While we settle into a new routine in light of our Steve’s Deli hibernation, we’re enjoying some extra free time. The recent warm weather and our new found freedom left us itching for spring time cocktails, so we took advantage of our lingering whole-sale vendors and grabbed a 10 lb bag of carrots. We stumbled across this recipe late last summer, and with a few tweaks it is one we come back to again and again. All the joy of your beloved summer cocktail with enough vegetable juice to take the edge off the guilt you feel after downing a bottle of tequila “between a few friends.”
A 10 lb bag of carrots yields roughly a half gallon of juice, for the record. We had plenty left over to blend into your morning smoothie or save for a soup base. Ed seared a halved jalapeno with the Searzall until crispy and tossed it into a ball jar with 750mL of tequila overnight. The heat of your jalapeno will definitely change the nature of this drink and the time you will want to soak.
One of our favorite summer cocktails with a spicy kick.
Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 bunch fresh cilantro
1 cup mezcal or tequila
1 medium jalapeño
3 ounces fresh carrot juice
1½ ounces jalapeño-infused tequila
½ ounce Cointreau
½ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
½ ounce cilantro syrup
ice
salt
limes for garnish
Instructions
Cilantro Simple Syrup: Bring sugar and water to a simmer and stir until just combined. Remove from heat and add cilantro. Let steep until strongly flavored, 1 to 6 hours. Strain cilantro from syrup once it reaches your desired flavor.
Jalapeño Tequila: halve one medium jalapeño and sear. We use a Searzall, but a heavy skillet or broiling works as well. Remove seeds for less heat in your final product. Soak the seared jalapeño in the tequila for at least an hour and then remove. Increase soaking time for more heat.
To prepare the cocktail, fill a shaker half with ice and combine all ingredient. Shake vigorously until chilled.
Round the edge of a 6oz tall glass with a lime wedge and then dredge in salt. Fill glass half with ice. Pour strained cocktail into glass, garnish with a lime, and serve.
As a lady, Maggie is very fond of seasonal drinks and food. We thought we’d try something with pumpkin. A pumpkin booze milkshake. That’ll get the traffic rolling. We’ll also use $10 ice cream from Jeni’s Ice cream. This post is not sponsored by them. We paid the ten bucks.
I called this guy a ghost pumpkin, but it’s a casper pumpkin. I’m not gonna lie and say that we planned to get a casper, it just looked good at the store. I read that they’re a bit sweeter than normal pumpkin. I donno. We split it in half and scooped out the seeds and strings and broiled the pumpkin for about a half hour.
Then we took the skin off and vac bagged it with cinnamon, star anise, mace, nutmeg, and a bit of maple syrup. It cooked at 85C for an hour and a half.
Freeze the pumpkin and blend, add Jeni’s Whiskey pecan ice cream. Eat the pecans or they’ll make it gritty, unless you blend a lot. Add booze. We did 12oz pumpkin, 6oz ice cream and 3oz bourbon.
I went to Tokyo with some friends from college about six years ago. We were staying in Marunouchi, a business district. It was raining. We were pretty tipsy. There was an old man pulling a cart cooking sweet potatoes over a fire. That was the best potato I’ve ever had. Smoky, sweet but not too much, crispy outside, wrapped in tinfoil.
I still think of sweet potatoes as smokey grilling food, so when we decided to make a camping dinner I got a few. We kept this pretty simple to spend more time sitting enjoying the moment than fussing over dinner. After oiling them up, we cooked the potatoes on the fire for about an hour. In foil for about 45 minutes then without. Maggie made a sauce from a mixture of fish sauce, soy sauce, miso, molasses, black garlic rice wine vinegar and the wizard (worchestershire). We drizzled the sauce and then topped them with goat cream cheese, jalapeno, cilantro, and crumbled wasabi peas. We also made some dogfish head sausages on the fire.
No camp dinner is complete without smores.
And drinks. We brought our crucial detail porthole. We mixed 2:1 bourbon to pear brandy and angoustura bitters. The porthole was stuffed with orange rind, cinnamon, an apple, oak chips, and some dried flowers. The drink was very seasonal tasting in the best way. Like delicious booze cider.
I was in a bit of funk the other night so Ed cajoled me into walking it off to a nearby bar. It’s the sort of place thats a little too hot and little too crowded until the dinner crowd trickles off and you remember that they serve skillets of melted cheese and tiki drinks dressed up enough to lighten any mood. Nothing turns the night around like a tiny umbrella.
Ed’s grandma was celebrating her 91st birthday this weekend so we decided to give the gift that keeps on giving and bring a big bowl of tiki punch. We decided to keep it simple with the Jungle Bird.
Lesson 1: Exciting tiki mugs are a lot more hard to come by (and more expensive) than you may anticipate. Luckily your grandmother may already have some! We filled in the gaps with some lucky finds from the wonderful folks at Who New.
Lesson 2: You may need to more than gently remind party guests to Add. Plenty. Of. Ice.
If you find that your lime cups aren’t quite as impressive as you like, try adding a little grain alcohol.
Meet Maggie & Ed
Cat Enthusiasts, Amateur Contractors, Professional Cheese Eaters.
