Negroni for Valentines Day

Happy Valentine's Day a couple of days early!  This month our theme for the Blogger C.L.U.E. Society is red.  In honor of Valentine's Day, of course.  I had a lot of fun rummaging through my assigned blog, Confessions of a Culinary Diva.  It wasn't easy to find something red.  And, I was regularly distracted by posts of wonderful things that weren't red...  The pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe is first on my list.  Followed by spice crusted tuna, duck breasts with pomegranate and pumpkin and Italian sausage pasta.  Actually, truth be told, the sausage is already cooked for both of the pasta dishes...  And, I've got a can of pumpkin in my next week's stack of canned food to use up.  Broccoli rabe is on the grocery list.  So, I'm good to go!

Christy lives in Palm Desert, CA.  One of my favorite cities.  She's a banker and a blogger.  Kind of the numbers/creativity thing that I work with.  There is one funny story about her blog.  I saw a title with Downton in it.  Not being a tv watcher, I assumed there was a typo and it should have been Downtown.  Um, no, it's the tv show Downton Abbey.  So, thank you Christy for a fun and enjoyable time perusing your blog!

If you're wondering who the other Blogger C.L.U.E. members are and what they made, please take a look at the bottom of the blog.  Every month I pretty much cook my way through about half of the wonderful recipes!

Now, let's talk about this recipe.  Connie's made me a negroni before.  I wasn't terribly fond of it.  So, when I read Christy's post and found her suggestion to squeeze a bit of orange juice into the drink, I had to try it.  She also recommended using a better quality sweet vermouth.  That I could do if only my local liquor store stocked one...  Our joke is that we'll stop by Kahn's and see what they don't have...  Well, we finally made it north to Vine and Table on our way to the theatre.  A liquor store with inventory.  Shocking.  Good sweet vermouth and Campari were now ours.  Once home from the theatre, Connie unloaded the car from our Trader Joe's, Sam's, World Market and Vine and Table shopping extravaganza.  I put everything away.  Finally it was time to fix cocktails and relax.  Ahhhhh, lovely.  Christy was SO right about the squeeze of orange.  I actually added the juice of about half an orange.  Now, I have a Negroni I like!  Happy Valentines Day!

Negroni

Ingredients:

1 oz Campari
1 oz gin
1 oz sweet vermouth
juice of 1/2 orange (optional)
orange slice

Directions:

Mix and shake in a cocktail shaker.  Serve with a slice of orange.

adapted from Confessions of a Culinary Diva

Participating Bloggers:

• Lisa from Authentic Suburban Gourmet
• Ramona from Curry and Comfort
• Christy from Confessions of a Culinary Diva
• Alice from A Mama, Baby and Shar-pei in the Kitchen
• Azmina from Lawyer Loves Lunch
• Kelli from Kelli's Kitchen
• Kim from Liv Life
• Stacy from Food Lust People Love
• Aly from Cooking in Stilettos
• Lea Ann from Cooking on the Ranch
• Anna from Anna Dishes
• Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Jean from Lemons and Anchovies
• Heather from girlichef
• Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Kate from Kate's Kitchen
• Christiane from Taking on Magazines
• Debra from Eliot's Eats
• Janet from Cupcakes to Caviar

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Garden Gimlet

Patience is a virtue I have very little of.  I remember Mom cross-stitching a piece that said, "God grant me patience but I want it right now."  Oh, that is so true of me!  I want this ankle healed right now.  And, I want my right arm - the one I landed on... - to be back to normal right now.  But, it's not happening.  Walking is painful.  Going up and down stairs excruciating.  Driving hurts.  I know, whine, whine, whine.  My poor brother John broke his toe this weekend.  So, we're commiserating over the fact that the older you get the longer it takes to heal.  All of that boils down the the fact that cooking complicated meals is pretty much out of the question right now.  That means you either see some blasts from the past this week or some really easy recipes. 

Connie is the cocktail man on Sunday evenings.  Last weekend I made the herb syrup so we could try the Garden Gimlet from Heartland.  Sunday night was the time.  The drink was very good.  A tad bit sweet but still very good.  And, it kind of made up for the cheese and smoked oysters and crackers we had for dinner... 

Garden Gimlet
serves 4
Ingredients:

1 c herb syrup
3/4 c gin
1/2 c freshly squeezed lime juice
6 sprigs of basil

Directions:

Muddle 2 sprigs of basil in a cocktail shaker.  Fill with ice and pour in the herb syrup, gin and lime juice.  Shake until very cold.  Strain into martini glasses.  Garnish with a sprig of basil.  Kiss the one you love!

Limoncello Gin Cocktail with Grilled Thyme

I'll grill about anything.  I can't count the number of grills I've gone thru in my lifetime. I've got grill baskets for the stuff too small to just put on the grate.  Skewers.  A fish holder.  You name it, I've probably got it if it has to do with grilling.  But, thyme?  For a cocktail?  Rather intriguing.  When my stepsons were here visiting last week I skipped my normal 12 hour workdays and came home at a reasonable hour so we could have cocktail hour while cooking dinner.  Since we'd just bought our first bottle of limoncello, I selected this for one of the drinks.  And, it turned out to be a pretty darned good drink.  We mostly gave it a four on a scale of one to five.  Our one to five is like this:
5 - It's ok to make again tomorrow.  If you don't do that, just make sure you make it again soon.
4 - It's very good.  Maybe could use a few tweaks but we'll probably make it again.
3 - It's ok.  Would need a lot of tweaking so with the number of new things to try we'll probably never get back to this one.
2 - Throw the recipe away and fuggedaboudit.
1 - I've never made one of these so don't really know how horrible these must be. (thank goodness!!)

Fives are very rare.  Glop.  Chicken caesar lasagna.  Slices.  Lemon lavender blueberry muffins.  Mushroom risotto with white truffle oil (not sure if I've blogged about that one!)  Hickory smoked pork chops. Blue cheese potato salad (coming soon.)  Blue cheese dressing. Steaks with blue cheese sauce.  Lamburgers with avocado sauce.  Cheddar pear pie.  Probably less than two dozen others in the last 6 years. 

Fours are pretty normal as are threes.  Fortunately, I've only thrown away less than a dozen recipes in the last 6 years.  (Why six years???  That's how long ago Connie and I met and he's the one who came up with the rating system.)  So either I'm doing a pretty good job of choosing recipes or we just love to eat about anything - lol.  Whatever the case, we enjoy doing the rating system.  Debating the finer points of rating dishes.  So on to the main topic - cocktails with GRILLED thyme.  Can't wait to come up with more.  Actually, Jason from Ancient Fire Wines - do you want to help on this quest?  (BTW - if you've never been to his blog, it's a lot of fun.  It's ancientfirewineblog@blogspot.com.  Assuming Connie can tell me how he created it, we'll have a blog on a great sage infused lemonade that came from Jason's blog.)

Limoncello-Gin Cocktail with Grilled Thyme

for each cocktail:
2 large sprigs thyme
1 T lime juice
3 T gin
1 T limoncello

Grill the thyme sprigs on high heat - just until the leaves turn slightly brown.  Remove from the grill.  Muddle the thyme and the lime juice in a cocktail shaker. Fill it with ice then pour in the gin and limoncello.  Shake until well chilled.  Serve neat or on the rocks.

from Food and Wine