Category: Vodka

REPOST – Future Classics – Australian Table – August 2001

Remember how I said I had a fab idea for a whole new series of blog posts whilst on holiday?  Here’s the thing, along with hundreds of cookbooks, I also have a huge collection of food magazines, most of which sit on shelves in my back room doing nothing.  Once a year, I grab a handful of the oldest, take them on holiday and cut out the recipes I want, throw away the magazines, and cook the recipes over the next 12 months.

Vodka With Crushed Limes2

Crispy Duck with Green Pancakes2jpg

Currently I have a few mags from the late 1990’s but they are most from the early noughties onwards.  So they are not quite but well on their way to becoming formally vintage.  My thought on holiday was….”These are the things that will shortly become the vintage recipes of the future.  So, instead of ripping them up, I’m going to start cooking from them.  Once a month, I’ll revisit one of these magazines, cook a thing or two and decide if these are future vintage classics – or just junk taking up space in my backroom.  Here are the early years to 2013:

Magazines1And here are 2014 to the present day:

Magazines2so, to start, we are stepping back in time 15 years to the August 2001 edition of Australian Table:

Australian Table August 2001 I also thought it might be fun to revisit some of the content of these magazine as well as the recipes, so without further ado, here are the:

Flavours of The Month – August 2001

This section spoke about what was in season.  I thought I might give it a little Retro Food For Modern Times Twist!

Sweet Potatoes

Huh….my plan was to insert a recipe or two from the blog.  However, apparently I have made nothing with sweet potatoes. I’ll link to some recipes  below.

Baby Bok Choy

Or anything with Bok choky.  What have I been cooking in for the last four years?

Cumquats

Hooray – Finally!

Click here for my Four Kumquat Canapés For Four Food Heroes recipes

Pineapples

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer and MC Cocktail

Pineapple soufflé

Movies of The Month

Oh man.  August 2001 was a GOOD month for movies!  I would quite happily watch Bridget Jones’s Diary or Along Came a Spider today.  I don’t recall ever seeing Evolution but I am definitely putting that to rights, pronto.  I know it’s probably a little late with the picky picky however, Australian Table, I would like to point out that the chocolate-voiced, sloe-eyed maverick investigator is actually called Alex Cross.  The ACTOR is Morgan Freeman.  And what a difference a letter makes.  Slow-eyed which I typed at least a dozen times in the above paragraph makes you sound like you should be taking special classes.  Sloe-eyed…hello sexy!

Movies - August 2001

Music Of The Month

Well, I guess you can’t have it all.  I listened to none of these at the time nor do i have any real desire to seek out any of these.  Maybe the Elvis Costello.

Music August 2001

The Food

I chose two recipes from an article on fool proof party food starting with:

Vodka with Crushed Limes

Australian Table August 2001These are my flavours…this was so good!  Tangy, sweet delicious!

Crispy Duck with Green Scallion Pancakes

Crispy Duck with Green PancakesNo, these are my flavours!  Spicy, seductive!

Australian Table August 20012

Berry and Rhubarb Crumble

This recipe came from an advertisement for a 3 in one hand blender.  Crumble is pretty much already a classic but the addition of rhubarb instead of the more traditional apple?  Genius!

Rhubarb and Berry CrumbleRhubarb and Berry Crumble Recipe

Everything I made from this mag was SUPER! My view is that this is a definite future vintage classic!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk down memory lane!  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a mag from September 2001.  I hope it’s as good as this one!

Have a great week!

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Cowboys, Caviar, Casseroles and Cocktails

Dear readers

I had such high hopes for this post.  Then they were totally dashed by a twist of fate that…well…I guess if I’d seen it coming it wouldn’t be a twist would it?  But I’m jumping ahead of myself.  First, I was totally delighted when Greg from Recipes4Rebels asked if I would join in a cookalong for Cowboy Day!  This event occurs on the fourth Saturday of July each year and is celebrated all over the world!

Cowboy Caviar 1Obviously, this is not the fourth Saturday in July, however, as I will be sunning myself on the beach at Sanur in Bali that day, with Greg’s blessing I am posting my ventures into Cowboy Cookin’ early!  And it’s a three course meal y’all. (Because 1 that’s how cowboy’s talk and 2 cocktails are a course aren’t they?  This one is almost a meal!  But again, getting ahead of myself!)

So now onto my foiled grand plans.  My idea was that I would find a cocktail called a Bali Cowboy – possibly a more tropical version of this cowboy cocktail and I would make it for my post and then, on the day itself, I would tweet another picture of me in Bali with with my Bali Cowboy and it would in a glass as big as my head and it would be blue and loaded with umbrellas and pineapple wedges and all the other tropical cocktail paraphenalia.

Cowboy Caviar 2A quick google soon showed me that there is such a thing as a Bali Cowboy.  It is NOT a cocktail.  Turns out that a Bali Cowboy is a male prostitute who hangs around Kuta Beach willing to sell his services to any rich (ie all) Western women who care to pay for them. So, whilst I’m not 100% ruling out a photo of me with a Bali Cowboy on Cowboy Day, the likelihood of it happening has dropped significantly!

So, new ideas had to be found.  Starting with some caviar.  Because we’re classy cowboys!  It’s Cowboy Caviar of courseCowboy Caviar 4Where has this salad / dip been all my life?  If this is what cowboys eat, then I want to be a cowboy.  It’s all kinds of beans and corn and tomatoes and avocado . Truly delicious!  I loved this!

So, for the second course, I went straight to the top.  And by that I mean Mr John Wayne himself.

John wayne casserole recipeTurns out The Duke and I share a love of eggs, cheese and chillies.  Now, just one thing about the John Wayne casserole…. To my mind, when you combine egg yolks to beaten egg whites with other stuff, in this instance cheese and chilli and you them put that in an oven and cook until it’s all puffed up and golden, that’s not so much a casserole as a soufflé.

You be the judge:

John wayne casserole1I’ll sit quietly over here and let my case speak for itself.

By the way, cooking this for an hour would be way too much.  You are seeing about 35 minutes and I think it was over.  I would cook this…half an hour max.  Also, the tomato didn’t do much.  I would actually leave it out and cook this for 20 minutes total.

John Wayne casserole2The soufflé casserole was good but I think I was so blown away by the Cowboy Caviar that it kind of paled by comparison.  I will definitely make it again though!

John Wayne casserole3And now for my grand Cowboy finale, I am turning to to person who started all of this, yep, Greg.  This cocktail /dessert  is A-MAZING!  So, so good.  Cowboys and cowgirls, can I present, the Giant Martini!

Giant Martini2There is no other word for this but absolutely divine! The giant in the Giant Martini doesn’t refer t to it’s size (but you could scale it up very easily)  but to the fact that it was created on the set of Giant by Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson.

Git along little doggie, this cocktail is all mine!

Giant MartiniAnd you too!

Giant Martini3jpgAh yes, Greg’s site on the PC, a cocktail in front of me and The A-Z of Cooking behind it.  Just a regular day round these parts!

Many, many thanks to Greg, this was so much fun!  Thank you so much for including me!  I always say this but you hear so much about the internet being a a horrible vicious place, I am always delighted and totally honoured to make new friends, like Greg, on here.

Ok, I’ve gotta go, 5:30am start tomorrow!  But I’m loving and leaving you with some some super rhinestone cowboy singing!

Find out all about the Cowboy Day Cook A Long here.  Hopefully my attempts will inspire you to bigger and better things on the day!

The recipe for Cowboy Caviar I used came from Cookie and Kate.

The Giant Martini recipe is here.

Kiss me and smile for me, I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks but if you can’t smile without me, I’ll be tweeting and instagramming from Bali throughout.

Loving you, leaving you, now!

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Political Partini

Well, the Brits have Brexited; here in Australia we go to the polls this weekend (Lord only knows why – every time we actually elect a Prime Minister internal party political infighting deposes them and puts someone else in the top job!) I’m sure my friends in the U.S. are sick to the back teeth with Trump and Hilary and there’s still a long way to go on that one….

Political Partini

Most of these campaigns are being run on scare tactics and fear mongering  so why not kill the bad vibes with a super tasty cocktail.  I’m in…how about you?

And oh boy do I have an absolutely beauty for you!  The Political Partini!  It’s not only delicious but punny which means I love it even more!!!!  And what’s not to love?  It’s pear infused vodka, traditionally Grey Goose La Poire but I made my own, Amaretto which I absolutely adore, simple syrup and lemon juice. So, it’s filled with fruit and nuts kind of healthy…in a boozy sort of way!

Polical Partini2This is so, so good.  I only wish I had made more pear-infused vodka so I could make it my election night tipple! Do people in other countries have election night parties?  It’s kind of a thing here.  My parents used to always have / or go to one.  If I had not just started a new job I may have thought more about it and organised something for the weekend but that’s totally not happening…maybe I’ll tag along to my parents’ party….oh Lord really?  Is this what my life has come to?

Well, here’s an ode to something I most likely will not be this Saturday from one of my favourite singers Dan Kelly.  It does contain some of the naughty words  so, if you are at work or there are kiddies about, you might want to delay playing it.

The Political Partini was created for the US 2008 election campaign but is delicious enough to celebrate or commiserate any election wins or losses.  Or indeed anything.

OMG…it’s so good!!!!  And that’s coming from someone who is not overly fond of pears.

Political Partini3

Politcal Partini: The Recipe

Print

Political Partini

A super delicious cocktail made from pear infused vodka, amaretto and lemon – how could it be bad?

Ingredients

Scale

For the pear infused vodka

  • 1 pear
  • 250 ml vodka

For the cocktail

  • 2 parts pear infused vodka
  • ¼ parts Amaretto
  • ¼ parts simple syrup
  • ½ part lemon juice
  • Pear slice for garnish

Instructions

For the pear infused vodka

  1. Wash and chop up the pear.
  2. Place in mason jar.
  3. Cover with vodka. Close the jar and keep in a dark place for a week or so, shaking daily.
  4. Before use, strain through cheesecloth to remove all the pear particles.

For the Cocktail

  1. Place all ingredients, except the pear slice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
  2. Shake, baby, shake until the outside of the shaker is frosted.
  3. Strain into martini glass and garnish with a pear slice.

Have a great week!

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This Goose is Loose – Goose in Spring Cocktail

Happy hump day people of the internet!

This goose is loose! 

For the next five days, I am a lady of leisure!  And what better way to celebrate than with a cocktail (or two)!  And this Goose in Spring Cocktail fits the bill perfectly!

Goose In Spring 1After three years, I am leaving the amazing team at Protiviti in Melbourne for pastures new.  It was so hard to say goodbye; I have made so many friends there and worked for three amazing bosses.  But new challenges beckoned and I am moving on. 

But not until  Monday.

Goose In Spring 2

So, in the meantime, while I am unofficially unemployed, I am as free as this little bird.

Goose In Spring3If being free means:

  • Cleaning out my pantry
  • Clearing out my wardrobe
  • Clearing out my bookshelves
  • Putting my car in for a service
  • A visit to the dentist
  • A visit to the hairdresser
  • Catching up with a girlfriend for lunch
  • A visit to the beauty salon for a mani & pedi
  • Getting the broken strap on my favourite handbag fixed
  • Trying to cook as many recipes from Persiana as possible
  • Vintage Shopping with my mum
  • Writing at least three blog posts to schedule for when I am on holiday next month
  • Writing that novel I’ve been thinking about for years
  • Scaling Everest

Yep, totally absolutely free!

Goose Is Loose 5The Goose in Spring cocktail was the winner of the May 2012 Vodka Cocktail Contest, where it was created by Elijah Venanzi.

[yumprint-recipe id=’68’]The Goose In Spring combines all the delicious floral flavours I love – lavender and elderflower with some fruity deliciousness from raspberries and lime!  The original recipe used lemon instead of lime but I didn’t have any – and you know, when life doesn’t give you lemons, a girl’s gotta improvise!  My lavender vodka was also VERY lavendery so I needed to adjust the other ingredients around it.  The original ratios are per the link in the recipe.

Have a lovely week!  I’ll be thinking of you while I’m doing all that nothing!

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REPOST from 2016 – The Black-Eyed Susan

“I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories. 

I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans. 

The lucky one”

Black Eyed Susan 1

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin is the story of Tessa Cartwright.  As a teenager, she was abducted and left for dead in a field of Black-Eyed Susan flowers along with other dead and dying girls. They become collectively known as the Black-Eyed Susans.  Tessa is the only survivor.

Now, in her thirties, the man accused of the crime, the man whom Tessa’s testimony helped put away is facing death row.  And Tessa is having doubts about his guilt.  And if he’s innocent, then the real killer is still out there….

Black Eyed Susan 2
I came to this book in two ways.

It was one of the selections we had for our Crime /Thriller month in bookclub along with Maestra (the one we chose), The Method (which I am currently reading) and The Ex (which I just bought as I noticed it was super cheap as I was getting the link).

Then, the  very next day after we had made our choice,  Heather who writes the blog Meta’s Meals wrote a very positive review of Black-Eyed Susans on Goodreads and I promptly decided that it was going to the top of my reading list!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Black Eyed Susan’s. It was very suspenseful and the plot was original which is a really hard thing to do in crime fiction. I only hope Maestra which is our book club choice is half as good.  Mind you, last year we chose Girl on The Train which…urrggghhhh…I cannot even tell you how much I hated that book.

But this one’s good.  And it has a gorgeous cover!

Black -Eyed Susans

Whilst reading The Black-Eyed Susans, I discovered that there is a cocktail called the Black-Eyed Susan.  It is the official drink of the Preakness Stakes Horse race which is run in Baltimore each year as the winning horse is draped in a blanket made of these flowers.

This was delicious.  I love pineapple juice and St Germain in cocktails so there was no way I wasn’t going to like this.  The lime juice gave it a nice little kick of tanginess too!

The Black-Eyed Susan also got the thumbs up from resident bon vivant F Scott.

Black Eyed Susan 3Oh, and before anyone complains, I know the flowers I have used in my photos are not Black-Eyed Susans.  I am not even sure if they grow here, or, if they did when they would flower.  Anyhoo, the gerberas were the closest (only) thing my local florist had that came close!

Here’s the recipe.  Why not make one and have a sip whilst reading the book!

Print

Black Eyed Susan

A delicious refreshing pineapple and citrus cocktail with a hint of Elderflower.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 45ml Vodka (The Preakness recommend Finlandia)
  • 15ml St Germain
  • 60ml pineapple juice
  • 7.5 ml lime juice
  • 22.5ml orange juice

To Garnish

  • Orange Slice
  • Amarena cherry

Instructions

  1. Combine all the drink ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.
  2. Shake, baby, shake.
  3. Pour over ice into a Collins glass
  4. Garnish with an orange slice and an Amarena cherry

Notes

  • I used Amarena cherries for this because their darker colour looked more like a black eye than a Maraschino.

Thank you Heather for the recommendation.  If anyone else would  like super book recommendations from Heather, why not follow her, or me on Goodreads!

Have a wonderful Easter!

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