drinks

I have been trying to learn to make drinks.

I am relying heavily on Robert Hess's book: The Essential Bartender's Guide and it's been great for me because I really wanted to learn old-fashioned ways of making the drinks, and he is insistent on the basics and the originals.

I started with the old fashioned, one of the original cocktails. It contains sugar, bourbon, water, and bitters. Garnish is orange peel and a cherry (sometimes more than one in my case.) I have been drinking a lot of these since I started this quest in the fall:



Next up, a dry martini, in my only (at the time) martini glass:


A margarita, very simple, just cointreau, tequila, and lime juice:



Tonight, I decided to get fancy, and I made two drinks that aren't "basic" - I did a modification of a Hemingway Daiquiri and a drink called "Harvard" maybe "Harvard Cocktail" is better?



I served them up in my new cocktail glasses, which are just new to me, since I got them at the antique market.

The Hemingway Daquiri calls for grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur. I had ruby red grapefruit juice and no maraschino, so I went with it. It has: white rum, rupy red grapefruit juice, simple syrup, and lime juice. Shake with ice, strain into glass!



The Harvard seemed fun since I happen to work there, and also because I wanted to serve it to roommate kristen, who loves the Harvard pens I bring home. Also, I thought it would go well with her High Life.

The Harvard is brandy, sweet vermouth, grenadine, lemon juice and angostura bitters:

baked mac and cheese with broccoli

I got a sweet mac and cheese cookbook in December, and I finally made a recipe from it tonight! the book is: Macaroni & Cheese by Marlena Spieler.

As usual I made some modifications. I ended up using all 4 burners at a time and a lot of pots and pans to get this one done. It's not actually that simple, but super worth it. Her recipe is called "Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni & Cheese" and I took a tip from the bottom and did a broccoli addition.

Here's the basics:

Under cooked one box (12 oz) shell pasta and set aside. It's find if it cools off.

Grate a buttload of cheese. I went with 14 ounces of Grafton Cheddar, 6 ounces of Cabot Monterey Jack, 3 ounces of crumbled chevre (the recipe calls for blue cheese crumbles, but I'm not a blue cheese fan, so I went this route instead) and half a cup of parmesan (I bought the grated kind cause I was lazy.

also cut up a head of broccoli into little florets. bowl water and cook the florets for about 2-3 minutes and then drain. they should be bright green. set aside.

in a pan melt 3 tablespoons of butter and saute half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic (all chopped) for a few minutes (they don't need to be super cooked, just good and aromatic.)

Then split the cheese into two bowls. 3 ounces of cheddar, 3 ounces of jack and 2 tablespoons of parm in one bowl. All the rest of the cheese in the other bowl (this bowl with a ton of cheese, including all the goat cheese, goes in the sauce).

Now you have to make bechamel. Heat 3 cups of milk (I used 2%, but whole is also good. But no skim. It needs fat!) until they are hot (but not boiling). in a separate large saucepan, melt 3 tablespoons of butter, when it is melted sprinkle 3 tablespoons of flour into it. mix and let cook for 1-2 minutes and don't burn it!!! then add the hot milk to the butter flour sitch. Add a bay leaf. cook while stirring for about 7 minutes so it starts to thicken. Don't boil though! use a whisk to stir/delumpify.

take the bechamel off heat. stir in 1 tablespoon of dry mustard and 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, a sprinkle of salt, and a liberal amount of cracked pepper. take out the bay leaf Now add the big bowl of cheese to the bechamel and stir. Now add the garlic/onion/butter mixture, stir that in too.

melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the same pan you already did the garlic/onions in. add 1 cup of plain breadcrumbs and combine with the butter over heat.

Now you can put it together! It's kind of like a lasagna. The recipe calls for a 1.5 qt pan (basically a loaf pan) which I think is way too small. I went with a 3 qt casserole and that fit perfectly.

sprinkle some of the cheese from your reserve bowl on the bottom of the casserole. then add 1/3 of the pasta. Then add 1/3 of the cheese sauce. then add some broccoli. then add more pasta, then more sauce. Repeat. I only had enough broccoli for 2 layers. I made the top layer broccoli though, and then on top of the top broccoli layer I sprinkled the rest of my reserve cheese, and then topped it all with the buttery breadcrumbs.

Put it in the oven at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes. We served it with kale salad and rolls. good combo.

here's a look in reverse:

New Year's Desserts: individual mont blancs

I decided that new year's should be decadent and I should make something new, so I decided to attempt to make a "Mont Blanc" a vaguely French, but very popular in Japan dessert that resembles a snow topped mountain. ("White Mountain.") I had brought some chestnut paste (actually Marron Paste) home with me from France in August, and this just seemed like the time to give it a try.

A Mont Blanc is basically a meringue topped with marron paste and egg white- and sugar-spiked whipped cream so that it looks like a mountain. It's a ton of work. I used a few different recipes to try and get it right. Here's one: http://homecooking.about.com/od/dessertrecipes/r/bldes135.htm

And here is what we ended up with...

some disasters (still tasted great!)


some success! (had to pop them right into the fridge though so that they would firm up a little. That whipped cream is real stiff from a beaten egg white, but still not super stable...)



For extra festiveness they were served either on snoopy xmas plates OR on a silver platter. f.a.n.c.y.

In the fridge...