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!
After 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.
So, in the meantime, while I am unofficially unemployed, I am as free as this little bird.
If 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!
The 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!
“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 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….
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!
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.
Oh, 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!
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!
As in guess which bozo forgot to celebrate her own blog’s 2nd birthday on May 25th?
So, today we’re having a Belated (don’t worry, I promise I won’t capitalise every word that starts with a B) Birthday, (no really, I won’t) celebrating my second annivesary with food using the second letter of the alphabet. See what I did? Second year, second letter?
You’d think I planned it.
Maybe you should keep thinking that….I”m all for anything that makes me look better!!!
So anyway, it’s my birthday so let’s get this party started. And I’ve said it before, and no doubt I will say it again, (purely because I’ve got a bottle of the stuff that isn’t going to drink itself) a retro party isn’t a retro party without Parfait Amour. And any party is better with a blonde bombshell!
Nope not like this, the blonde bombshell I am referring too is a cocktail made with the aforementioned Parfait Amour. I’m not sure why it’s called a Blonde Bombshell as it comes out a gorgeous dusky pinky purple.
First Course – The Birthday Blonde Bombshell
It’s my party…cocktails count as a course….in my perfect world, we would skip main meals altogether. We would move from cocktails to fingerfood to dessert.
Wow!!! I think I may have found my Parfait Amour drink of choice. This was lovely!!! Sweet and florally and almost kind of musky…it reminded me a little bit of Turkish Delight…maybe it was the roses in the Parfait Amour. Very girly, very pretty. Easy to drink….hmmm….maybe getting rid of that bottle won’t be as hard as I previously thought!
Second Course – Bay Wrapped Bacon and Prunes
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon3
This is basically a take on a Devils on Horseback. But wrapped in a bayleaf. And I added a little smear of my Strawberry Habanero Sauce to the bacon before wrapping it around the prunes.
Note for the unwary – grilling bay leaves makes your entire kitchen smell like you’ve been smoking marijuana. For about a week. Which is fine until you have a plumber come to fix your leaking tap and they ask you if you can score them some bud.
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon
I barely even know what that means.
Despite that, you really can’t go wrong with these…salty, sweet, spicy, crispy…The bay leaves added a slight resiny flavour that was quite pleasant but prevented the bacon from getting really crispy which was slightly disappointing.
I served it them with some more of the strawberry habenero sauce. And the saltiness was a great foil to the sweetness of the Blonde Bombshell.
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon2
Delicious!
But now to the piece de resistance. The dessert.
So….what’s better than a triple chocolate baby bundt?
A QUADRUPLE chocolate baby bundt.
And what’s better than a quadruple chocolate Baby Bundt?
A Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt!
Third Course – Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt
So, if you’re following me on Instagram you would have already seen me post my first experiment with the Spice Peddler’s Mexican Chilli Chocolate Cake Mix. That was a Chili Chocolate Cupcake with a Chilli Toffee Shard topped with Vanilla Icecream and my Strawberry Habenero Sauce. OMG, I thought this was the best thing ever…so, so good. The cake was fudgy and spicy and delicious, the vanilla icecream and chilli sauce worked together perfectly and the chilli toffee was a cute and quirky touch. Basically, this was me on a plate!!!!
Chocolate Chilli Cupcake with A Chilli Toffee Shard
Gahhh….so how do you top that?
Well, I found a recipe for a cake called a Tyroler in a Delicious Magazine and I had a little play with it. And came up with the Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt. I used the Spice Peddler Mexican Chilli Chocolate Cake Mix as my base and it was super delicious!
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt 5
This was really good. Then again, how could it not be?
It had quadruple chocolate.
And a touch of chilli.
And walnuts.
And rum soaked sultanas.
And did I mention quadruple chocolate?
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt3
So, it may have been belated but worth the wait because these were all awesome!!!!
I’ll try to be on time next year and if not, I can always repost this and rename it Birthday 3 – Cocktails, Canapés and Cake.
After 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. 
If being free means:
The Goose in Spring cocktail was the winner of the May 2012 Vodka Cocktail Contest, where it was created by Elijah Venanzi.
