Tag: mocktails

Recipe Roundup

Lunar New Year and Blood Orange Dishes

LSiehLeave a comment

Believe me, I’m just as shocked as you are that it’s already February! Lunar New Year snuck up on me again. We did celebrate by having baked beef buns made from leftover Crockpot Mongolian Beef. I added a side of stir fried Brussels sprouts and bok choy and the Husband had chicken wonton soup as his side. The veggies were too green.

The buns were really, really good! I used the dough recipe from the Woks of Life, but substituted the leftover beef cooked down in the cooking liquid for the filling. I added chicken stock and rice wine to give it a little more moisture for the buns. Also, some extra shallots and garlic. Here’s the bun recipe: https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-bbq-pork-bu ns-cha-siu-bao/

Here’s the original Six Sister’s recipe for the Mongolian Beef:https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/recipe/slow-cooker-mongolian-beef/

I also made traditional almond cookies from The Foods Of China and it worked out much better than the first time I made them. They are addicting and I may hoard them like a cookie dragon.

I’ve been actually using my blood oranges this year for Lunar New Year inspired foods. Oranges are considered lucky, as is the color red, and I feel like we could definitely use some extra luck this year. A note, you may be able to find blood oranges as “Raspberry Oranges.” A friend of mine got some and I think they just rebranded them.

So far, I’ve made both sweet and savory items with them for a couple of different meals. I used them in this Winter Citrus Salad with Avocado.

It’s really not a thing you need a recipe for. Even the dressing was just blood orange juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. I added iceberg, romaine, cucumbers, red peppers, carrots, crispy jalepenos, cheese, sliced almonds, and avocado to mine. It was very refreshing. I think It would be excellent with arugula too, but I didn’t have any on hand. I’m ordering some in our next grocery order though, so will probably make this for work one day.

I also made overnight oats topped with blood oranges. Recipe is here: https://www.themothercooker.com/blog/three-ways-with-blood-oranges

I would also like to try the donuts in that link as well, but haven’t made them yet and am running out of oranges. I’m not super fond of these. I have to add a lot of sweeter and heat them to get past the texture and at that point, I may as well just make regular oatmeal.

I was very fond of these Blood Orange Coconut muffins though, although I wish the glaze had been pinker.

They were quite delicious! I subbed pumpkin protein powder for a quarter cup of the flour to give them an added boost. The recipe is here: https://brownedbutterblondie.com/blood-orange-coconut-muffins/

I also made dark chocolate chunk orange scones, but ate them before taking a picture. I also apparently forgot to actually save the recipe I used… I do have one that I am intending to try as it uses Spelt flour and I have some that my older brother gave me for Christmas to try.

This Blood Orange Rosewater Mocktail was interesting. I think I would reduce the rosewater by half next time. It was a bit over powering. I did use ginger ale instead of sparkling water, as it was what I had open.

Probably my favorite two recipes were the Blood Orange Amaretto Sour and the Orange Cardamom Cake.

Isn’t it so pretty? The Husband actually had one with me, but he couldn’t finish his. He doesn’t drink often and this was pretty stiff even after I dropped the booze by two ounces. I thought it was lovely! Not overly sweet like they sometimes are, but not super tart either. Also, it’s just amaretto, lemon, and orange juice over ice. One of the simplest recipes I found so far.

Now the cake. Oh My Gosh. This was so dreamy and delicious. Extremely aromatic from the orange and especially the cardamom. The glaze wasn’t as thick as the recipe, so it didn’t look as pretty but it made up for it in taste. I think my eyes crossed when it came out of the oven because it smelled so good. I brought it into work and you could smell it every time you walked by it. Torture, sure, but such delicious torture! It got rave reviews from my coworkers too. I brought a whole cake minus a piece to work and brought back half a cake.

Do yourself a favor and make this cake, even if you don’t have blood oranges. You can thank me later. Recipe is here: http://thesweetandsimplekitchen.com/blood-orange-cardamom-cake/

Here are a few more of the recipes I didn’t get to try yet. Hopefully I can make a few more of them before I can’t find blood oranges anymore.

https://itsnotcomplicatedrecipes.com/blood-orange-curd/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=1124164928_54906702_403476

https://foodnessgracious.com/blood-orange-loaf-cake/

https://www.thekitchenmccabe.com/2015/01/08/coconut-rice-pudding-w-blood-orange-lime-vanilla-sugar/

https://www.craving4more.com/blood-orange-coconut-ginger-soup/

http://userealbutter.com/2019/03/12/blood-orange-sorbet-recipe/

https://www.baranbakery.com/dark-chocolate-blood-orange-cake

I’ll leave you with a picture of a spring roll wrapped Piggy. Someone gets a little cold during naps. 🙂 May your new year be full of peace, luck, prosperity, and joy!

Summer Sipping
Recipe Roundup

Summer Sipping

LSiehLeave a comment

Having my younger brother here was fun and educational regarding the state of our liquor cupboard and the drinks we could make from it. We don’t imbibe very often at all and I’m more likely to add something yummy to hot cocoa than make a cocktail. I’ve always wanted to play with the fancy ones though, so it was fun to get some ideas.

The Brother introduced me to Difford’s Guide, which is fantastic for searching for different drink ideas. The link is here: https://www.diffordsguide.com/

We set up a drink station one Friday after lunch and had summery cocktails out in the yard using things we had at home. It was so much fun! I’ve been wanting to play with drinks and light for a while, so now you get to see the results. I have plans to do this seasonally. We have a lovely fireplace after all and I made a fun Christmas table cover for drinks a year or so ago with that intention.

Our first batch was non-alcoholic libations.

I made sparkling ginger limeade with the flamingo stirrer. It was yummy! I made my own limeade with fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and ginger beer. The red is hibiscus ice tea with Hibiscus Ginger tea from Tea Runners. It is lovely and refreshing. The purple is actually sparkling White Peach and Butterfly Mango Tea from Tea Runners. It does something super cool! When you make it, it’s blue and when you add acid, like 7 Up, in this case, it turns purple! It’s so cool. I found a bunch of fun color changing drinks with it too, both boozy and non-boozy.

Here’s a link for some of the color changing drinks, if you’re interested. I didn’t have things quite prepared, but would like to play around with the recipes later. https://www.theflavorbender.com/magical-color-changing-cocktails-galaxy-cocktails/

Since there were only two of us, we moved on to the cocktails. These are all based on garden herbs we have in the garden.

How gorgeous are these? I loved how they looked in the sunlight and they were all tasty. My favorite is the one in the music glass- a sage Bee’s Knees.

https://saltandwind.com/recipes/396-sage-bees-knees-cocktail-recipe

It was deliciously tasty! Apparently I like gin. Who knew?

The next cocktail on the top of the picture is a gin basil smash, which was also yummy. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/3282/gin-basil-smash

The next drink is a Thyme Will Tell Sour.

https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/4597/thyme-will-tell-sour

This was probably the strongest drink of the three. I liked it better once the ice melted a little. We thought making a thyme infused simple syrup would make it even better.

The next group was more summery drinks, including “The Blue Drink,” which we had to have for Shark Week. My brother was horrified, but drank most of it. It was his idea to serve it in the Star Trek glass and call it Romulan Ale. 🙂

The Blue Drink is actually a Blue Riband, which was awarded to the ocean liner who made the fastest Atlantic crossing. It’s basically three things- gin, blue curacao, and triple sec. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/270/blue-riband

The red drink is a Sour Cherry Spritz with some modifications by my brother to replace things we did not have. Here’s the actual recipe: https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/3367/sour-cherry-spritz

He used 3 oz Prosecco, 1 Oz blood orange bitters, 1 Oz Heering (cherry brandy,) served over the rocks topped with 7 up, and garnished with a cherry. He said it was definitely a sipping drink and a bit heavy.

The last drink is a N’oreaster, which should really be a winter group, but it is lovely any time. It’s a variation of a Moscow Mule, which is one of my favorite drinks. This one has maple Syrup and bourbon. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016278-noreaster

Here’s an up close at my fancy owl mug.

I bought it to use at our Harry Potter party this year to hold delicious Butterbeer, but alas, we got food poisoning and had to cancel.

It was fun to try some new things out and get some lovely pictures. I quite enjoyed the shadows made by the trees. I also made some yummy Cajun spiced nuts and ranch crackers to eat with our drinks. I have a bunch of cocktails and mocktails saved to try later and some even have tea in them! It’s a fun thing to do while still having home vacations.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about them and maybe are inspired to make your own. Difford’s is a great resource for alcoholic drinks. I’ve found a couple of websites for mocktails too.

https://www.eazypeazymealz.com/mango-orange-mojito-virgin/

https://midlifeboulevard.com/10-quick-easy-mocktails/

Happy Summer Sipping!