Smooth and creamy and sweet too!

Making your own milk has become all the rage, and I’ve been right there with it, blending soaked nuts with water to make my own tasty milk beverage. While it feels good to be making milk from scratch, nothing about it was ever too exciting or zippy….until I added DATES! The versatile and simple date is making a comeback with me. Add a pitted date to anything and you have this wonderful sweetness that is just right.  This milk is so flavorful, almost decadent.

This recipe is from Oh She Glows. It is a mix of hazelnuts and almonds, but feel free to modify the quantities of each or use cashew.  It is perfect for pouring on your cereal, adding to your cold brewed iced coffee, using to make a smoothie, or drinking straight up out of a glass.

If you haven’t joined the ranks of homemade milk maker, now is the time to start. It’s easy and fun!  Oh, and as an aside, look at me with a second addition to our Sips and Slurps category within a month.  I’ve broken the seal!

Ingredients

3/4 cup raw hazelnuts
1/4 cup raw almond
3 1/2 cups water
3 pitted Medjool dates
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method

Place hazelnuts and almonds in a bowl and cover with water and soak 8-12 hours. Drain and rinse.

Place soaked nuts in a blender with water, dates, vanilla, and cinnamon. Blend 1 minute.

Cover bowl with cheesecloth (I used a large 1 quart measuring cup and secured the cheesecloth with a rubber band). Slowly pour milk mixture through cheesecloth and into bowl. The milk will go through slowly so be patient. Remove the residue from the cheesecloth for the next round of pouring. Continue this process until all milk is through the cheesecloth.

There you have it – delicious, homemade hazelnut almond milk. 

Makes 3 cups.

Squeeze the cheesecloth to get every last drop.

Ahhhhh……..the sweet coffee buzz!

My blog partner Edie has been tirelessly adding to our Sips and Slurps category over the past year while I blew off this category and let her do the work. My bad! Finally, I have something to add to this category (and thank you Edie for covering us while I took my time coming up with a Sip and Slurp myself!).

My addition to this category (insert drum roll here), and I’m sure those of you who know me well could have guess it, yes, iced coffee.   Some drink iced coffee year round, some drink iced coffee only on hot days, and some drink iced coffee as a rare and special treat. Whatever your iced coffee drinking habits, I promise you, if you don’t drink cold pressed iced coffee, you will after you’ve tried this recipe. How anyone drinks iced coffee any other way is now beyond me (if you prefer to live in a state of denial, do not try this recipe and I understand that perfectly). even Cooks Illustrated, the people who test everything upside down, backwards, and sideways, call this the perfect way to brew iced coffee. Apparently, because the extraction is done at a lower temperature, the coffee lacks the bitterness and acidity of the traditional hot brew.  They are right.  Iced coffee made this way is smooth and delightful.

And so, without further delay, here it is – simple yet you need to think ahead as the steeping process is overnight. Make a BIG batch. You can keep this in your refrigerator for  up to 2 weeks and you will be happy that you went BIG as you pour a tall glass or two of this magic every day.

Ingredients

2 1/3 cups coarsely ground coffee (ground like for a French press)
7 1/2 cups cold water

Method

Place ground coffee into large pitcher. Slowly pour water over grounds.  Lightly stir together to ensure that all coffee grounds are moistened.  Cover the top of the pitcher with cheesecloth or paper towel and secure with a rubber band.  Let coffee steep overnight or up to 15 hours.

After you’ve steeped the coffee, strain the mixture into another large pitcher with a fine sieve or Melitta coffee filter and cup.  Discard the grinds and rinse out the sieve.  Rinse the original steeping pitcher out.  Place a coffee filter into the fine sieve or Melitta and strain again (i.e. double filtered). 

Next place ice cubes in a glass and fill the glass half way with cold brew concentrate. Top with cold water or milk of your choice (or a combination).  Dilute to your liking.

Let the sun shine on California Chrome

And you thought I’d leave you with potato salad for the weekend. I might have, were it not for the Belmont Stakes today, and the prospect of a low budget ($10,500 all in) Californian being the first horse in 36 years to win the Triple Crown. No my friends, this calls for more than potato salad. This calls for a signature cocktail.

The Kentucky Derby has the Mint Julep, the Preakness has the Black-Eyed Susan, but strangely the Belmont has struggled for its libation identity. First came the fuzzy navelish White Carnation, then the overwrought (8 ingredient) Belmont Breeze and now the official drink is the Belmont Jewel.

See below for all the recipes, but I ask you to consider ditching all tradition, and toasting the Belmont with a brand spanking new cocktail invented for the horse of honor. I did find a recipe for a California Chrome but it involves Meyer lemon liqueur, which I suspect you may not have on hand. Not to worry–a quick look at some parameters leads us to a tasty solution.

California means citrus, freshness and a little south of the border sweetness. Chrome begs for something silver. As we learned in our last cocktology class on Derby Day drinks with citrus need to be shaken, not stirred. And Californians do not stand on ceremony so your favorite glass (or plastic champagne flute) will do. With that guidance the California Chrome practically invented itself:

The Bring It California Chrome

Makes 2 drinks, because that’s more fun.

Ingredients

Juice of 1 lime
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 orange
1 Tbsp (or more to taste) agave nectar
3 oz silver tequila

Method

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker (or a well sealed and washed salsa jar, as circumstances dictate). Add ice and shake like the the starting gun just went off in your ear. Strain into whatever glasses you like and enjoy the race!

Belmont Jewel

Ingredients

1 1/2 oz. Knob Creek bourbon
2 oz. lemonade
1 oz. pomegranate juice

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain over ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge or cherry.

Belmont Breeze

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounces of a good American blended whiskey
3/4 ounces Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry
1/2 ounce of fresh lemon juice
1 ounce of simple syrup
(1 ounce of sweet and sour mix may be substituted for the lemon juice and simple syrup)
1 1/2 ounces fresh orange juice
1 1/2 ounces cranberry juice
1 ounce 7-Up
1 ounce Club Soda

Method

Shake first six ingredients with ice, then top with 7-Up and club soda. Garnish with mint sprig and lemon wedge.

White Carnation

Ingredients

2 oz. Vodka
½ oz. Peach Schnapps
2 oz. Orange Juice
Soda
Splash of Cream
Ice
Orange slice for garnish

Method

1. Stir liquors and soda together and pour over ice in a highball glass.
2. Splash cream over top then garnish with an orange slice.

Another California Chrome…

Take the basic recipe for a Chapel Hill, a simple drink made with bourbon, triple sec and lemon juice, then make it more California and less Carolina by swapping lemon juice for orange juice, and trading the orange liqueur for Napa Valley Distillery’s Meyer Lemon liqueur.

Ingredients

1 1/2 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. Meyer Lemon liqueur
1/2 oz. orange juice twist of orange peel

Method

Shake liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange peel.

And a bonus drink because Lucky Dog Vodka is just plain cool…

Blueberry Belmont

Ingredients

14 fresh blueberries, 2 sprigs thyme (one to muddle, one to garnish), 3 ounces Lucky Dog Vodka, one-and-one-quarter ounces simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water), three-quarters ounce fresh lemon juice, one-quarter ounce fresh lime juice, 1 dash peach bitters, ice.

Method

Muddle 12 blueberries, 1 sprig thyme and 1dash peach bitters in a pint glass. Add ice, vodka, simple syrup and citrus juices. Shake vigorously and strain over fresh ice in a double-size, Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with the remaining thyme sprig and blueberries. Serve immediately.

Ready, set, get mixing!

Huge apologies to those of you who suffered through our rookie moves yesterday and got two posts that were basically about nothing. We were setting up the site for our Ingredient of the Month feature and two rogue posts of asparagus and strawberry nothingness went out. Not only are we apologizing, but we’re making it up to you by posting something super cool just in time for the long weekend.

I heard about this last night from a fellow baseball mom, who like me really wishes it felt a little more like gin and tonic weather and less like red wine weather at this point. What Are You Drinking is an interactive site where bartender Rosie Schaat will mix you up the appropriate cocktail based on your choices in three simple criteria. Rosie writes the Drink column for the NY Times and also wrote a memoir called “Drinking with Men.” Suffice to say she knows her stuff, so when you tell her you are looking for a “crisp” drink with “Tequila” and are hoping for a “lively evening” she will take you right to a Tequila Highball. If you prefer something “fruity” with “rum” for a “sweltering day” she’ll steer you towards a spiked hibiscus iced tea.

Sure, the virtual bartender has some serious limitations (Hellooooo? Where’s the vodka option?!?) but all in all it’s pretty cool, and at the very least it assures you’ll have at least one easy choice after 5 pm.

Have a fun, relaxing, long-on-friends, light-on-work, everything-on-the-grill weekend, and do let us know if you liked what you ordered. Cheers!

Hats off to highballs. And hats on for the Kentucky Derby.

There’s still time! Grab your fancy hat and buy a whole load of mint because it’s the first Saturday in May, which means it’s Derby Day. Fifteen years ago I had my first son on Derby Day, when the race was won by Charismatic. Ever since then I’ve had a thing about the derby. I even went once, and have the silver glass to prove it. Why does this matter to you? Because I’ve used the occasion to take a small google course on cocktology and share this knowledge with YOU!

It all started when I saw the Spring Highball spread in Bon Appetit’s April issue. After a winter that would bring out the seasonal affective disorder in Little Mary Sunshine, it made me so happy I wanted to cry. I LOVE spring. The sun is back, the grass is greening and it’s far enough from bathing suit season that there is no cause to panic. In other words, it’s time to party.

In my extensive research I got deterred, as often happens. Pretty soon I was reading not only about highballs but about their history when to shake vs stir a cocktail and the importance of really good tonic water. There went a precious spring morning.

Fortunately, I have distilled (get it?) much of this valuable information in to one reasonably short post that includes foolproof methods that will set you free followed by some delish recipes for those who must follow one.

In case you need more selling on highballs, they are Bring It all stars because they require minimal ingredients and simple preparation. Even the crushed ice can be prepared on site at any indoor, outdoor or on water location. Plus, if you choose to utilize homemade simple syrups like the mint one below, or our ginger simple syrup they make excellent, consumable host gifts AND fun non alcoholic drinks. As a bonus, use of the words “high” and “balls” together will be a huge hit with any middle school boys at your gathering

First, what is a highball? It is a single spirit and a non-alcoholic mixer, typically assembled in the very vessel in which you’ll drink it. Think, gin and tonic, jack and ginger, rum and coke, seven and seven, vodka and blue raspberry slurpee (did I say that?). You can even get a free downloadable cheat sheet on highballogy by signing up for the ManMade newsletter, which of course I did.

Highball 101

The magic formula: 1.5 parts booze: 4 parts mixer.

The Method: Pour 1.5 oz (a jigger, a shot) into an 8 oz rocks glass, or, if you have it, a 10-oz tall narrow highball glass, designed to retain the drink’s fizz.

Fill the glass with standard ice cubes

Fill the glass with your mixer of choice. You can measure four ounces (a half cup), but chances are that with the ice and spirits you’ll be right as rain (and look like a pro).

Shaken vs Stirred

Aspiring cocktologists will want to get friendly with Erik Lombardo who, among many other contributions to society, has an excellent tutorial on when to shake vs stir a cocktail. In it you will learn about the roles that ice size, relative liquid and liquor densities, ambient temperature, acidity, etc play in your pursuit of cocktail greatness.

To paraphrase Sir Lombardo:

Stir spirits. That is, if your cocktail is all liquor, stir it. This includes the martini, Manhattan, old fashioned, negroni, and all of their variations. The ice should be a combination of very dense, large pieces and smaller chips. See tutorial above if you care.

Shake citrus: The major difference between shaking and stirring is texture, because when you shake properly (that is, violently for 8-10 seconds) the ice cubes (five standard sizes ones ought to do it) are shattering into miniscule shards and adding tiny bubbles to your drink. When you’re using citrus as an ingredient, shaking makes it light and refreshing vs acidic and intense.

Stirring = icy, dense, and silky cocktail. Shaking = frothy, light, and crisp cocktail. Shake for citrus, stir for spirits. Ba da bing

Ice Ice Baby

You’re also going to need crushed ice at some point in your education, and you’ll find instructions and videos on the many methods here . The most reasonable is the whack method, #5, which can easily be facilitated at a picnic with a clean towel and a large rock, though I am intrigued by the simplicity and volume of the frozen soda bottle, #9.

 And now, finally,  here are the nuts and bolts of Bon Appetit’s five steps to…

Crafting the perfect Highball:

1. Get the right glass: A proper highball is tall and narrow, with a hefty bottom.

2. Stir, don’t shake: Add all liquids—except the bubbly one—to your glass and give them a quick stir.

3. Don’t have a meltdown:Fill the glass with ice. (Nobody likes a watery highball.)

4. Mind your own fizzness: Top off with the carbonated ingredient—use more or less, depending on desired strength.

5. Finish with a flourish: For a drink this simple, garnish matters.

The article includes a slideshow of six highballs for spring which all warrant extensive testing. However, I’m simplifying your cinco de mayo prep by offering easiest, most refreshing one that happens to be tequila based and is also known as the “working man’s margarita.” It just sounds right!

The Paloma

Ingredients

• Kosher salt
• Grapefruit slice
• 2oz. tequila reposado (as ever, love the one you’ve got)
• ½oz. fresh lime juice
• Grapefruit soda (preferably San Pellegrino Pompelmo)

Method:

Pour some salt on a plate. Rub rim of a highball glass with grapefruit slice; dip rim of glass in salt. Combine tequila and lime juice in glass. Fill glass with ice, then top off with soda. Garnish with grapefruit slice.

And finally, its totally worth checking out Erik Lombardo’s most entertaining version of the drink of the day, the Mint Julep here that calls for an “irresponsible amount of mint tops” into which you bury your nose, and cautions you against hypothermia while drinking. It also calls for mint syrup which, while awesome, may not be a reality for you at this late date. Instead, I give you the following version of the mint julep utilizing Woodford Reserve, the official bourbon of the derby.

The Mint Julep

Ingredients:

2 oz Woodford Reserve Bourbon Whiskey
1 oz water
1 tspor cube white sugar
4 fresh mint sprig

Method:

Muddle 3 mint sprigs, sugar and water in bottom of Julep cup or highball glass and fill with crushed ice. Fill with bourbon, stir. Dust 4th mint sprig with powdered sugar for garnish. Serve with straw.

Bonus: If you thought ahead and went long on mint, here is the recipe for Erik Lombardo’s mint syrup. You’ll be wanting this for mojito season anyway.

Mint Syrup:

Heat 2 parts by volume sugar with 1 part by volume water until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is just simmering. Throw in as many mint leaves as will fit in the pan (it isn’t expensive, don’t be cheap) and turn off the heat. Stir to mix in the leaves, then allow to cool to room temp, a couple of hours. Strain the syrup off the leaves into a clean jar — it will keep in the fridge for a few weeks (if it lasts that long).

Ginger Syrup and a couple of tasty sipping options.

I need a drink. And I hate to drink alone, so you need a drink too. Oh I know—at this point in the holidays we’re all ready to detox, but hang with me. I’m going to give you a healthy, refreshing concoction that can be used in alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks. In fact, I first came upon this tasty elixir in Rebecca Katz’s awesome book the Cancer Fighting Kitchen. So I’m looking out for you here.

The concept is pretty simple. You just boil down a ton of ginger with sugar and water to make a simple syrup infused with the zesty goodness of ginger. Strain out the ginger and you can add the syrup with a squeeze of lemon to hot or cold herbal tea, to seltzer, or of course to your favorite cocktail fixin’s.

Being quite lazy, especially in the post holiday coma, I looked extensively for a recipe that featured unpeeled ginger. I was victorious with this one from David Lebovitz  that gets boiled a good long time for some serious ginger sass. The caveats are a darker syrup (which screams Dark and Stormy to me, so it’s all good), and the warning  that you can’t reuse the unpeeled ginger in things like gingersnaps, marmalade and ice cream. This triggered my age-old struggle between being lazy and being cheap.

In the end, I opted for lazy, and snacked on the sweet ginger afterwards anyway, proving that yes indeed you can be both lazy and cheap. Hooray! Ok, here’s the super simple recipe for super fresh ginger syrup.

Makes about 2 cups:

Ingredients

8 ounces  fresh ginger, unpeeled
4 cups water
2 cups sugar
pinch salt

Method

Slice the ginger thinly, then chop it into rough, smaller pieces.

Combine ginger water, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Heat to a boil, then reduce the heat to a steady simmer. Cook for 45 minutes to one hour.

Cool, then strain the syrup through a fine-mesh strainer. Store the strained syrup in the refrigerator, covered, until ready to use. It should keep for at least two weeks refrigerated.

There are googles and googles of ginger cocktails out there, like these ones from Tablespoon  For a festive sparkler add a tablespoon of syrup and some candied ginger to a champagne glass and fill with your bubbly of choice. My quick fix is to fill a glass with ice, pour a tablespoon or so of syrup over the ice then add vodka according to your immediate need. Fill the glass almost to the top with seltzer then add a splash of cranberry juice for cha-cha and color.

For ginger soda start with 1/3 glass of syrup and a generous squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice. Fill the glass with ice then top with sparkling water or tonic and garnish with a round of citrus or fresh mint.

The sky is the limit here so spice things up, be creative and feel virtuous about bringing a whole lot of healthy ginger into your life.