Zombies! (the drink, not the dead guys)

Dude... I wrote this post in 2012 and didn't publish it.  All I'm going to say is that when I moved into my own place, the only thing I stocked my bar with was the ingredients for this drink. Well..and I'll say "damn" I started this blog THAT long ago, and my goal was to have at least 3 fancy drinks under my belt to pull out at will, and all I still have is this??  SIGH.
 

I aspire to have a few great mixed drink recipes memorized on the off chance I need to prove myself as a hip bartender someday, but so far I've just got this one.

Legend says it was created to help a a hung-over customer get through a business meeting.  he returned a few days later complaining he had been turned into a zombie for his entire trip.

Originally it had three different rums, lime juice, falernum (What the heck? sweet syrup with almond & ginger, &/or cloves, lime, vanilla or allspice) Angostura bitters, Pernod, grenadine & “Don’s Mix,” a combination of cinnamon syrup and grapefruit juice.

This is my variation that doesn't require unusual ingredients on hand.  It's very strong - two's pushing it if you don't want to risk feeling like the aforementioned zombie afterwards!  It's not tropical drink weather, but when I make one I get to pretend I'm in Cancun and the sky isn't grey.


Going by liquid measurements that 1/8 cup - 1 ounce

16 oz tumbler, filled to the rim with ice
1 oz light rum
1/2 oz spiced rum
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz amaretto (besides french toast it's my only use for it!)
4 oz margarita mix
4 oz orange juice
1/2 oz grenadine (or a cherry syrup such as Torani from the coffee section of the grocery store)
then
1 oz dark rum floated on top

They can be put in any order, but I like the look of the dark rum floating on top, it makes me feel like a bartender! And yes that IS 3.5 ounces of alcohol, so it's a good drink to drink slowly while chatting with friends while the ice melts.  It's also just as nice with only 1/2 ounce of each rum.

I am pretty sure it was just warm out - DONT drink zombies and fall asleep in the sun!

Spiced Peach "Jam"

My mom canned quite a bit during a couple of summers when I was young.  We had a pear tree and there were rows and rows of white red and green tinted quart jars full of vanilla, mint and cinnamon pears along the shelves.  Sensible or not to be eating home canned goods so far down the road - as the the seals held we had the last jars almost 15 years after they were canned, and they were as good as ever.

I've been meaning to try my hand at canning since I was a teenager (which is currently like a really really long time ago).  I keep hoping to grow enough produce of my own to can, but our yard is very shady and the weather's been bad the last couple of years - even with new raised beds not much wants to grow - not even zucchini!   Since I could be waiting forever for a "need" to can, I decided to get around to it the way I do most things - which is to get the "props" first.  A canning book for Christmas, then jars a few weeks ago. (side note, that list should've included jar lifting tongs, I don't recommend canning without them unless you like splashing yourself with boiling water!!)

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Last week we were at Trader Joe's and my husband pointed to a 3 lb box of peaches and suggested I get them so I could actually, you know, make some jam.  It wasn't until the next day that I remembered I don't like peach jam - well I've never had it, so I assumed I don't like it.   I love canned peaches but I dislike fresh ones, I'm a devoted nectarine girl.

Since I found myself in possession of a box of peaches anyway, I went ahead and did it.  I made the Sure Jell recipe (mostly).  It called for 5.5 cups of sugar to 4 cups of fruit (!!!) but I added another 1.5 cups of chopped peaches.  1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp cloves, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, an extra tablespoon of lemon juice, and a bit of rum extract.

Ziki wasted no time claiming the empty box

Apparently in lots of fruit jam, especially peach, the fruit floats up to the top, and it can take up to a week to set.  I'd been flipping it over now and again to help disperse it.  However I can quit that since my jam did NOT set up.  From reading around it looks like you should cook the fruit for awhile to let it's natural pectins release before adding additional pectin, but since the directions just said bring to a boil then add pectin, that's what I did.  Nevertheless I've ended up with 4 pint jars of a nice thick spiced peach sauce which will be great on ice cream and French toast.

I'm almost caught up with the Handstitched Class quilt (well...to the last lessons stuff at least!) but I needed a break from intensive stitching so I thought I'd do a nice quick fun embroidery project so I could regroup.

 Mollie from Wild Olive was nice enough to make a download of cute stuff available on the day of her blog's 8 year anniversary which I managed to grab (and her stuff is just so cute!!) so I cobbled together two of the images to make some commemorative jam art.   Maybe I should make a second one that says syrup. ;(

Food of the Month - June Roundup

Originally I'd meant this blog to be a bit more rounded in the different things I put on it, but I've been caught up in sewing projects.  That's OK, but I'm going to slide some more randomness into it.  Apparently it doesn't come naturally to me to grab a camera before dinner,  go figure.  I swear, my diet isn't as carb heavy as this collage suggests!

1. Beef Stew with Prunes from the NY Times.  For some reason I'd had the idea to make beef stew with prunes stuck in my head for awhile.  The prunes really didn't go over very well the Mr. and I found it too sweet myself.  I added a several carrots and didn't use red wine, but did splash in a bit of marsala.  Besides the prunes it was actually really good.

2. Hot Cross Buns from the Food Network.  My husband was out of town on Easter, so I wasn't very timely about making them.  They were pretty awesome.

3.  Ham and Salad on Potato Rolls.  Not that ham, tomato and mustard sandwiches are particularly exciting, but I had some arugula and baby romaine that I tossed in Italian dressing and Frank's RedHot Buffalo wing sauce, which was amazingly tasty on top of it.

4.  Coffee with coconut oil.  I dunno, coconut oil is all trendy now.  I have a friend who cooks with it all the time and I finally got some for myself but have mainly been putting a teaspoon or two into my morning coffee.

5. Pancetta & Onion pizza.  My favorite pizza book is American Pie which is 50% travel story/50% cookbook.  It has a few dough recipes I use regularly, and this time it was NY style crust with pancetta, red onion & mozzarella topped with greens tossed in Italian dressing.

6.  Baked Fries.  Really I love making fries.  These ones I tossed in a bit of melted coconut oil and olive oil before baking at 450F.  The coconut oil was really interesting, and kept them from getting really crispy, which I like.

7. Baklava which I'd been meaning to make for awhile.  I only kind of followed Alton Browns recipe.  Cut down on the sugar and honey by 33%, used almonds and walnuts, layered it differently, and used rose flower water to spritz it as I assembled it.

Anyway, maybe this will inspire me to cook more of a variety of things.  My husband's a meat and potatoes guy which clashes with my tastes, so it's a challenge to keep us both happy (aka I shy away from veggies and fish so I don't get the sad eyes).

Ali makes dinner - Chicken with Prosciutto & Sage

I'd run across this recipe for Smashed Chicken with Prosciutto and Sage last month at Gastronomical Sovereignty (no idea what led me there but mmmm), and have been waiting eagerly to try it.

It's a pretty straightforward recipe, the only thing I wasn't expecting was to wrap the prosciutto around the chicken BEFORE pounding the breasts flat. I ended up using chicken stock instead of white wine and mounted it with some herb butter at the end to thicken it up a bit. I usually get impatient when I make a sauce reduction like this and don't wait for the liquid to boil off enough so end up with a watery, if tasty, sauce.  My patience paid off and it was nicely thickened and so delicious!

I rolled out some pasta to go with it, but alas I didn't have any vegetables around to stick on the plate.  I can't wait for my zucchini to start spitting out fruit left and right so I don't have an excuse to not have some vegetable like product with every meal!

This recipe had less than 5 minutes of prep and only took about 10 minutes to make.  I'm a fan of quick and easy recipes - especially when there aren't a ton of steps or ingredients, and I'll be making this again.

Ali makes Friday Dinner

I realize blogging about making things should extend beyond crafting.  I may as well combine my fetish with taking blurry photos with my cooking and blogging habits.  Last year I'd gotten the bug to learn to make pasta for after reading about it at the kitchn.  My in-laws were awesome enough to give me the atlas pasta machine I'd had on my amazon wishlist for Christmas, so I got to work.  I've made it a half a dozen times so far, although I sure don't mix it by hand. It IS easy, and I don't really see how you could go wrong.  In 30 minutes you can have pasta for four ready to cook, and 20 minutes of that is letting the dough rest. 

pasta to be

After a long ago culinary education (during which for some reason I never learned to make pasta), I realized why I cook and avoid baking - you don't need a recipe to cook, but if you're even a bit off ratios/process in baking, everything can go to hell in a hand-basket.  If you've read my posts about quilting you'll see being meticulous isn't my strong suit.  I thought pasta would be like baking, but it's not at all.  You can make it with nothing more than flour and water, and you don't have to be exact at all.

3 of 4 pasta balls ready to roll

I thought I'd spare my husband from being forced to eat hot dogs for dinner, so during a sewing break I headed to the kitchen. This time I measured a cup of all purpose flour, threw about a quarter cup of semolina flour (makes it a bit more toothsome & filling which is nice when it's the main course), an egg, 1/4 teaspoon salt,  and a few tablespoons of water.  I generally have added a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, but I didn't this time.  Pasta is forgiving - while mixing if it's too dry you just add a bit more liquid, too wet you can just throw in more flour.  If you go to put it through a machine and it's sticky, you just dust it with flour as needed and it still turns out just right.

herb butter with truffle oil

Five minutes in the mixer with the dough hook and it was resting (covered in plastic wrap, contrary to the above photo).  We had a mild winter so I went outside to harvest some herbs.  I got a food processor last month so whipped up some herb butter for rolls.  I mixed in some truffle oil. (Totally decadent huh? Well we got it from Italy several years ago, and there's no reason on earth it shouldn't have been used by now - even refrigerated it can't last forever you know? So I'm trying to throw it into random things.)

I Pulled a couple of homemade potato thyme rolls from the freezer - I don't love to bake but it doesn't stop me.  Started some pasta sauce by sauteing some herbs and sweet onion in some more truffle oil. Then I dumped in a jar of Prego. Yep.   Listen husband, I'd love to spend all day in the kitchen making you everything from scratch but let's be real, I have quilting to do.  At least I added a bay leaf and red pepper flakes!

After 20 minutes I rolled the pasta out then cut it into linguine with the atlas machine. Fresh pasta only takes about 2 minutes to cook, which is something I love about it.  I cooked half for our dinner and covered and refrigerated the rest, making sure it was well floured so it wont stick together.  It's best eaten within two days, and it's smart to check it each day to make sure moisture isn't condensing and making it stick together.