Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Adam recently had a once-in-a-lifetime, out-of-this-world opportunity to brew beer with none other than Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head...more on that soon.  In the meantime, I was thrilled to benefit from his trip to the brewery in Delaware:

The very first batch of Dogfish Head Punkin Ale of the season.  It's Autumn in a Glass.

I've been in bed sick all day, watching Anne of Green Gables.  But it's slightly chilly and very rainy and gloomy out, and I can't help but feel like autumn is right around the corner.  So I opened up one of the Punkin Ales as a promise of things to come.

Cocktail Recipe: Moscow Mule

I'm not into cocktails.  For one, they remind me of college: lots of syrup, bad liquor, and smashing headaches.  For another reason, it's been documented that I don't have a sweet tooth and it seems like so many of the cocktails I've tried are sweet and sugary.  Gross.

That said, on the 4th of July, when I went to my friend Eric's place, a cocktail seemed like a good idea.  I admit that it seemed like a good idea on account of the Prosecco I had indulged in earlier that afternoon.

Which also might be why I haven't always had the best experience with cocktails, as I tend to drink them after I've already had other things to drink.

Anyway, Eric asks how I feel about ginger.  Intrigued, I tell him I love ginger.  And he goes to work.  I loved the drink he brought me: it was bright and spicy but with just a tad bit of sweetness to balance it out.  It struck me as the perfect summer drink, and I was completely enchanted.

Fast forward to this past week and I'm back at Eric's place for a post-dinner nightcap.  I bypass his stellar collection of Scotch and ask for "that drink I had on the 4th."  I learned it was a Moscow Mule, consisting of vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice.  And today I made my own:

MOSCOW MULE
Makes 1 16-oz cocktail

1 1/2 ounces vodka (I prefer Fleischmann's...a story about that in another post...)
Bottle of ginger beer
Juice of 1/2 lime
A couple of lime slices
Ice

Fill a large glass with ice.  Using a reamer, add lime juice to the glass.  Add vodka.  Top with ginger beer (not ginger ale).  Give it a stir.  Garnish with lime slices and/or mint.

There are other versions of this recipe, such as one from Oprah.  But it uses simple syrup, which I would never want to add here - it would just make it way too sweet.  In fact, every recipe I found used simple syrup, with the exception of the one on Wikipedia.  No matter the recipe, it's traditionally served in a copper mug but, really, who has room in their kitchen for copper mugs?  I certainly don't.

I also think it's worth noting that 16 ounces is no small drink.  Feel free to halve the recipe.  Sixteen ounces just seemed the perfect amount to drink while sunbathing on the roof deck of our building!

Eat, drink, and take a break from summer rosé.

Mint tea

Come winter, you'll hear me wax poetic about hot drinks to warm you to the bones when it's freezing outside.  But right now, I'm all about the summer drinks to refresh you when the sun's beating down.

We were at the farmers' market (Union Square, of course) last weekend and there was a stand (the name of which I can never remember) that had iced mint tea.  Two big coolers full of tea and two small chests with ice.  You can get a small 6 oz cup for $1.00 or a 12 oz cup for $1.50.  Bug begged me to get a cup and, after talking to the purveyor, I learned that the tea had a scant amount of caffeine; other than that, it was sweetened with local farmers' market maple syrup.  Bug and I both had a glass (Adam hates mint so he passed) and it was incredible.  You know when you just drink that perfect drink on a hot day and you just sigh and say, "Ahhhhhh!" when you drink it?  Well, that was this drink.

Naturally, I immediately realized that I could easily make this on my own.  So I bought myself a bunch of mint and went home to give it a go.  I separated the mint into these long tea bags I have:

But I think you could probably put the mint right in the water and then strain it out.  As the water was about to boil, I took it off the stove and let it steep on the countertop for about 10 minutes.  I took out the bags, squeezing the water out of them before tossing them, and then stirred in maple syrup.  Of course I tasted it, tasted it, tasted it to make sure I was adding the right amount of syrup.  Once I got it to the right amount of sweetness, I added it to a pitcher:

And I sipped all week long.  Absolutely wonderful.

Today we went back to the market and bought another cup of their iced tea.  Bug noticed a card with the ingredients: mint, maple syrup, sugar, lemon juice, lime juice.  We didn't add sugar, lemon, or lime to our tea; Bug told me that she didn't think we needed the sugar since it was sweetened with the syrup.  We did agree, though, that lemon and lime juice would be awesome additions.  So we'll try that next.  And that, in a nutshell, is why I love cooking and creating in the kitchen.  Last weeks' tea was great.  But let's add lemon and lime juice to see what will happen.  Maybe it'll be even better.  Maybe it won't.  It's always interesting and always fresh because even I don't know what will come out of my kitchen sometimes.

Eat, drink, and refresh.

"Spicy" Carbonated Drinks

Up until a couple years ago, Bug hated carbonated drinks, declaring them "spicy" and "hot".  Which I never understood.  I just thought she was messing up her words.

Which is why I found this article at Food & Think so interesting: "The Science of Fizz."  Apparently Bug wasn't entirely off-base.

Butterbeer

We are a house obsessed with all things Harry Potter.  It has just connected with Bug in ways I couldn't have anticipated.  As an example, I had a talk with her a few weeks ago in which she told me that she was going to emulate Hermione in the upcoming school year.  She was going to be smart and study and be brave.  She was going to take charge and be a know-it-all.  Then...about a week after this proclamation, this was the conversation we had right before school started:


BUG: You know, I decided that I'm not going to be Hermione this school year.
ME (a bit disappointed): Oh?  Why not?
BUG: Because, Mom.  It's really, really hard to change who you really are inside.


In that moment, I fell in love just a little bit more with my mini-teenager.  Sure, I was disappointed that I wasn't going to have a Hermione clone...but wasn't her observation a tad Hermione-esque?  Loved it.


So it won't surprise any of you when I tell you that we recently made BUTTERBEER!  I'll be in Orlando in November for the NCTE/ALAN conference and we're thinking about going to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Luckily, I found out that ABCs of Art (aka my friend Debbie) went recently and she mentions the butterbeer.  Check out her post, for certain, for a discussion about what butterbeer really is (and our own expectations of what it should be).  She also links to a recipe on Mugglenet and I've adapted it to a stovetop recipe (since we don't have a microwave):

BUTTERBEER
Ingredients:
1 c. (8 oz) club soda or cream soda
1/2 c. (4 oz) butterscotch syrup (ice cream topping)
1/2 tbsp butter

Melt butterscotch syrup and butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until syrup is bubbly and butter is completely incorporated.  Stir and cool for 30 seconds and then slowly mix in soda.  Mixture will fizz quite a bit so make sure your saucepan is large enough.  Makes 2-3 servings.


This recipe was soooooo sweet and sugary.  Consider yourself forewarned.  Adam and I both drank about half and then we were out.  As you can imagine, Bug drank all of hers and wanted more.  We used cream soda but I might try club soda next time to cut down on some of the sweetness.


Debbie also links to some other variations, including an adult version with butterscotch schnapps.  I'm hesitant to buy a whole bottle of butterscotch schnapps for this recipe, but we're also still fighting off summer. Come January, a warm cup of butterscotch schnapps and cream soda could be an awesome warming dessert drink after Bug has gone to bed.


Next, we need to seek out pumpkin juice recipes.  And pray to a higher power that it's not as gross as my failed experiments with the pumpkintini. 


We finished our evening with a cutthroat game of Harry Potter Uno.  

Eat, drink, and make drinks from your favorite books.

Gorgeous Slow-Cooked Duck Pasta

That recipe name is Jamie Oliver's - not mine. Only someone like Jamie can call his own dish "gorgeous". Especially with that "gorgeous" British accent.

I won't lie: this dish wasn't a slam dunk. It was "easy" in that it didn't take great culinary skill, but it was wicked time-consuming. I was in the kitchen for no less than three hours, only taking about a 5-minute break to have a glass of Prosecco in the white chairs*. That said, it was worth every single millisecond. This meal was winter personified: eating it made you feel warm, safe, comforted. I knew for certain that I was packing on the fat to keep me warm in winter. Indeed, that's what my zipper told me this morning too. And, again, it was worth it.

Because I'm lazy as all get-out, I'll link to the recipe as posted at Jerry's Thoughts, Musings, and Rants!

Here is how it turned out:

Should you decide to give it a go, here are some notes I made:

• Jamie calls for sultanas and pine nuts. Don't bother. The flavors without them are still intense, rich, and complicated. Adding the sultanas (raisins) and pine nuts would muddy it up. There is a lot to be said for simplicity and subtlety, Jamie.
• I used a half-bottle of Pio Cesare Barbera d'Alba for the recipe and drank the other half with the meal. Heaven. But should you want to pair beer with it, Adam's Brooklyn Brewery Brown Ale gave my Barbera a run for its money. Just make sure your ale isn't too cold - just above room temp is ideal.
• Jamie being Jamie, he didn't give a size for the duck. The recipe just says "a duck". For god's sake. For the record, I had a 5-pounder.
• My duck skin didn't get "thin and crisp" like Jamie said. So I took off the skin first and set it aside. I took all the duck off the bone and tossed it in the sauce, per the recipe. While the sauce was "blip"-ing for another half-hour, I put the skin on a cookie sheet and kept it in a 350-degree oven for that half-hour. Blissfully crispy skin was the result. I salted and peppered it and set it on the table (you can see it in the photos). It was good both as a snack with dinner and a topping to the pasta.
• There are lots of variations on this pasta. I probably won't use pasta next time. I'll put it over mashed potatoes, as Jamie suggests. Or better yet, I'm going to eat it as a stew with no pasta or starches. Maybe some crusty bread for soaking up the juices at the bottom of the bowl. Aaaaahhhhh...
• This was a stupid amount of pasta for only 2 people. There's enough for Adam and I to eat the whole week. Next time, I'll halve it. With the other half of the duck meat, I'll make something different later in the week, like Ina Garten's Warm Duck Salad. On the upside, here is what I'm eating for lunch on a Sunday, at this moment as I type this:

Oh, and in further I-Don't-Hate-Winter news, here is what we had for a nightcap:

Eat, drink, and embrace the cold.

* Many of my regular readers have been to my apartment before...thus they know the white chairs. If you don't know the white chairs, then you need to invite yourself over!

Note: I know I gave lots of notes. This is the rub with Jamie: he leaves lots of room for interpretation...but for those who need/want lots of guidance, he is not your guy. So consider yourself warned.

Not a graham cracker in sight

Ashley over at Not Without Salt posted this intriguing, mouth-watering recipe for an Applejack Rabbit cocktail, circa 1965. The photo is tantalizing, no? Ashley takes amazing pictures:

And I'll bet it tastes a lot better than my now-notorious crappy pumpkintini.

Here's another:

Calvados is one of my favorite beverages. A few years ago, I went to dinner with a bartender friend of mine and I ordered an apple crumble for dessert. I wanted an after-dinner drink. Damon heartily recommended the Calvados with the apple crumble, particularly when he discovered I had never tried the brandy. It was a sublime combination: stout, sweet, and invoking autum in all its glory. I can't say enough good things about it.

Eat, drink, and discover Calvados on a cool autumn evening.