A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a mojito! We've been rather quiet of late, here at Indirect Heat, but not due to a lack of food enjoyment. We've had some blogatious IT problems that are starting to resolve themselves.

In the meantime, we've been enjoying the bounty of our garden. The mojito has become Mrs. Dude's favourite summer drink. And we're doing our best to enjoy it as the summer wanes. Our mojito is mintier than most, given the usage of Minty simple syrup. We base our recipe off of the one at use real butter.

Minty simple syrup:

8 oz. sugar
8 oz. water
4 large sprigs of fresh mint

Mix the sugar and water. Bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar, then toss in the mint sprigs, fresh from the garden. Let cool to room temperature, sieve out the mint. Chill. This minty simple syrup is good for weeks in the fridge.

Now, to the mojito. We use Privateer amber rum, a rum that tastes like it's been aged in wood. It has interesting bourbon notes, which makes for a much more sophisticated mojito:

½ lime, juice of to taste
2 oz minty simple syrup, to taste
bunch of mint leaves
2 oz rum, to taste -
club soda or sparkling water to taste
lime wedge, for garnish
mint leaves, for garnish
ice

Mix the ingredients, and garnish with the mint and lime wedge. Most of the mint flavour is coming from the simple syrup, so you can leave out the garnish if you're feeling lazy. Serve.

A perfect Saturday beverage for a hot evening. Salud.

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

a cucumber beverage.



There have been entirely too few lazy Saturdays of late. Working. Painting the house. Working. Gardening. Working. Plumbing. But this weekend, I am inspired to make a beverage we had recently at our dear friends' home. They found it here.

1–2 pieces of thinly sliced lemons
4–6 pieces of thinly sliced cucumbers
1 tsp of honey
2 oz vodka
4 oz sparkling water
3–4 cubes of ice
mint for garnish

Mix the vodka and honey. Add everything else to the glass. We used chocolate mint and spearmint from the garden. And what a delicious drink for a hot day.

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

...a Spicy Paloma!



We really enjoyed our visit to Mayahuel in New York, and were inspired by all of their tequila-based cocktails. Within hours of arriving home from New York we were trying to reproduce their delicious drinks.

This is our attempt to reproduce their Spicy Paloma. We used a margarita base as the starting point, and the Mayahuel menu as a guide:

3 oz jalapeño-infused tequila
2 oz fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
2 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice
¼ oz agave nectar (or simple syrup)
tonic water
kosher salt

Rim a glass with kosher salt. Mix the other ingredients (save the tonic water). Pour over ice, and add tonic water to taste. Delicious. And with a nice post-margarita burn, this is a really unique turn on a traditional margarita. And Mrs. Dude liked our incarnation even better than the Spicy Paloma. Enjoy!

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a Sacrilege. We're posting this a little late, as we had this on Easter Sunday.



We recently visited the Russell House Tavern. This is a fantastic place to eat. And drink. We love their small plates, and especially their cocktails. Well, I will shamelessly plug them, given that when I twittled at them, asking for a recipe for my favourite cocktail creation of theirs, they twittled it right back at me:

@IndirectHeat Sacrilege - 1.5oz Jameson, 1oz Cardamaro, .5oz Sweet Vermouth, .5oz Lemon Juice, .5oz Honey Simple Syrup.Enjoy!
— Russell House Tavern (@RussellHouseTav) April 4, 2012

It's lovely. While the Cardamaro is a little challenging to find, it's well worth it.

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a Master Cleanse. While this will not end up being a lazy Saturday (I've been working my butt off all week, and will be in the lab all day today), still, an evening cocktail provides a chance to slow down, if only for a few minutes. This cocktail comes from the newest cookbook in my collection, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef. The cocktails in this book look magnificent (three of them feature meat products), but having just visited a sugar shack, I had to make the maple syrup cocktail, the Master Cleanse. I used a dark maple syrup from Thurston & Peters, natch.

½ cup maple syrup
½ cup fresh lemon juice
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 oz bourbon
sparkling water

While Joe Beef calls for heating the maple syrup and lemon juice, I did not. I merely mixed them well until the syrup no longer made ribbons in the lemon juice. Add the cayenne and bourbon. Mix well, and pour over ice. Top with sparkling water and serve. Joe Beef calls this one cocktail. In the Dude household, this made two very generous cocktails. This is one of the best bourbon sours I have ever had, and the ½ cup of maple doesn't come across as overly strong (indeed, you only get a hint of maple). But I might dial up the bourbon a tad next time.

I expect this cocktail to become a staple in our home. Going to have to sign up for bulk purchases of maple syrup.

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a lychini.

A homemade cocktail inspired by lacking the ingredients I *really* wanted to make a martini.

3 oz vodka
1 oz lychee liqueur
1 zest of orange

Mix. Shake over ice. Serve.

Not a bad substitute for a real martini...

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

...a Mandarin margarita.



I was inspired to create this cocktail for our New Year's Eve party. We started off the night with:

3 oz Herradura reposado tequila
2 oz Absolut mandarin
½ oz fresh-squeed lime juice
1¼ oz fresh-squeezed orange juice
¼ oz agave nectar (or simple syrup)

Rim a glass with tequila, and a mixture of white and dark salts. (The salts don't create any different flavor, but they do make it more beautiful to behold). Mix the above ingredients and pour over ice.

Serve.

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

...a vodka martini.



Simplicity at its finest.

4 oz. vodka
lemon

Shake vodka over ice, strain into a glass. Rub the wax off the lemon (or if you're lucky to live in southern California and have access to fresh lemons, use that). Peel as along a strip as you're able to from the lemon. Drop into your chilled vodka.

Serve. Ahhhh...

By Bbq Dude

A lazy crazy Saturday

... calls for a nice glass of port.

As I entered my last frenzied 24 hours in San Diego, we sipped on a nice mellowed 2005 Mayo Zinfandel port. This was our last bottle of this port, and while I think we may have enjoyed it more last year, it was still a nice evening sipping drink.



We bought our bottles of this port on a visit to Napa, when Bbq Jr. was just 8 months old. Fitting that we should finish the last bottle just before departing California.


By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

...a Thai colada.



What is one to do on a weekend where one has made Thai sticky rice and one has a little leftover syrup?

Make a Thai colada.

2 oz coconut milk syrup from the sticky rice recipe
2 oz white rum

Mix well and pour over ice.

Ahhhhh...

By Bbq Dude

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a gin & tonic.  I just got Artisanal Cocktails by Scott Beattie.  And while I should be making some of the truly exciting cocktails in the book, the cool and cloudy weather here in San Diego the last two months got me in the mood for a lovely gin & tonic:

ice
lime slice
1 ½ oz Junipero gin
2 oz Fever-Tree tonic water, chilled

Mix.  Serve.  Yum.

A lazy Saturday calls for...

a pomegranate cosmopolitan!

So, I appear to have arrived in the blogorama big times.  The lovely folks at PomWonderful sent me some free samples to play with (so take whatever I say about pomegranate juice with a grain of salt).  And you know, once you're getting free juice, you've arrived.

1 oz vodka
½ oz Cointreau liqueur or triple sec
¾ oz pomegranate juice
½ oz fresh lime juice

Mix over ice.  Shake.  Pour.  Serve.

This drink is a lot like a standard cosmopolitan.  Citrus-ish.  Bright.  And a tad sweet for my tastes, but I'm quite certain that folks who like cosmos will enjoy this.  Happy Saturday.

A lazy Saturday calls for...

This is actually a lazy Tuesday. We spent Tuesday afternoon hiking around the Chateau Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies with Bbq Jr. While he soaked his pants and socks, what a trooper, he was delighted to hike a couple miles around the lake. At the end of our hike, we stopped in the Chateau for a nice lunch.

Mrs. Dude had an Avalanche, described as "Espresso, Baileys, Frangelico and whatever else gets caught in its path." We were able to procure the recipe, and share it here:

1 oz fresh brewed espresso
½ oz Baileys
½ oz Frangelico
½ oz white crème de cacao
2 oz cream

Shake with ice, strain into glass, add whipped cream and chocolate chunks. Serve.



Doesn't that look tasty?

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a gin martini.  Haven't had as many lazy Saturdays as I might like.  But here's a classic.



2 ½ oz gin
½ oz dry vermouth
2 olives
ice

Mix. Shake. Pour.



Ahhhhh...

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... Hot Christmas Punch! Every year during the Christmas season, my mother would make this warm Christmas punch. It smells up the house of cinnamon and cloves, and smelling that reminds me of every Christmas I spent with my family.

This year, we've already made this punch countless evenings, and today (on Boxing Day), I'll be making a large pot of it:

3 cups cranberry juice
3 cups pineapple juice
1½ cups water
⅓ cups brown sugar
1½ tsp whole cloves
1 cinammon stick
pinch of salt

Put the cloves in a tea ball. Combine all the ingredients in a heavy pot, warm to a simmer, then drop the heat down and keep it hot on the stove. As you might imagine, it gets better with time (though we will add some water to it at the end as it reduces to a thicker consistency).

Serve hot in mugs.



Happy Boxing Day.

A lazy Saturday calls for...

...eggnog!



My wife and I have been having a Christmas party as long as we've been together. The first year we had it, my graduate advisor brought an intensely flammable eggnog. It was rich and frothy, not too sweet, but filled with flavours of nutmeg and honey. She claims the only time she hears from her former students is at Christmas time when they call and ask for the recipe for this eggnog. I cleverly wrote it down that first year (so she never hears from me), and it's now a tradition around our home to serve this delightful stuff.

This is the flavour of Christmas in a cup. Delicious, rich and creamy. Indeed, I spend 11 months of the year dreaming about this eggnog. If it were traditional to drink this year-round, I'd be a much larger man with a much smaller liver. (Disclaimer: This recipe has raw eggs in it. If you're not willing to risk the relatively small risk of Salmonella, don't make it. Indeed, if you have any underlying health condition that would make Salmonella a life-or-death event, all you should do is look over these photos, and drool over the eggnog. No raw eggs for you. Be sensible.)

Alright, I generally do a 2x to 3x recipe for a Christmas party with 30 guests:

2 eggs

4 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
honey to taste
1 cup dark rum
1 cup brandy
lots of fresh ground nutmeg

Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks until yellow and foamy.

You're going to make an emulsion, so you want a nice foamy egg yolk. While mixing, slowly add the booze. If you add it too fast, you'll curdle the yolks.

Beat in the milk. (Or in a triple batch, beat in about half of the milk - you'll have to add the rest of the milk in a separate, larger bowl).

Once all the milk is added, add the honey to taste, mixing well to ensure that it dissolves properly. I tend to aim for a barely sweet mixture, as overly sweet eggnog is too cloying for me. But again, you're adding it to taste.

Beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. Beat the heavy cream until they hold light peaks. Fold into the eggnog. Grate in lots of fresh, whole nutmeg (to taste). It really makes a difference, as freshly grated nutmeg is not at all bitter. Then leave the grater out for people to grate more fresh nutmeg on their drink.

I used to be concerned about how long you can store this stuff, and would dump it if I had leftovers more than a few days after the party. However, Michael Ruhlman claims that homemade eggnogs improve with age (up to two years), so now I'll hold onto it for as long as it takes to finish it (never more than a few weeks).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to one and all. I hope you find a lazy Saturday or two over the holidays, and find your own way to enjoy it.

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... a lychee martini. Several years ago, I purchased the Nobu West cookbook, thinking I would cook from it frequently. As fancy cookbooks go, I haven't used this one much. I've failed several times at making the mochi ice cream in there, and haven't tried much else. But the lychee martini is a keeper.

1 oz lychee liqueur

1 oz vanilla vodka

1 oz mandarin vodka

½ oz passionfruit juice

splash fresh lime juice

lychee (available at Asian stores in the canned fruit section)

Shake liquids over ice. Serve with a lychee in the glass.

A lazy Saturday calls for...

a classic Cosmopolitan.

Mix in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake, strain, and pour into a martini glass.

2⅔ oz. vodka (or Citron Vodka)
1⅔ oz. cointreau or triple sec
1⅓ oz. cranberry juice
⅔ oz. lime juice

A lazy Saturday calls for...

a Dark 'N' Stormy!

The Dark 'N' Stormy is a rare bird indeed. It's a copyrighted cocktail. So if you want to make it, and you want to call it a Dark 'N' Stormy, you have to make it with Gosling's dark rum.

But here, we start (as with everything fun) from scratch. Let's make fresh ginger beer!

I used the recipe at Jeffrey Morgenthaler. Seemed like a good start:

2 oz ginger juice (juiced from 1 large ginger root)
4 oz fresh lemon juice, finely strained
6 oz simple syrup
20 oz warm water (cold if using the soda siphon)

¹⁄₁₆ tsp Red Star champagne yeast

You'll need to sterilize your bottles. I picked up a chemical bottle sterilizant (some sort of peroxide, I think) at the brewing store, same place I picked up the packet of champagne yeast. Follow the directions to clean your bottles. I used the nice capped bottle shown above, because it'll handle the pressure of carbonation without exploding all over your home.

Funny aside: 10 years ago, I briefly got into homebrewing, and made some mead. Mead is fermented honey, and as such, it ferments rather slowly. Well I bottled 5 gallons of mead that I thought was done, and loaded up the wine bottles in my basement. Over the next few weeks, I guess there was a wee bit more fermentation going on in those bottles... One day, my roommate came home and slammed the door, just enough excitement to decarbonate a bottle. It blew the cork out, and sprayed carbonated mead all around the room. Well he rushed over and grabbed that bottle, knocking several more bottles... Pretty soon, there was a chain reaction of wine bottles blowing corks and spraying carbonated mead all around. When I arrived home, half my mead was gone, and he was not amused.

But that is not this story...

Okay, chop up a decent sized piece of ginger root.

And run that root through a juicer or food processor. Squeeze the ground ginger through a fine sieve to recover ginger juice.

It's an opaque yellow colour. Yum! Mix all the ingredients together, and pour into a pressurizable bottle. Wrong kind of bottle, and you'll be blowing carbonated ginger beer all over your home.

Let sit for 48 hours at room temperature, then put it in the fridge. You really don't want to go longer than that, or you'll explode the bottle.

Now comes the relaxing part. Mix 1 ¹⁄₂ oz Gosling's dark rum with ginger beer to taste, over ice.

Enjoy.

A lazy Saturday calls for...

... sangria!

I've been looking for a good sangria recipe for quite a while. I found one here, at Livefire. It's very simple:

I've modified it slightly:

750 ml bottle of Rioja

500 ml bottle of sparkling water

1 lime

1 lemon

1 orange

1/4 cup brandy

4 tbsp simple syrup

1 tbsp cinnamon

a smattering of blueberries

Slice the fruit thin (including the blueberries). Mix with the brandy and wine, let sit as long as you can stand it, then add everything else and serve over ice.

Delish. There's something super decadent about blogging with a sangria in my hand...