitimately!"
I much prefer nine-ball, or (when paying per rack) six-ball because you can always clean up and win after your opponent has done the rest of the work for you previously.
I say all this to say that losing gracefully involves more than just being a good sport and not a sore loser. We learn all of this in kindergarten, and it still astounds me to this day how many grown adults act like children when confronted with both victory and loss. It's not even about "getting back on that horse."
The most important thing about losing gracefully is learning how to lose. Learning how to "give it the old college try," and standing up to challenges that seem ridiculously difficult.
Another good example of this occurred during the purchase of my pool table. My roommate, Lance, and I went to Sports Authority (I usually don't name names, but the salespeople went above and beyond the call of duty delivering my pool table. That is another story entirely).
Whilst waiting for the sales associate to check if the pool table I wanted was in stock, Lance and I wandered over to the weights section of the store. Mind you, there's a bench press in my garage and I see no further need of weights beyond my 25lb. hand-weights; I can bust out 35 military-grade push-ups (albeit on my knuckles.. personal preference) in one set and can do crunches until I lose track of what number I was on, but I was curious about getting a pull-up bar.
It's good to balance any workout, and pull-ups (at least to me) seem to be the antithesis of push-ups. I grabbed a pull-up bar and found that, despite my proficiency at push-ups, I could only do one. Lamenting this, I exclaimed, "Well, I guess I should wait on buying that pull-up bar."
It was then that Lance said something profound. I've forgotten the exact wording, but the meaning was profound enough for me to absolutely butcher the syntax and still deliver a decent bit of advice:
To do pull-ups, you only need to be able to do one pull-up. After you can do one pull-up, you can do pull-ups. It may take weeks and weeks of trying, but eventually you'll do two or maybe three. There's no reason to not do pull-ups simply because you can only do one.
The advice could be taken further and more deeply into abstract warm-fuzzies to say that if you can only do one pull-up, you should make it the best pull-up you can do, but that goes without saying. Everything you do should ALWAYS be the best you can do, otherwise you're just half-assing it and wasting your own time and energy.
The second most important thing about losing is to not advertise it. I'm not telling you to deny that you've ever lost, but simply don't announce it to the world. This is somewhat analogous to the school-yard advice to not be a sore loser, but it takes it a step further. I was taught long ago, that when you miss a note while playing in a band, don't make a face or apologize. It may be that no one noticed in the first place; if you make a face, everyone will realize that you screwed up.
Competitive point-sparring is a good example of this. It is incredibly subjective and largely arbitrary in the three- and five-point style rounds, but when struck by an opponent, one should NOT stop fighting until the judges call "break" or "yame." If you continue fighting even after struck, there is a chance that you could land an even more visible point on your opponent; this gives some likelihood that the judges will not notice your opponent's point and award you the point instead. If you DO stop fighting immediately upon your opponent landing a point, it is incredibly likely that the judges will award your opponent the point, even if they didn't actually see the point land. You essentially admitted defeat when it may or may not have been necessary.
To bookend this with my billiard story. Most of my friends, (save the ones that have repeatedly seen me jump the cue ball off the table) don't realize how truly awful I am at the game. Simply because I never turn down a challenge, I enjoy the game whether I win or lose, and I make sure they drink heavily so they will have little memory the next day of my astounding defeat.
To summarize: lose, lose early, lose often and get used to losing. It will make winning occasionally that much more enjoyable.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Stache's Greens
It's a new year, and it was instilled in me as a young southern gentleman that it is important to ingest several key substances between midnight on New Year's Eve and midnight on New Year's Day (aside from massive quantities of Champagne or sparkling wine). Two of these important edibles are greens and black-eyed peas.
A traditional southern New Year's Day dinner/supper consists of ham, black-eyed peas and greens cooked with hog jowl. In this region, the latter is pronounced so as to rhyme with "y'all" and not "towel." My recipe for greens follows:
1/4lb. hog jowl or a half dozen nice thick slices
2 - 3 slices of thick pepper bacon
2 12oz. bottles of beer (lager, not ale)
1lb. of greens (turnip, collard, mustard... your choice)
3 tbsp pepper vinegar (homemade is best)
2 tbsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
The most important thing about greens is to wash them thoroughly. Tear the greens into slightly-larger-than-bite-sized pieces. Greens of all sorts wilt when cooking.
In the bottom of a big enamel pot, cook the bacon and hog jowl until they have given up their grease and are nice and crispy. Deglaze using the two beers, and add the spices and pepper vinegar. Once the "pot liquor" has come to a gentle boil, add the greens, put a lid on it and cut the heat back to medium low. Simmer for 45 minutes or so.
A traditional southern New Year's Day dinner/supper consists of ham, black-eyed peas and greens cooked with hog jowl. In this region, the latter is pronounced so as to rhyme with "y'all" and not "towel." My recipe for greens follows:
1/4lb. hog jowl or a half dozen nice thick slices
2 - 3 slices of thick pepper bacon
2 12oz. bottles of beer (lager, not ale)
1lb. of greens (turnip, collard, mustard... your choice)
3 tbsp pepper vinegar (homemade is best)
2 tbsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
The most important thing about greens is to wash them thoroughly. Tear the greens into slightly-larger-than-bite-sized pieces. Greens of all sorts wilt when cooking.
In the bottom of a big enamel pot, cook the bacon and hog jowl until they have given up their grease and are nice and crispy. Deglaze using the two beers, and add the spices and pepper vinegar. Once the "pot liquor" has come to a gentle boil, add the greens, put a lid on it and cut the heat back to medium low. Simmer for 45 minutes or so.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
French 75 Followup
For the advanced players, double points for mixing your French 75 using Andre Strawberry sparkling wine. Triple points if you can keep a straight face at the checkout counter while buying it.
All extra points forfeited if you blurt out an excuse to the cashier like: "It's for my girlfriend/wife/fiance/teenage daughter."
All extra points forfeited if you blurt out an excuse to the cashier like: "It's for my girlfriend/wife/fiance/teenage daughter."
Lemon Liqueur and French 75's
Christmas has not yet passed, my party has not yet occurred, nor have I cleaned up the aftermath, but I'm already planning for New Year's Eve.
If you know me at all, you know that I'm fond of sparkling wine, which I unabashedly refer to interchangeably as champagne. I'm cultured and fancy and all that nonsense, but I'm also practical and have a decent command of the English language and economy of words. "Champagne" is simply easier to say.
In any blog that I write, "champagne" will generally mean any sparkling wine unless something is specified by name.
Last year around this time, I discovered a rather decadent champagne cocktail that I became quickly fond of. The problem with champagne cocktails is uncorking a bottle of champagne and finishing it before it goes flat. You can save it for a mimosa in the morning if you're not drinking on a weeknight, but that's another blog entirely. I said all that to say, a French 75 is a rare treat for me.
The recipe, as I've interpretted and perfected it, is as follows:
1.5oz gin
1oz lemon juice
1tsp of powdered sugar
4oz - 6oz of champagne
I almost always mix these two at a time and may fudge the proportions a bit depending on the volume of the drinking vessels and how froggy I'm feeling that evening. Simply shake the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker, strain into a glass and top with champagne. On the rocks or straight up? Yes. If your champage is chilled, feel free to serve the cocktail up. I prefer mine on the rocks in a double old-fashioned simply by virtue of the fact that champagne packs a hell of a hangover.
If served "up," a cocktail/martini glass or a champagne goblet (not to be confused with a champagne flute) is appropropriate. From what I understand, the modern "martini" glass is a fairly recent invention -- an evolution of the traditional stout, rounded champagne goblet in which early martinis were served.
But mixing and shaking and dealing with sticky sugar and lemon juice is such a hassel. What if you run out of ice to shake AND serve with!? The solution is lemon liqueur.
The non-champagne portion of the French 75 is nothing more than sweetened gin with lemon juice added. Essentially gin, water, sugar and critic acid in varying proportions. You could easily replace the shaken portion of the cocktail with a pre-chilled sweet lemon liqueur.
Which brings us to lemon liqueur:
15 lemons
4 cups of gin
2 - 3 cups of simple syrup
Wash the lemons thorough (as if I didn't have to remind you) and remove the "zest" with a microplane or fine grater. Don't go too deep; the white pith is bitter. Place the zest and gin in a large glass container and let it steep for about a week, swishing it around when you get bored or impatient.
After a week, run the whole thing through a fine mesh strainer or coffee filter, and you've got soup!
Every red-blooded cocktail lover should know how to whip up simple syrup (and sour mix when in a pinch, for that matter). 1 part water, 1 part sugar, bring to a boil, stir until dissolved. Let the syrup cool before mixing with anything. Once your syrup is complete and cooled, decide how much to add to your liqueur. You could add as much as 4 cups, but at that point, it starts to taste like slightly lemony sugar water with a hint of gin. I err on the side of too little simple syrup rather than too much. Remember, you can always add more. Sweeten your liqueur based on how dry or sweet the champage with which you will be mixing it is.
If using a spumante, for God's sake man, maybe add two cups of simple syrup in your liqueur; if using an extra dry or dry brut, you may want to add a bit more.
Ok, time to go swish my bottle impatiently!
If you know me at all, you know that I'm fond of sparkling wine, which I unabashedly refer to interchangeably as champagne. I'm cultured and fancy and all that nonsense, but I'm also practical and have a decent command of the English language and economy of words. "Champagne" is simply easier to say.
In any blog that I write, "champagne" will generally mean any sparkling wine unless something is specified by name.
Last year around this time, I discovered a rather decadent champagne cocktail that I became quickly fond of. The problem with champagne cocktails is uncorking a bottle of champagne and finishing it before it goes flat. You can save it for a mimosa in the morning if you're not drinking on a weeknight, but that's another blog entirely. I said all that to say, a French 75 is a rare treat for me.
The recipe, as I've interpretted and perfected it, is as follows:
1.5oz gin
1oz lemon juice
1tsp of powdered sugar
4oz - 6oz of champagne
I almost always mix these two at a time and may fudge the proportions a bit depending on the volume of the drinking vessels and how froggy I'm feeling that evening. Simply shake the first three ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker, strain into a glass and top with champagne. On the rocks or straight up? Yes. If your champage is chilled, feel free to serve the cocktail up. I prefer mine on the rocks in a double old-fashioned simply by virtue of the fact that champagne packs a hell of a hangover.
If served "up," a cocktail/martini glass or a champagne goblet (not to be confused with a champagne flute) is appropropriate. From what I understand, the modern "martini" glass is a fairly recent invention -- an evolution of the traditional stout, rounded champagne goblet in which early martinis were served.
But mixing and shaking and dealing with sticky sugar and lemon juice is such a hassel. What if you run out of ice to shake AND serve with!? The solution is lemon liqueur.
The non-champagne portion of the French 75 is nothing more than sweetened gin with lemon juice added. Essentially gin, water, sugar and critic acid in varying proportions. You could easily replace the shaken portion of the cocktail with a pre-chilled sweet lemon liqueur.
Which brings us to lemon liqueur:
15 lemons
4 cups of gin
2 - 3 cups of simple syrup
Wash the lemons thorough (as if I didn't have to remind you) and remove the "zest" with a microplane or fine grater. Don't go too deep; the white pith is bitter. Place the zest and gin in a large glass container and let it steep for about a week, swishing it around when you get bored or impatient.
After a week, run the whole thing through a fine mesh strainer or coffee filter, and you've got soup!
Every red-blooded cocktail lover should know how to whip up simple syrup (and sour mix when in a pinch, for that matter). 1 part water, 1 part sugar, bring to a boil, stir until dissolved. Let the syrup cool before mixing with anything. Once your syrup is complete and cooled, decide how much to add to your liqueur. You could add as much as 4 cups, but at that point, it starts to taste like slightly lemony sugar water with a hint of gin. I err on the side of too little simple syrup rather than too much. Remember, you can always add more. Sweeten your liqueur based on how dry or sweet the champage with which you will be mixing it is.
If using a spumante, for God's sake man, maybe add two cups of simple syrup in your liqueur; if using an extra dry or dry brut, you may want to add a bit more.
Ok, time to go swish my bottle impatiently!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Ambrosia Salad
Every Christmas Eve, for the past 27 years that I recall, save the last two, my family would have a Christmas Eve buffet-style dinner after church. From my memory, I'm compiling a list of the dishes that were traditional to our family. With a shortage of documented family recipes in my possession, many of these foods are reverse engineered from my childhood memories and the help of Google.
Nearly all of the recipes for ambrosia salad found on the web involved canned orange slices; however, as a Floridian, oranges are readily available throughout most of the year and I've learned fairly well how to disassemble them by hand into bite-sized chunks. This was how we always had our ambrosia. I can't quite imagine it with canned oranges.
Ambrosia Salad
----------------
6 medium oranges cut into bite-sized chunks
3/4 cup of sweetened shredded coconut (available on the baking aisle)
1/2 cup of shelled walnuts (crush slightly if too large)
8oz. bottle of marashino cherries (drained)
Mix contents into a large glass serving bowl, cover and chill until ready to serve.
Nearly all of the recipes for ambrosia salad found on the web involved canned orange slices; however, as a Floridian, oranges are readily available throughout most of the year and I've learned fairly well how to disassemble them by hand into bite-sized chunks. This was how we always had our ambrosia. I can't quite imagine it with canned oranges.
Ambrosia Salad
----------------
6 medium oranges cut into bite-sized chunks
3/4 cup of sweetened shredded coconut (available on the baking aisle)
1/2 cup of shelled walnuts (crush slightly if too large)
8oz. bottle of marashino cherries (drained)
Mix contents into a large glass serving bowl, cover and chill until ready to serve.
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