FrogPrincesse

Last night's Negroni variation was the Banks of Torino found via Kindred Cocktails. Banks 5 rum as the base, which makes it a relative of Michael McIlroy's Right Hand (aged rum, sweet vermouth, Campari, mole bitters). Banks of Torino by Joshua Perez, Booker & Dax, NYC 1 1/2 oz Blended rum, Banks 5 Island 3/4 oz Aromatized wine, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino 3/4 oz Campari 2 ds Bitters, Angostura 1 twst Orange peel Build over one large rock, stir and garnish with an orange peel. I liked how this combination highlighted the aroma of the rum. The vermouth di Torino was great in this drink, just the right fit. This was a very harmonious tropical Negroni. I think that I prefer it to the Right Hand.

In mine last week: Cauliflower Butter Lettuce Red Leaf Lettuce Green Onions Sanguinelli Blood Oranges PeeWee Mix Fingerling Potatoes Aprium (aka pluot) Kiwi Cucumber

That sounds so good, you might be able to convert me!

Oui, although I am not a big fan of Camembert. But other good (i.e. pungent) cheeses are a favorite snack. And you have to have bread because cheese without bread just isn't right...

Bread and cheese

My go-to inexpensive dishes are risotto and quiche, plus egg-based dishes in general (omelettes, etc). I always have the basic components, and then I can customize the recipe based on what ingredients/vegetables I have that week.

I have a bunch of celery that I could turn into soup. But what about the texture? Celery can be very stringy, so how do you prevent that? Do you blend the soup longer, or is it sufficient to peel the celery? Thanks!

The theme of this month's MxMo reminded me of this thread that Yojimbo initiated not too long ago...

Here is my entry, the Cherry Pop from the PDT Cocktail Book. Cherry Pop Jane Danger 2 oz gin (Plymouth) 1 oz lemon juice 0.5 oz maraschino liqueur 0.5 oz simple syrup 2 muddled cherries + 1 for the ganish First impression - it is a girly/scary shade of pink, plus I don't often use muddled fruit in my drinks. So I was a little skeptical but this was actually successful. The gin + maraschino liqueur + lemon combo was reminiscent of the Aviation, with the muddled cherries replacing the violet liqueur. I used a Meyer lemon which is a bit less acidic than a regular lemon, but the cocktail was not too sweet. It is fresh and the cherries integrate very well with the other elements. I am thinking this would be a great "gateway" cocktail. Chris' cachaca sling looks great and reminds me of a drink I used to have at a place that is long closed. I may try to recreate it if time permits.

Spot prawns with tomato confit, garlic, and chile I am still daydreaming about this one a few weeks later. I was super excited to buy a few pounds of local spot prawns recently because they are really special. It's hard to describe but they have a better texture and flavor than any other prawns I have had. The recipe starts by slow-cooking yellow tomatoes in the oven in a mix of olive oil and water, together with a sliced red onion, garlic, herbs (oregano + basil) and chiles. This step can be done in advance. before after This cooking step extracts all the wonderful flavors from the tomatoes. Then they are blended (minus the herbs and part of the chiles) with part of the liquid. They emulsify very rapidly to form a thick "sauce" with a beautiful yellow color. The spot prawns are deveined and cooked shell-on in a pan with a little bit of olive oil. The prawns are set aside for a few minutes while the same pan is used to cook shallots, thyme, chile de arbol, garlic and cherry tomatoes sliced in half (I also added a little bit of fresh corn). Using the same pan ensure that all the juices from the prawns are incorporated into the sauce. Then the prawns are added back to blend all the flavors together. The prawns seasoned with lemon juice are served on top of the yellow tomato confit together with plenty of bread.

Thanks curls! Speaking of egg whites, I made pavlovas for mother's day. I have this long history of failure with meringues so I was a little nervous about this recipe. I tried making meringues when I was 8 or 9 and could never get them right due to a very old and unreliable gas oven at my grandparent's house. I haven't attempted them since. Move forward a few years and I decided to try my hand at pavlovas after seeing them on lesliec's eG Foodblog a while back. A pavlova (named after the Russian ballerina) is a meringue with a chewy interior, a dessert that is extremely popular in Australia and in New Zealand. They worked quite well. Most came out great although a couple were still a bit sticky underneath and super sticky inside. I probably should have cooked them a little bit longer. They were delicious topped with fresh fruit (pineapple, strawberry and passion fruit) and whipped cream. It's a light dessert that can be assembled at the last minute.

A recent assortment. More pesto, housemade pâté de campagne with cornichons (this was the recipe fom La Regalade), and poached shrimp with olive oil and lemon juice as inspired by Soba's blog. The bread was a batard with caramelized onion (Sadie Rose).

After seeing it on SobaAddict70's eG Foodblog , I had to try the poached shrimp with olive oil and lemon juice from the Essentials. I used Arbequina olive oil and a Meyer lemon. The shrimp were rather large so I sliced them in half as instructed in the recipe. Love this dish. Great for a cocktail/dinner party as it can be prepared in advance. It's delicious on a little piece of bread. I wanted to take the opportunity to thank SobaAddict for a fabulous blog. The thread has closed now so I do it here. This was a week full of inspiration for me.

In the PDT thread I mentioned the Caprice, a dry Martini with Benedictine which I really enjoyed. In Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails there is something very similar called the Ford Cocktail. Same ingredients, different ratios. Caprice PDT Cocktail Book 1.5 oz gin (Beefeater) 1.5 oz dry vermouth (Dolin) 0.5 oz Bénédictine 1 dash house orange bitters (Regan's + Fee's) Ford Cocktail Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails 1 oz gin (Old Tom) 1 oz dry vermouth 3 dashes Bénédictine 3 dashes orange bitters Now the old debate of the volume of dashes... For the 3 dashes of Benedictine I used 1/8 oz (for the bitters, since they come in a dasher bottle, this is more straightforward). In restrospect that may be a little low (according to this post by David Wondrich 1 dash = 0.5 teaspoon and therefore 3 dashes = 1.5 teaspoons = 0.25 oz). Here is the Ford Cocktail. The Ford Cocktail is more subtle and less distinctive than the Caprice. I think I prefer the latter but this worked too. According to Ted Haigh the Ford Cocktail (1895) predates the Caprice by 39 years.

Yeah, I just prefer to complain on eGullet. They were quite busy so there was not really an opportunity to provide this type of feedback. Also I did not want to make a big deal out of it. At least the drinks had been stirred, not shaken!

The mint on our patio is doing great, so we had a classic Queen's Park Swizzle with Appleton 12 year old rum this weekend. Earlier we had a couple of cocktails at a new restaurant specializing in sausages, Salt and Cleaver. They also have a good beer selection and this short cocktail menu. My husband got the Salt's Manhattan was missing its advertised garnish. I got a classic Negroni. They were both a touch too warm which was a shame.

Glad you liked it. Cheers!

Here is the third bark that I ended up making. Shredded coconut and M&Ms in dark chocolate. I really liked the texture of the coconut and it allowed me to spread the bark much thinner.

Green Flash Le Freak Belgian IPA. I always forget how hoppy this is. Not for the faint of heart. I like it though. Beautiful color too. Iron Fist Renegade Blonde ale. Another good one, quite crisp but with with enough character to be interesting. This one was gone in no time as the photo attests.

Delmonico Cocktail: gin, cognac, sweet & dry vermouth, angostura bitters. Despite being equal parts in the Bartender's Choice version, the gin very distinctly dominated the cognac.

mm84321 - beautiful as always. What technique did you use to cure the salmon, and what kind of salmon was it? Franci - mouthwatering seafood dishes. I've never cooked cuttlefish and this is very inspiring. Kim - very nice cheese selection! Is that an aged mimolette that I spot at the back of the cheese platter?

Regarding the shrimp, are they served cold or at room temperature? They look great. Thanks!

The Bobby Burns is another classic cocktail with Benedictine. Scotch, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, angostura bitters. Here is a variation on the Bobby Burns that we just tried, the Bobby Boucher (John Coltharp). It uses bourbon as the base and subsitutes some of the sweet vermouth for cherry liqueur. Not crazy about the name, but it's a good cocktail.

JAZ - Life is way too short for B list cocktails.

Yes... I took one for the team on this one. Hopefully Ted Haigh/drcocktail will forgive me if he happens to read this. I have a ton of respect for him and what he has done with his book, but this drink just did not work for me.