Now it’s not often I get all immersive and Heston on you but I really think your experience of this post and the Blue Skies Cocktail would be best achieved if, before you kept on reading, you clicked on the link below and cranked up the volume….
Ok…are we there yet?
You know, it wouldn’t be Retro Foods for Modern Times if we didn’t have a luridly coloured cocktail to end the year so, here ’tis…The Blue Skies…and I defy anyone not to start humming along with The Chairman of The Board….
Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see….
Blue Skies 1
It sure is blue. And…dontcha think the ice cubes look a little bit like clouds?
If you said no to that. Have one. And look at the picture again. Still no? Have another. REALLY crank the Frank up. And have another look. Repeat.
It will happen.
I can’t remember if I ever introduced you all to the third canine in our house. F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Scotty as we like to call him, may be quiet, but much like his namesake, he knows how to sniff out a good cocktail.
Blue Skies 2
And when he sees one he likes? Oh boy, does he light up!
Bluebirds
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long
BlueSkies 3
From all of us at La Maison de la Retro Foods to you and all of yours, all the very best for a fantastic 2015…
Blue days
All of them gone
Nothing but blue skies
From now on…
No, I’m not getting out my love beads and turning all peace, love and mung beans on you but I have been inspired by all things floral this week and I made you an amazing cocktail which is a veritable flowerbomb of flavour! (And not even the slightest hint of Parfait Amour).
Spring has sprung in Melbourne which means it’s constantly windy, all the better to spread pollen all over the place, so I’m sneezing constantly. We’re also having bizarre weather changes….Seriously WTF Melbourne? From 27 to 13 in one day? We’re living in crazy times!
On a happier note, the sun has been shining more frequently, we’ve had a couple of gorgeous warm days, I did twilight yoga in the park the other night and the garden is growing like crazy. Back at Easter we planted the front garden – I was going for a Mediteranean look so we have an olive tree, rosemary, thyme and lots of lovely lavender. We have a couple of dark pink ones:
Pink Lavender
As well as the more traditional purple ones:
Purple Lavender
Then my mum brought over these gorgeous roses from her garden:
So in between the sneezes, it really has been all about the flowers. And they have inspired a fabulous cocktail, called the Flower Power. It’s really a trashed up Lavender Lemonade, and you know what? I can get pretty damn trashy!!!! I was almost tempted to call this one the snowball, because once it got started it took on a life of it’s own.
So here is the entire evolution of the Flower Power Cocktail.
The Spark – Flower Power Coctail v1
The lavender in the garden got me thinking about a recipe I read ages ago on Thug Kitchen (which is an awesome blog) for Lavender Lemonade. Which you can find here:
You could just make this and live happily ever after. It’s nice, it’s refreshing and they are very, very funny people. But you know, with all due respect to Thug Kitchen…it’s not nearly trashy enough for this girl!
Lavender Lemonade Ingredients
Enter the Flower Power Cocktail v2.
Flower Power Cocktail v2 – A Kiss From A Rose
I had some gorgeous dried rosebuds bought to make my Persian recipes for book club (coming soon) and thought that they would be a nice addition.
They were.
The mixture will start to turn colour after about 15-20 minutes. For the best flavour, let the petals steep for at least an hour, I left mine overnight. An added bonus is that during the steeping your kitchen will smell like a garden
The Lavender and Rose Lemonade was really good. And a gorgeous pink! Very girly and perfect for sipping on a sunny afternoon.
Kissed By A Rose – Lavender and Rose Lemonade
But you know what? Sometimes this girl needs a little bit o’ booze mixed in with her flowers and citrus…so enter version 3…
Flower Power Cocktail v3 – The Crackling Rosie
So if you take your Lavender and Rose Lemonade and add a little hit of a florally gin like Hendricks you have a very pleasant cocktail. Still very girly and whilst you could sip it all afternoon it does have a little ginny kick to it.
Flower Power v3 – The Crackling Rosie
But you want more. I know you do.
So, without further ado…..
The Flower Power Cocktail
So far, we have been topping our lemonade or our cocktails up with a little sparkling water.
For the true Flower Power Cocktail, use the lemonade mix straight.
Add your half nip, or hell, a whole nip of Hendricks. Top with St Germain Elderflower Liqueur.
Oh baby, oh yeah!
A couple of these and you’ll feel like you’re in San Francisco with flowers in your hair!
The Flower Power Cocktail
Gilding The Lily – The Flower Power Cocktail Bling
If you really want to trash up your Flower Power Cocktail you can add some flower petal ice cubes and make some lavender sugar to rim your cocktail glass. If you make the ice cubes use big trays to make them. My ice cubes were kind of small and it was a hot day so I ended up with a couple of mouthfuls of petals. Which is not great tastewise and even worse if you’re trying to look all classy and have to keep spitting out lavender buds!
Many years ago, my mum used to work in a local solicitor’s firm – and let me tell you right now – forget every glamorous tv legal drama you’ve ever seen. Sadly, this old chestnut, unfunny though it is, was far more the reality:
Each and every one of them was bonkers. Nicely bonkers, even sweetly bonkers. But bonkers all the same.
Downstairs was the domain of a married couple, both lawyers. They had a super cute boxer dog called Brigeeta who they used to bring to work with them every day. Nothing nuts about that. I wish I could take my dogs to work everyday.
Fennel and Lemon Salad 1
What was kooky was that Brigeeta used to have a different outfit every day. And I mean EVERY DAY. My mum worked with them for maybe five years. The dog never wore the same clothes twice.
And you know, I’m not averse to dogs wearing clothes…Oscar has a pair of pyjamas he wears in winter…
Oscar in his PJ’s
But there is a a difference between ONE pair of totally necessary pyjamas and 1500 separate outfits!!!
Remember that old song “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you?” Well that could have been written about….well, let’s just call him Mr Magoo…(remember, these people are lawyers, they are familiar with litigation). Mr Magoo was badly in need of glasses but thought that getting them would spoil his handsome boy modelling school good looks. Which incidentally were fairly spare on the ground. Glasses were not the issue.
One morning the lady downstairs cornered him and started showing him photos of the party they had gone to the day before, many of which featured Brigeeta in her latest couture which was a Little Red Riding Hood outfit.
Later he asked Mum if she’d seen the photos. She said she had.
He said “Did you see that kid in the red? Man, that was the ugliest child I’ve ever seen”
Fennel and Lemon Salad 2
Captain of this particular Titanic was a lovely, elderly Italian solicitor. Now he wasn’t crazy as such he just sometimes had a bit of trouble with English. So, for instance, once Mum asked him what he did on the weekend and he replied “We went hunting the savage fennels”.
Have you ever heard anything more adorable in your life?
I LOVE that…
“Hunting the Savage Fennels” sounds like a Maurice Sendak book. Maybe the lesser known prequel to “Where the Wild Things Are”.
The Savage Fennels
The savage fennels grow in abundance in this neck o’ the woods; they spring up on every vacant lot and the hills are literally alive with them!
The Savage Fennels
This salad I have adapted from “Salads For All Seasons” is a perfect simple and gorgeous way to feature the savage fennels. Or the more mild mannered fennel you might find in your local supermarket or green grocer. I kept mine pretty minimalist but some black olives would be a great addition.
Fennel and Lemon Salad
I was a little worried about mixing cream and lemon juice in the dressing…because surely that would curdle? It didn’t.
Final tip on the salad – fennel is quite robust so it is perfectly fine to dress the salad and leave it for hours. I added the dressing in the morning and took this to work and it was still crunchy four or five hours later.
This is a perfect accompaniment to fish but would also be fabulous with a grilled steak!
Have a fabulous week! And beware the savage fennels!
I got a mention on a Christian website the other day. And no, they weren’t damning me to hell for my potty mouth and occasional smutty innuendo. Far from it. They actually described this as:
“the cutest Australian retro site”
And just in case you think I’m fibbing, you can link here.
And shame on you!!! As if I’m going to lie about the Christians!!! Let’s just say I’m taking Pascal’s wager on that one. If nothing else.
And…
YES!!!!
I believe for only the second time ever that Philosophy major I undertook at university has come in handy. I knew all that time and money would be worth it someday.
And consider yourselves lucky I’m not doing a Paleo blog – otherwise the references to Plato and his cave would be coming thick and fast.
BOOM! – That would be three.
Happy Easter
But given it is Easter, how about a quote from the modern-day philosopher Bill Hicks:
“A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It’s like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.”
And farewell to the readers I picked up from the Christian website, it was nice knowing you.
So let’s talk about how I celebrated Easter….
First there were cocktails. Then sandwiches. Then home made Easter Eggs.
Not one of them normal….because what would be the fun in that?
We’ll get to the others in due course but today is all about the cocktail.
Remember back in February when I did the post with the Parfait Amour? At the time, I said:
A cocktail recipe called the Simply Divine which uses Parfair Armour, Gin and Citrus. And it is AWESOME!!!! So, so tasty…sweet and tangy and floral and delicious….except for one thing….
The citrus mix was a very pretty peachy colour.
The Parfait Amour and gin was purple.
So the result should have been a pretty pinky purple as per the original recipe.
That didn’t happen.
If you were looking for some sexed up paintchart name for the colour this went, you’d probably call it Dove Wing Grey. Technically, I think the weird browny purple grey colour it turned is called puce. Unofficially, it prompted the so-called-beloved to ask if I was drinking bong-water. After I explained that I had no idea of what he spoke of, we decided that this is not so much Dove Wing Grey but that this is what it looks like when doves cry.
As long as you don’t mind drinking something that looks like the water you washed your socks in, this is a super drink – the citrus and gin really do cut through the sweetness of the Parfait Armour to create a drink that has a really nice balance and is very refreshing.
And because I changed the ingredients slightly from the recipe and nothing that colour can be truly called Simply Divine, ladies and gentlemen meet the:
WHEN DOVES CRY
Ingredients
30ml gin – I used Hendricks
30ml Parfait Amour
1 red or pink grapefruit, juiced
1 lemon, juiced
1 tangerine, juiced
Instructions
Fill a glass with ice
Add the gin and Parfait Amour
Top with the mixed citrus juice
Stir.
Wince at the colour.
Enjoy!
You can mix up the citrus too – lime would be great, as would orange!!!!
I’m going to try to redeem myself in the next post which will feature some of the cutest sandwiches you ever did see.
Oh and I’m now on instagram. You can follow my feed by clicking on the icon at the top o’ the page.
Now that I have more storage space, mum has been bringing over various bits and pieces of my childhood that she had been keeping for me.
This included a whole heap of my books, including all of my old Famous Five Books. OMG, I loved these, I must have read each of them a hundred times! And yes, at some point I will do a post on the food of the Famous Five. And it will have lashings of ginger beer.
Famous Five Books
She also brought over my old Brownie Uniform.
Brownie Uniform
Even better than the uniform was, that, in the pocket was my Brownie notebook and official brownie pencil emblazoned with the Brownie Motto of “Lend a Hand.”
Brownie Notebook and Pencil
On the first page of the notebook there is a note about a recipe with a big tick next to it. I started this cooking thing young! On the second page is a cryptic note saying “Next week jeans + t-shirt not to wear” I wonder what the hell we were going to do with them…Sadly the rest of the notebook is blank so we’ll never know.
As New Year’s Eve is looming, I thought that in the spirit of “lending a hand” I would share my recipe for Hangover Eggs. And, all you party revellers can “be prepared” and get in some supplies. I can’t remember where I found this recipe originally but over the years, it has morphed into the recipe below.
Hangover Eggs
It is however very flexible. You can add tomatoes to the toast; mushrooms, fresh chilli, or green or red pepper, or anything else you fancy to the egg mix. I also find most bought hummus does not have enough tahini in it and I’m far to lazy to make my own so, as per the recipe, I tend to add a bit. You can do this, use the hummus as is, or leave it out altogether. It’s your raging hangover, you know what’s going to work best for you!
Oh and this is really too good to be saved just for hangover days, I would eat it every day if I could!
Hangover Eggs
For the healthy, you can wash this down with some green tea maybe with the rest of the lemon juice squeezed in.
For the rest of us, an ice cold coke is the perfect beverage.
For the truly suffering, a small glass of champagne just to top up your levels may be in order!
Ok, I think I’m done…better just check….
Recipe
Yep, I”m done!
Happy 2014 everyone, I hope it’s your best year ever!
