Love Potion No. 9

This is from Pat and Gina Neely’s wonderful cookbook, The Neely’s Celebration Cookbook. We have had a few recipes from the book and everything so far has been a winner. This particular recipe is a little different from the Love Potion versions we have seen in our drinks book, but it is also a fabulous drink. Not sweet, not sour, just pleasantly tart.


We bought some pomegranate arils at Sam’s on an impulse. I never had them before. Connie has, but doesn’t like dealing with the whole fruit. He said they are a pain in the neck (or something south of that).


Tonight, my human dumbwaiter (Connie's nickname for himself!  I ask him to go to the basement to bring things up from the fridge all the time because it saves my knees and gives him something to rant about - and goodness knows he loves to rant - all in jest but still, he loves it!) was feeding a cat and up he comes with a packet of the arils. He ran them through a food mill, also known as a Foley mill, and came up with 5 or so ounces of juice.


He had no plan, it was an expiration date thing. I remembered this recipe and off we went. We had the ingredients and it worked out beautifully.


The Neely’s Love Potion No. 9 (for two)


Ingredients:
4 oz of citrus vodka (we make our own using Smirnoff and citrus peels)
1 ½ oz of Grand Marnier (the Neely’s call for Cointreau, but we substitute)
4 oz pomegranate juice
2 oz freshly squeezed lime juice


(The Neely’s call for pomegranate seeds for garnish, but someone crushed everything in the food mill before any recipe was suggested - and someone else really doesn't care for the seeds as is).


Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Add the garnish. Toast the love of your life and enjoy!

Glazed Carrots with Ginger and Fresh Orange Juice

Once again, it's Secret Recipe Club time.  This was a total first for me.  Usually, I browse my assigned blog for an hour or more trying to find the perfect recipe.  This time I found my recipe when I first logged on.  I logged on a couple  more times hunting for something else that sounded better.  But, this one stuck in my mind.  I kept talking about making these carrots.  I was hooked.  And, rightfully so.  These carrots were fantastic.  Ok, so they probably won't get a lot of hits like the really different recipes do.  But, so what.  I found a keeper.  A recipe that we'll use over and over and over again.  And, I found a blog that I'll go to over and over and over again.  How much fun is that?


MaryAnne and Mariel are a mother/daughter combo who trade off the writing duties of Feast on the Cheap.  MaryAnne is a caterer and a nurse and Mariel is a writer.  Their blog has recipes ranging from super simple to complex.  Something to satisfy everyone.  I've got several recipes on my to-try list. I hope you'll enjoy their blog as much as I did!

Glazed Carrots

Ingredients:

1 lb baby carrots
3 T butter
3 T packed dark brown sugar
1 T dijon mustard
1 t ground ginger
pinch cayenne
2 T orange juice
fresh parsley, chopped

Directions:

Heat water to boiling in a medium saucepan.  Put the carrots in and cook them until they're tender. 

Drain them.  While they're cooking, melt the butter in a small saucepan.  Add the brown sugar, dijon mustard, ginger, cayenne and orange juice.  Whisk together. 

Pour the sauce over the drained carrots.  Heat through then serve topped with chopped fresh parsley.

from Feast on the Cheap

Here are links to some of the other Secret Recipe Club members.  There's a group that posts every Monday so stop by the Secret Recipe Club site at secretrecipeclub.com to check out the other week's posts.

Romaine Hearts with Haloumi Matchsticks

I'm filing this under salads.  And, I'm laughing while doing so.  It has lettuce.  And dressing.  Oh, and a mountain of fried cheese.  So, maybe if I take a nice, big ribeye and slice it and load a couple of lettuce leaves up with steak and dressing I could call that a salad too?  I didn't think so.  Well, call it what you will, this is a five on a scale of one to five. 

OPA!  We've had haloumi cheese at Greek restaurants.  And, we've thoroughly enjoyed it.  I've made it with grilled red grapes and we've loved it.  This, however, could easily become an obsession.  Fortunately, there are too many great recipes to be tried for anything to appear at dinner more than two or three times a year. 

We bought our first package of haloumi cheese at Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati.  I wasn't going back there any time soon so it was time to check out Indy.  Our Marsh grocery down the street?  Not on your life.  The folks in the cheese department thought we were talking another language.  Fine.  On to Trader Joe's.  Nope.  Fresh Market?  Nope.  Now, there's a story.  So, we're at the hair salon across the street from Fresh Market getting our purple stripes for Kelsey.  The dye had to sit on our hair for about 30 minutes.  And, it was covered with foil.  Now, I'm not one of those women who cares to cover their grey.  I've earned every one of those grey hairs, thank you very much.  And, Connie?  Well, he started turning white-haired in his mid-20's and has had this glorious head of white hair for 20+ years.  We both get our hair cut and that's about it.  No experience with dyes and the like.  So we find out that we're going to be cooling our heels while the dye sets.  There's a grocery store across the street.  We're going to the grocery on the way home.  Why not go now?  The fact that both of us had large pieces of foil in our hair didn't dissuade us in the least.  The first person I ran into was a sorority sister.  She and her hubby got the whole story.  Not so much the other folks in the store who tried their darndest NOT to stare.  Like the young man who checked us out.  Scan, steal a peek.  Scan, steal a peek.  He was far too polite to ask and we were having far too much fun to enlighten anyone. 

As Liz from ThatSkinnyChickCanBake and I have discussed many times, we're right smack dab in the middle of the best selection of grocery and specialty food stores you can probably ever find.  You can go five miles from either of our homes and get to at least 10 great stores.  Artisano's Oils, Whole Foods, Fresh Market, Trader Joe's, Marsh, Kroger, Kincaids Meats, Costco, Sam's, Grapevine Cottage, The Cheese Shop, Good Earth, Bier Brewery, Sakura Mart...  It seemed that nobody had haloumi cheese.  All of the sudden Connie said, "Broad Ripple Avenue!"  Like I'm supposed to know what he's channeling here.  Well, it was a brilliant idea.  There's a Greek restaurant down on the avenue with a small grocery.  They indeed had haloumi cheese. 

What did we think?  You can tell from the rating.  We don't give many five's out.  They're reserved for the dishes that make us want to lick our plates.  Dishes that we want to make again the next night.  And, in this case DO make again the next night.  So, here's my advice to you.  If you can't find the stuff in your local stores, order it online.  Go ahead.  Jungle Jim's ships. You'll be glad you did.  This is fabulous.

Romaine Hearts with Haloumi Matchsticks

Ingredients:

1/4 c olive oil
1/2 lb haloumi cheese, sliced into matchsticks

3 T walnut oil
1 T sambuco
1 T while balsamic vinegar
1 head romaine hearts
1 T grated orange zest

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet.  You'll want it to be shimmering before you put the haloumi in.  When it's hot enough, add the cheese to the skillet. 

Be careful because it'll pop as you add the cheese.  Turn the cheese when it gets nice and brown.  When both sides are nice and brown, remove it to a paper towel and let it drain.  While the cheese is cooking, make the dressing.  Mix together the walnut oil, sambuca, white balsamic and orange zest.  Wash and pat the romaine leaves dry.  To serve, lay 2-3 romaine hearts on a salad plate.  Top each with 4-5 matchsticks of cheese and drizzle with dressing.

Entertaining with Booze

The title kinda knocks your socks off, doesn't it?  It certainly did mine.  Connie and I were doing our Christmas shopping and he was on the phone with middle son, Greg, trying to find out what to get youngest son, Matt.  No, Matt we are not getting you a year's supply of socks.  Yes, we considered that because you have yet to give us any hints.  So, guess what I did while Connie was chatting?  You got it.  I browsed through the cookbooks.  I was down to the last shelf and saw this and thought the title was not great and had no clue who the authors are.  But, it was lean against a shelf and wait for Connie to finish or look at this cookbook. I looked.  And, looked.  And, looked.  I didn't see anything I didn't like.  I bought it. 


We were heading to our friends Chris and Mark's annual party.  They're an hour south of us so I started reading recipes out loud on the way south.  Did the same thing on the way home.  And, I made a list of recipes to try.  About 75 that I liked.   Out of about 100 from what I could tell.  That's a great cookbook in my book. 


The next day was a Sunday and it was an away Colts game so that meant I needed to leave the office by noon and be home to watch the Colts lose.  Yeah, a fan with very little faith in the team.  Especially when they're playing the hated Patriots.  I know, Connie's from Boston and he roots for them when they're not playing the Colts.  But, me, I just really don't like that team.  I'd seen a frittata recipe that sounded wonderful - particularly because it called for sauteed mushrooms and I had some leftover that needed to be used up.  That'd be lunch. 


The premise of the cookbook is menus along with a drink.  And, most of the recipes have booze of one sort or another in them.  Some of them like the Scotch tasting party will get made in total.  Others, I'll pick and choose.  Like, Sunday's dinner.  We started with the apple martini from one menu and went on to the pork chops with lemon rosemary marmalade from another.  Those were served with the wine soaked potato salad from yet another. 

Since that Sunday I've made several other recipes.  A total of ten recipes made from one cookbook. 

Here's the tally:

Leprechaun Roast Rack of Lamb 4*
Mushroom Bacon Frittata 4*
BLT Tavern Salad 4*
Wine Soaked Potato Salad 3*
Apple Martini 5*
Lemon Rosemary Marmalade 4*
Hard Cider Baba Ghanouj 3*
Cumin Flatbread 4*
Romaine Hearts wtih Haloumi Matchsticks 5*
The Deer Hunter 2*

Since you've already seen the apple martini and will see the salad with haloumi tomorrow, let's do the BLT Tavern Salad tonight.  We've got a blue cheese dressing recipe that we both absolutely love.  So all new blue cheese dressings are measured against that one.  This one measured up pretty darned well.  It didn't unseat our favorite but certainly added a great alternative to the mix.  The only negative I can find is that there really isn't enough dressing for six salads.  I'm the dressing and sauce gal and Connie usually isn't.  In this case, though, we all put additional dressing on our salads.  Between Mom, Connie and me, we went through 75% of the dressing.

BLT Tavern Salad
serves 6

Ingredients:

8-10 slices thick cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 large head of iceberg lettuce cut into six wedges or another kind of lettuce if you prefer
2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped or a pint of cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 c sliced almonds, browned

for the dressing:
1/2 c mayonnaise
1 T white wine vinegar
1 T lemon vodka
1/4 c buttermilk
1/3 c crumbled blue cheese
1 t freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, vodka and buttermilk.  Add the blue cheese and pepper.  To plate the salad, put either a wedge of iceberg or a handful lettuce on a salad plate.  Top with the bacon, tomatoes and almonds. 

Drizzle with the dressing. 

adapted from Entertaining with Booze

Apple Martini and Chicken Soup

My throat's sore.  I feel miserable.  And, I'm trying my best to keep going.  Not terribly successfully, mind you.  Some of my appointments will have to be rescheduled because it's impossible to prep for them or have them while asleep in the big comfy chairs in front of my desk.  You thought those were for clients???  Think again, my friends.  They're recliners.  For me.  But, they're still big, comfy chairs for my staff when they come in to chat. At any rate, you're going to get two recipes today.  Because dinner was chicken soup.  And, I didn't take any photos.  I have lots of homemade stock at home.  Connie offered to go get a pizza.  But, all I really wanted was the warmth and comfort of chicken soup.  Here's how I made it:


Chicken Soup


Ingredients:


2  c chicken stock
small knob of ginger, finely minced
1 rib celery
1/4 c chopped, cooked chicken
1/4 c brown rice
1/4 t sesame oil
2 t soy sauce

Directions:

Heat the chicken stock to simmering.  Add the rice, celery and ginger.  Cook until the rice is almost done.  Add the cooked, chopped chicken along with the sesame oil and soy sauce.  Heat through and serve. 

Now, on to a drink.  I've been thoroughly enjoying the Entertain with Booze Cookbook.  There's a blog partially written with a couple of other recipes from the cookbook.  But, it needs directions and photos.  A drink.  Well, that's pretty easy.  Mix and serve.  Love it.

Apple Martini

Ingredients:

1 oz apple schnapps or apple pucker
1 oz vodka
1 oz apple juice

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.  Shake, shake, shake until it's too cold to hold. 

Strain into chilled martini glasses garnished with a slice of apple.  Now, we love our friend Joyce's Washington Apple Martini.  But it's now met its match.  Major YUM!

See that purple Connie's sporting in his hair?  We have a delightful friend by the name of Kelsey Van Wyk who had her first treatment for lymphoma the day after her 21st birthday.  Kelsey's died her hair purple on the assumption that it'll all fall out.  A bunch of us got purple stripes so she'd know we're all there for her.  If you'd like to read about her, she's written a blog called Dealt a New Hand.  Kelsey and her mom and dad and sisters are incredible folks.  And we know she's going to win this battle!


adapted from Entertaining with Booze

Potato Latkes with Duck Confit

Friday night at home.  With Connie.  Now, to most of you that doesn't sound like anything spectacular.  Just an evening at home.  Except for the fact that for the last six years he's played bridge almost every Friday night.  On occasion we've had a Friday evening together but there've not been too many that we could just goof off.  And, I'd not been home for several evenings.  Our original plan was to do the shopping for the party prep we're going to do this weekend.  We also needed to go to Nora Apothecary to get the thyroid meds I have to rub inside George cat's ear every evening.  Oops.  We got home at 6:08 and they close at 6:00 on Friday evenings.  Not only that but we were now home.  And, neither of us wanted to leave. 


All of the sudden, I realized my dinner had been planned around a rotisserie chicken from Sams.  And, we weren't going to Sams.  Thursday night I'd been reading Anne Burrell's new cookbook, Cook Like a Rock Star.  The last recipe I'd read before drifting off to sleep was for duck confit.  That meant I had duck confit on the brain.  I do love that stuff!  I started thinking about how to serve duck confit.  How about latkes fried in duck fat with asparagus and a poached egg?  Off to the bookshelves to find Molly O'Neill's New York cookbook.  I was pretty certain I'd seen a great potato latke recipe there.  Bingo.  I had.  And, we had two packages of homemade duck confit in the freezer.

I've always loved potato latkes but have never tried making them.  My favorites are from The Original Pancake House.  They've got a location in Indy and one in Chicago.  Strangely enough, we get to the Chicago one most often because it's right down the street from the hotel where we stay when I go to Advantage Financial Group board meetings.  We typically order the Eggs Michael and savor every bite.  Eggs Michael is an english muffin topped with a sausage patty then a poached egg then a fabulous sherry mushroom cream sauce.  Potato latkes are on the side.  Swoon!!!

What did I learn?  You need to drain the potatoes REALLY well.  Use a large enough colander so they'll really drain.  And, leave them in the colander long enough.  I kept having to squeeze the liquid out of the latkes as I was making them.  Not a good thing.  But, they did wind up tasting fabulous.  I'm sure part of that was due to the fact that they were fried in duck fat.  Actually, the whole meal was fabulous.  This is one that I'll make again!

Potato Latkes with Duck Confit

Ingredients:

for the latkes:
makes 6 latkes

1.25 lbs russet potatoes (about 2 large potatoes)
1/2 large white or yellow onion
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 T matzo meal
2 t chopped fresh parsley
salt
freshly ground pepper
duck fat

to assemble the dish (per serving:)

potato latke
6 thin spears asparagus, lightly steamed
duck confit
poached egg
crispy duck skin

Directions:

Put a large, wide colander over a bowl.  Peel the onion and cut the half in half.  Pulse it in the food processor until it's in bits.  You don't want mush here so don't pulse much.  Remove the onions to the colander.  Wash the potatoes and cut them in hunks to fit in the feed tube on the processor.  Use the larger shredding disk and shred the potatoes.  Put the potatoes in the colander and allow them to drain. 

small colander, piled high, not good

Smoosh them a bit to encourage the liquid to drain.  Once the potatoes have adequately drained, pour the liquid from the bowl out.  DON'T wipe the bowl.  The starch left there is a good thing.  Toss the potatoes and onions into the bowl.  Add the other latke ingredients:  matzo meal, salt and pepper, parsley and egg.

Mix well but lightly.  Heat the duck fat in a cast iron skillet.  It should be pretty screaming hot when you put the latkes in.  You're going to put them in using a 1/4 c up measure.  Squash them down so they're 4-5 inches across.  Now, reduce the heat and cook the latkes on medium until they're nice and crispy and golden brown. 

Turn them and cook the 2nd side until it's nice and crispy.  Remove from the heat and drain on paper towels.

I've got to tell you the comment at the end of the recipe from Dave, The Latke King, Firestone:  Remove from the room anyone who prefers latkes with sour cream.  Serve the latkes immediately.  With applesauce. 

So, I'm one of those applesauce people and I understand.  But, I still got a good laugh out of it! 

While the latkes are cooking, you need to crisp up your duck skin.  For something with so daggone much fat, it sticks to the skillet.  But, it's worth it because it tastes fabulous!

Now, you need to assemble the meal.   Start with a potato latke.

Top it with some asparagus spears.  More if they're thin, less if they're fat.

Put some shredded duck confit on the asparagus. 

Then, you need a poached egg.  Now, I used to poach those perfect eggs in the egg cooker.  It meant cleaning the stupid little trays.  I finally got brave and poach my eggs in simmering water with a bit of vinegar. 

They look MUCH better and gosh darn it, they're fun to make. 

Finally, garnish the dish with a bit of crispy duck skin and you're ready to inhale.

Latke recipe adapted from The New York Cookbook by Molly O'Neill

Marinated Broccoli Salad

How to tell it's been a busy week around our house.  There are three cat food bowls in the sink and two wine glasses in the dish drainer.  Otherwise, the kitchen appears to be unused.  Lunch is what we can find from the freezer because there are no leftovers.  The mail is stacked neatly in the mail cubby.  And, on the desk because the cubby is full.  There's a stack of current papers on my hassock.  And, when you open my blog there's nothing new there.  Ah, yes, Christmas season is upon us. 

Tuesday I went to a continuing education meeting followed by a cocktail hour at a new restaurant right up the street.  I was deep in conversation with my friend Matt (whose mom provided the awesome roasted cauliflower recipe that we love so much) when the wait staff announced we needed to clear the room for the next batch of folks.  There were boxes to take home the rest of the appetizers if we so desired.  Sign me up.  It'd mean Connie'd have a great dinner.  Shrimp cocktail, New York strip slices, toasted ravioli, pizza, brownies.  All from the new Harry and Izzy's - an offshoot of St. Elmo's Steak House.  Connie inhaled the goodies when I got home.  We're looking forward to eating dinner there sometime next time spring when the lines die down!

Wednesday, we met our friends Donna and Phil for dinner so we could see them one more time before they head to Florida for the winter.  More and more of our friends are becoming snow birds.  It's making me feel old!  This time, we headed to Noah Grant's in Zionsville.  They have a really fun wine list.  Normally, I can pick up a wine list and know half the bottles.  This time I knew one winery and that was it.  We wound up with a bottle of pinot noir that was just about perfect.  Shooting Star.  Donna took a photo of the bottle so I'll be able to get a copy and hopefully find the wine.

Thursday was the monthly wine dinner at Chef Joseph's.  He really outdid himself this time.  Our favorite was a black sesame cone filled with a shrimp and jalapeno concoction with a melon salsa on the side.  I'd happily devour one of those daily.  We sat with folks we've gotten to know over the years so that made it even more fun. 

Ah, ha!  That means I have an opportunity to go into the vast archives of photos I've taken and chat about a wonderful recipe that never made it to the blog.  Not too long ago I bought the Neely's Celebration Cookbook.  If those folks are as much fun as they sound, I'd love to spend a day with them!  The cookbook has fantastic recipes - many of which are on my make soon list. 

My contribution to the Thanksgiving dinner was two vegetables and an appetizer.  Brother John suggested broccoli since that's something that everyone will actually eat.  My mind immediately went to this recipe.  It's a bit different from the traditional broccoli salad.  And, will be my go-to version in the future.  It's perfect.  I wouldn't make any changes to the recipe. 

Marinated Broccoli Salad

Ingredients:
6 c broccoli florets
2 T honey
3 T red-wine vinegar
1 t crushed red pepper flakes
freshly ground black pepper
1/3 c extra virgin olive oil
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/2 c slivered almonds, toasted
1/2 c dried cranberries

Directions:

LIghtly steam the broccoli.  The original recipe called for blanching it which will work also.  I just prefer steaming the broccoli.  You want it to be tender crisp and bright green so don't overcook it!  To stop the cooking, immerse it in a bowl of cold water.  Drain it well and put it in a big bowl. 

Next, you're going to make the dressing.  Whisk together the honey, vinegar, pepper and crushed red pepper.  Slowly whisk in the olive oil. 

Toss together the broccoli, cranberries, almonds, bacon and red onion. 

Drizzle the dressing over and toss.  Serve.

from The Neely's Celebration Cookbook