Category: Drinks


Apr
2021

The Red Signal Cocktail

categories: Cocktail, Dining With The Dame, Vodka

The Red Signal Cocktail came about by a bit of an accident.   I recently tried to make a cocktail called the Seamist.  Except, I could not get some of the ingredients so I had to improvise.  The finished version looked beautiful and tasted lovely.  It is the exact sweet/sour fruity taste that I love in a cocktail plus a tinge of dryness from the cranberry and a touch of bitterness from the grapefruit.

But there was something about it that was not right.  And it bugged me for days on end.  It tasted great, it looked beautiful.  So what was wrong with it?

Seamist 1

She Comes in Colours Everywhere

Let’s digress for a moment.  As a child, I was OBSESSED with paint charts.  I have already mentioned that I was a weird only child.  But I don’t think I have mentioned that my parents would quite often spend their weekends going to display homes and DIY stores and inevitably during these excursions, I would pick up a paint chart (or two).  I would then try to memorise all the names and the matching colours. And then get them to test me on the way home.  Or during the week.  Yes.  School wasn’t enough.  I wanted to be tested on random things outside of school as well.

For a while there I wanted to be the person who named those colours.  Actually, you know what?  I still do want that job!  So, believe me when I say that I know my Paris Creek (pale slate green grey) from my Camisole Quarter (pale pink) to my Shampoo (mid Blue).

I. Know. My. Colours.

And the colour of this cocktail is not a Seamist.  No wonder I felt in my deepest soul that there was something wrong with it!

Seamist is a pale grey green with a tiny touch of blue.

And I think we can all agree that this cocktail is possibly the very opposite colour of a greeny-grey.

Seamist 2

So, the name of Seamist had to go.  Life is hard enough at the moment without having additional cognitive dissonance caused by the colour of a cocktail!  And because I had played around with the ingredients, it wasn’t a true Seamist anyway.

So, then the dilemma became what to call it.

The Red Signal

Luckily, for all of us, I happen to be reading The Hounds of Death.  This is a book of short stories by Agatha Christie where each story has a spooky or supernatural twist.  I am still undecided on what to do with the volumes of Agatha Christie’s short stories.  When I started the Dining With The Dame series, I only ever considered her novels.  And believe me, it’s hard enough to find food references to blog in some of the novels, let alone something a tenth of the size!

But,  lo and behold, in that collection,  there is a story called The Red Signal.

Is a tale of

  • Premonitions and intuitions
  • Seances
  • Falling  in love with the wrong person
  • Madness and murder
  • And a weird sixth sense called The Red Signal!

Now…you tell me Isn’t The Red Signal a much better name for this cocktail?

Seamist 3

Seamist 4

The Recipe

Print

The Red Signal Cocktail

Seamist 2
Print Recipe

A sweet sour cocktail inspired by the Agatha Christie short story – The Red Signal.

  • Author: Taryn Nicole
  • Prep Time: 3 minutes
  • Total Time: 3 minutes
  • Yield: 1 1x
  • Category: Cocktails
  • Method: Shake

Ingredients

Scale

3 parts cranberry juice

3 parts pink grapefruit juice

2 parts vodka

Lemon and lime quarters

Ice cubes

Mixed berries for garnish

Instructions

Shake the juices and vodka in a cocktail shaker over ice.

Gently muddle the lemon and lime quarters in a highball glass to release some of their citrus oils and some juice.  Add ice cubes to the glass.

Strain the cocktail into the glass and give a light stir.

Garnish with mixed berries of your choice.

 

Other food mentioned in The Red Signal

Welsh Rarebit

Have a great week friends and remember if you feel “the red signal” pay it some heed!

Or make this cocktail!

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Mar
2021

Cherry Brandy – Murder at the Vicarage

categories: Dining With The Dame, Drinks, Marple

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  Today we are drinking with Dame Agatha and Miss Jane Marple.   The beverage of choice as we journey to St Mary Mead and murder most foul will be homemade cherry brandy.

Cherry Brandy 1

I must confess, I was not looking forward to Miss Marple.  For all his pomposity, I very much like Hercule Poirot and I  love the interplay between Poirot, Hastings and Inspector Japp. Poirot and Japp are also crime-fighting professionals which gives them some cred.

I also like the pluckiness of the female heroines we have met so far like Bundle and Anne Beddingfield and the adventure-seeking  Tuppence.  Miss Marple though?  Has always struck me as being just an old biddy busy body.   So I was delighted to read this very early on in The Murder at The Vicarage.

“My duty,”  said Griselda.  “My duty as the Vicaress.  Tea and scandal at four-thirty.”

“Who is coming?”

Griselda ticked them off on her fingers with a glow of virtue on her face.   “Mrs Price Ridley, Miss Wetherby, Miss Hartnell, and that terrible Miss Marple.”

“I rather like Miss Marple, ” I said.  “She has, at least, a sense of humour.”

“She’s the worst cat in the village,”  said Griselda.

Then a bit later on:

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”

Knowing that other people shared my view made me like this book a lot more than I thought I would.  And I really liked this book!   Despite Marple.

The Murder At The Vicarage – The Plot

Colonel Protheroe has been murdered. With a gun.  In the study of the Vicarage.  It seems like no one in St Mary Mead liked the Colonel.  Even the vicar had been overheard saying that anyone who killed him would be doing the world a service.

 

Cherry Brandy 3

As if that’s not all, we have:

  • Shennanigans with the handsome  painter who is setting all the female heart’s aflutter
  • Suspicious husbands
  • A girl called Lettice.  Maybe this is only interesting to me, given I was very nearly called Romaine.
  • Irregularities in the church accounts
  • False confessions aplenty
  • A mysterious woman in the village aptly called Mrs Lestrange
  • Suitcases containing stolen silverware and picric acid found in the woods
  • Threatening phone calls
  • Slashed paintings

It might actually be a good thing that the wicked cat Miss Marple is around to bring the villains to justice!

I LOVED the sense of humour in this book:

Unblushingly I suggested a glass of vintage port. I have some very fine old vintage port. Eleven o’clock in the morning is not the usual time for drinking port but I did not think that mattered with Inspector Slack. It was, of course, cruel abuse of the vintage port but one must not be squeamish about such things.

Murder in The Vicarage  – The Covers

There are some truly bonkers covers for this book.  My favourite of course is Tom Adams’ surrealist vision for Fontana which features a tennis racquet embodied as a vicar.  More disturbing is the cover bottom right which makes it look as if it might have been the KKK who put Colonel Protheroe away!

Even stranger – in these early covers?  Not a Marple in sight!  As much as I am not really a fan, what kind of sexist ageist BS is that?

Murder at The Vicarage collage

Murder at The Vicarage – On The Screen

Murder at the Vicarage featuring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple is on You Tube.

Persons of note in the episode are:

  • Mark Gatiss as Ronald Hawes the church curate.
  • Derek Jacobi as Colonel Protheroe
  • Jane Asher as Mrs Lester
  • Tim McInnerny as Reverend Leonard Clement
  • Miriam Margolyes as Mrs Price-Ridley

Cherry Brandy 4

“Of course, of course” said Miss Marple. “I quite understand. Won’t you sit down? And might I offer you a little glass of cherry brandy? My own making. A recipe of my grandmother’s”

– Murder at The Vicarage

The Recipe – Cherry Brandy

Unlike Miss Marple, my grandmothers didn’t hand me down a recipe for cherry brandy so I had to find one on the internet. I used this recipe from Larder Love and I really liked the result.  Not a bit like that awful cherry cough syrup which was my fear!   I popped in two star-anise as well as the cinnamon called for in the recipe. The resulting cherry brandy had a lovely subtle spiciness to it.

Cherry Brandy 5

Other Food Mentioned in The Murder At The Vicarage

Greens and Dumplings

Oysters

Eggs and Bacon

Marmalade

Blancmange

“Oh, we’ll go!” she said cheerfully. “A glass or two of homemade liqueur is just what one needs on Sunday evening. I think it’s Mary’s blancmange that is so frightfully depressing. It tastes like something out of a mortuary”.

Whisky and Soda

The next book, if you are reading along, is The Sittaford Mystery. Snuggle in, this one will see us snowbound in a tiny village on Dartmoor.  

Have a great week!

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Mar
2021

Inflatable Flamingo

categories: Cocktail, Gin, Rosé

Summer is officially over here but hopefully even as the days grow shorter and colder we will still have time for a few more summery cocktails like the Inflatable Flamingo!  The name is so reminiscent of relaxing by, or in, a pool that you can almost feel the warmth of the sun on your skin.  And Inflatable Flamingo is also a very cool name for a very fun drink!

Inflatable Flamingo 12

Don’t let it’s pretty pink innocent nature fool you though, the Inflatable Flamingo packs quite a punch with a combination of gin and rose that could leave you…wait for it….legless if you have too many!  Ah flamingo jokes….most of them are outstanding but if you really feel you need to put your foot down, I’ll flaminstop.

 

Inflatable Flamingo 2

I used the Four Pillars Christmas Gin from 2019 as my gin base which added some spice into the summer berry flavours of rose and berries but your favourite gin will work well.  A Hendrick’s would also be quite fabulous in this!

The recipe makes around 9 serves so why not make up a pitcher of these, grab some friends and hit the pool?  Or maybe just float on down the street?

 

The recipe for the Inflatable Flamingo comes from Adriana Picker’s gorgeous book, The Cocktail Garden. Not only does this book have some great cocktail recipes (Peach and Pineapple Sage Old Fashioned anyone?) but the most beautiful illustrations as well!

The Inflatable Flamingo – The Recipe

Inflatable Flamingo 3

Inflatable Flamingo 4
Recipe via cooked.com.au

I quite often sing to myself when I cook and as I was making the Inflatable Flamingo the song running through my head was Float On by Modest Mouse, particularly the bit that goes:

Alright, already
And we’ll all float on, alright
Already, we’ll all float on, alright
Don’t worry, even if things end up a bit
Too heavy, we’ll all float on

They seemed like some wise words for modern times.

Take care my friends and float on!

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Feb
2021

The Late Blumer Cocktail

categories: Books, Cocktail, Gin

Happy birthday Judy Blume!  Let’s all celebrate the 83rd birthday of one of my favourite young adult authors by raising a toast with a cocktail known as the  Late Blumer!

The Late Blumer 1

Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret was one of my FAVOURITE books growing up.  I must have read it a hundred times!   The issues of boys and bras and periods and feeling confused and anxious all the time spoke to me in a way that no other book at the time did.

I read and reread this edition of the book.  Funnily enough, I rarely reread books nowadays but as a  child? I could finish a book on a Monday and start it again the following day. Having said that, I am currently rereading Are You There God and it is totally transporting me to back then!

I also read all the other Judy Blume books that were available in the Glen Waverley Public Library.  But Are You There God was by far my favourite.

Late Blumer 4 (2)

The Late Blumer Cocktail

I found this cocktail on A Beautiful Mess years ago  The link to the cocktail recipe on the site no longer works.  So, I am very glad I printed it when I did.  Thank you so much for the recipe Elsie!.

The Late Blumer is a fruity gin cocktail with some spice from the ginger and some herbiness from basil.  In other words, my kind of cocktail!  I love the combination of gin and ginger so this one was always going to be right up my alley in terms of flavour and it did not disappoint!

Late Blumer 3

Here is my printed recipe:

Late Blumer 5

And here it is a version with the measurements I thought worked best.

The Late Blumer

1 serving

  • 30mls Gin
  • 1 ripe apricot
  • 4 raspberries plus 1 more for garnish
  • 2 basil leaves plus more to garnish
  • Gingerale to top up your glass – mine was around 150ml.
  • Ice cubes

Mudde the apricots, raspberries and basil leaves in the bottom of your cocktail shaker.

Add the gin and let sit for around 5-10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.

Add some ice cubes to a glass and top with the gin mixture. You can strain this of you do not like bits of fruit in your cocktail.  Fill to the top of the glass with ginger ale.

Garnish with additional basil leaves and raspberries and enjoy!

Judy Blume NY Post (1)
via The New York Post

Here’s to you Judy Blume!  Happy birthday!!!  Your writing has helped shaped the lives of generations of girls.  Because we always knew that if we needed some understanding, some kind words or encouragement, we didn’t even need to ask “Are you there Judy?”  All we had to do was open a book.

“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”

 – Judy Blume

Tell me, where you a Judy Blume fan?  What was your favourite?

Have a great weekend!

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Jan
2021

REPOST – General Satisfaction

categories: Baking, Berries, Custard, Desserts, England, Lemon, Limoncello, Meringue, Pudding

Pop quiz hotshots…

General Satisfaction is:

a) A minor character in the Stanley Kubrik classic Doctor Strangelove,

b) A new character in the game Clue / Cluedo. ” It was General Satisfaction in the billiard room.  With the Candlestick” or,

c) A Victorian nursery pudding with the most awesome name ever?

General Satisfaction
General Satisfaction

I made this to take to my family on Christmas day and let me tell you…general satisfaction became major happiness as people tucked in.  And who would not be happy with this mix of lemony berries, topped with sponge finger biscuits liberally soaked in limoncello, topped with a lovely lemony custard and then baked with a meringue topping?

Yep.  It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven….

One of the side effects of the Paleo diet is that I seem to have become hyper-sensitive to sugar.  The first version I made of this was so sweet I actually couldn’t eat it,  Someone else in the house had no such qualms.  He’s lying in a diabetic coma as we speak.

My first introduction to General Satisfaction came from recipe came from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Supper for A Song .  There is also this version online:

General Satisfaction

I “unsweetened” this by swapping out the jam for a slightly more tart lemon curd and adding some fresh (frozen) berries into the base mix.  I also added some limoncello to the custard mix. Just because…name me one thing that isn’t made better by a liberal splash o’ booze.  And you know, it is the season….

General Satisfaction

It was still pretty sweet though.

This is at it’s best straight out of the oven with the custard runny and the meringue all crispy. However the last few pieces were also pretty good at room temperature a few days later as part  of an afternoon tea.

General Satisfaction
General Satisfaction

And if you make this, true to it’s name, I promise you will not be disappointed!!!

I am also interested to know what are most kookiest food names you have come across? General  Satisfaction must be right up there but I would love to know yours!!!

General Satisfaction 3Wishing you and yours not only general satisfaction but super happy fun times for 2015.  May it also be the year you learn to stop worrying…

Signature 1 Vintage Valentine Quick as Wink2

Print

General Satisfaction

Print Recipe

A lovely tangy take on a Victorian nursery pudding.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 level tbsp cornflour
  • 425g full cream milk
  • 1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped (or 1 tbsp vanilla essence)
  • 3 large eggs, separated
  • 5 tbsp caster sugar
  • 170g lemon curd
  • 1 cup mixed berries, thawed if using frozen
  • 1 tbsp warm water
  • 1/4 cup limoncello, maybe a bit more….
  • 10–12 savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180c.

For The Custard

  1. Mix the cornflour with 1 tbsp milk.
  2. Pour the milk into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cornflour mix.
  3. Bring to the boil, stirring then drop the heat and simmer, still stirring for a coupe of minutes. Remove from the heat.
  4. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl then whisk in a tablespoonful of the milk mixture. Repeat three times then pout the combined egg and milk mixture into the warmed milk.
  5. Set the pan back over low heat, and whisk until the custard thickens and is perfectly smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, and whisk in 2 tablespoon of the sugar and half of the limoncello. Set aside to cool.

For The Lemon Berry Sauce

  1. Mix the lemon curd with 1 tbsp of just boiled water until runny and pour into the base of a medium baking dish.
  2. Scatter the berries over the curd then press them down with a potato masher to flatten them down a bit and get their juices running.
  3. Lay the savoiardi on top of the curd and berry mix and sprinkle with the remaining limoncello.
  4. Poor the cooled custard over the biscuits, straining if it is lumpy.

For The Meringue

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the remaining sugar, little by little until you have a firm shiny meringue.
  2. Spoon the meringue over the custard.
  3. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes until the meringue is pale golden and crisp when you tap it.

Notes

  • Adding a little bit of the milk to the egg, prevents the egg from cooking.
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