cocktails – Peaceful Reader

Memorable Memorial Weekend

I love a good three day weekend! I’ve accomplished quite a few things over the last three days but the best parts were several social occasions seeing friends and hugging people in my circle. We had an engagement party last night and a graduation party today. We also had lunch with friends on their patio. I made these strawberry rhubarb margaritas for the occasion. The recipe is from Minimalist Baker and they were delicious, so refreshing and tart.

Last week I tried a new recipe because I just couldn’t figure out what to make for dinner. We recently have had a lot of pasta and I’d made tacos and salmon other days so I just was looking for something different to try. A friend from school mentioned that she’d made lentil sloppy joes and so I searched and found a vegan recipe to try. I made them on Friday night and I loved them. Because of Groovy Girl’s tomato allergy I switched out the cans of tomato and used one 28-oz can of pumpkin. I feel like I could add in sweet potato to replace tomatoes as well. I had lovely brioche buns that I broiled in the oven first because I like them a little crispy/crunchy. Both my husband and I loved them and GG, well, she was not quite as in love because it had onions (next time I would make sure to really dice up the onions) but she ate it. I liked that it was a super easy slow cooker recipe that I put together and it was done in about 3 hours. Here is the recipe I used from Yummy Mummy Kitchen and here is another one I plan to try next time from again the amazing Minimalist Baker.

I did do some gardening this weekend as well, channeling my lovely Grandma Bruch. I think of her so much as I cook and plant as those are two areas she excelled at in life. She loved geraniums and irises and planted lots of vegetables. My love of rhubarb comes from her as she had a several large plants and did a lot of baking and jam making with the stalks. She was an amazing and wonderful grandma and I miss her very much. I’m glad my son was able to spend so much time with her and I’m sad that she never met my daughter. I can still hear her voice calling my name. I wish she and I could play one more game of spite and malice, our family card game. I can still hear my dad’s voice as well and I wish I could play one more game of backgammon with him.

How did you spend your weekend?

Weekly Recipes 11; Brunch!

We love brunch; making it, eating it, sharing with friends. I made a lovely meal on Sunday for all five of us plus a friend.

{bloody mary ingredients rounded up; somehow the
pickles refused to be in the shot}

Again we started with Bloody Mary’s (homemade is the way to go). The over 21 crew each had one while I was finished cooking. We chatted with Heather who came bearing gifts of champagne and orange juice. Second favorite brunch drink! What a great day.

For eats I made homemade crepes and since elder daughter and I couldn’t decide on either savory or sweet we went all out with both; just in less quantity.

I used two great recipes for both; savory chicken (this filling was wonderful) from Food Network and sweet from Natasha’s Kitchen. I made a double batch of crepes from Natasha’s recipe, leaving out the sugar. They are so easy to make no one should have to purchase them unless you’re cooking for a huge crew or are seriously pressed for time. Just swirl, flip, and save between sheets of parchment. I made them the night before and stored them in the refrigerator. I followed the sweet recipe for the greek yogurt/cream cheese but created my own fruit sauce using frozen wild blueberries, the favorite fruit of the kids here.

My son pointed out as we were menu planning for this brunch that I haven’t made crepes for a while. Now that I’ve done it again I promise to put it in my regular meal rotation.

We played several rounds of Beyond Balderdash after the plates were cleared. A good game is as important as the food/drink served!

Swiss Chard Jamboree!

{source}

I have a huge bunch of swiss chard thanks to my mom. What do you do with swiss chard? That’s what I asked. I google and checked Pinterest for suggestions. I found bunches of recipe to help me out. One discovery was that I could use the brightly colored stems as well. I made this egg dish and it was delicious (Groovy Girl would not eat it though) but husband and I loved it. I could have added other veggies as well and I like that flexibility.

{From Martha’s website}

Swiss Chard Frittata (Martha Stewart)

1 large egg
10 large egg whites
1/3 cup fresh part-skim ricotta, pressed through a fine sieve
1/2 tsp course sea salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 leaves of swiss chard, thin slices of stems and leaves
1/2 large onion, sliced thinly

Preheat oven to 375*. Whisk together egg, whites, ricotta, 1 tsp of salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large oven proof 10-inch skillet over medium high heat. Add swiss chard stalks and onion and cook until onion is tender. Add swiss chard leaves and cook about 2 minutes until leaves are soft. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 tsp of salt. Add egg mixture and stir once or twice to disperse vegetables evenly. Place skillet in oven and bake until eggs are set about 13 minutes. Serve immediately.

Okay, I choose not to run to the grocery store so I did a little substituting. I didn’t do the egg white ratio-I used our delicious farm brown eggs with glee. I did not happen to have ricotta so I used sour cream-close enough, right? Also I did not have an onion (we were just back from vacation) but I did have a red pepper which I used and it added nice matching color with the red stems of swiss chard. Done. I could make it again correctly-I would like to see how the ricotta cheese would taste but no big deal.

Other swiss chard recipes to try:

Swiss Chard pesto from Jeannette’s Healthy living blog
Swiss Chard Vegan rolls from Meet the Shannon’s blog (I am making these this week!)
Gemelli with sausage, swiss chard, and pine nuts from Martha (again)
and a great demonstration from Cooking Light on how to prep swiss chard.

Also I discovered this little doozy of a summer cocktail at Nutmeg Nanny and I love it as much as my rhubarb-basil treat. Yum! Perfect for sipping on the patio at oh, about 5 pm. Lemons and cucumbers are easy ingredients.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Take a look over there and see many other food-related posts.

Rhubarb, glorious rhubarb

{my cover}

My mom stocked me up with an armful of rhubarb. I can’t seem to get a plant to grow in my yard which is unfortunate because I love the stuff. Did you know it is a vegetable by the way? Yep.

Yesterday I washed and chopped up about 6 cups of the reddish stalks and made 3 containers of rhubarb sauce and used the last 2 cups to make a rhubarb ice tea. I then used the iced tea to create a delicious cocktail after googling basil and rhubarb together.

Both the tea recipe and the sauce recipe are pulled from a lovely little book I pulled from a shelf in a gas station and while I don’t usually buy my books from such convenience stores this one was too good to pass up. The Joy of Rhubarb; the versatile summer delight by Theresa Millang (Adventure Publishing) is packed full of wonderful recipes.

{New and improved cover}

Rhubarb Sauce

(A versatile
sauce…good over ice cream or chicken)

1 1/2 cups
granulated sugar

1 T water

1 T finely
shredded orange peel

6 cups fresh
rhubarb slices 1/4-in thick

1 tsp pure
vanilla extract

Mix sugar, water
and orange peel in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add rhubarb and
stir. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, stirring often, until rhubarb is
tender and mixture is thickened, about 8 minutes. Stir in vanilla.
Cool. Spoon into glass jars; cover and refrigerate for no more than
1 week, or place in plastic containers and freeze.

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I used a mixture of stevia and organic sugar as I’m experimenting with stevia. I let mine simmer for more than 8 minutes as I want it to be mush. I generally use mine as a jam but since I’m trying to be more gluten-free I plan to stir a teaspoonful into my greek yogurt for breakfast. I saved one container out to use and stashed the other two in the freezer to use later. I tried a few spoonfuls and the stevia held up just fine.

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Rhubarb Ice Tea

For flavor variation, add a
cinnamon stick when cooking, and stir in fresh lemon juice when serving.

8 stalks rhubarb, cut into 3-inch
pieces

8 cups water

1/3 cup sugar

Bring rhubarb and water to a boil
in a large saucepan. Reduce heat; simmer
1 hour. Strain; discard the pulp. Stir sugar into the hot liquid until
dissolved. Cool. Serve over ice. Garnish with mint, Lavender sprigs, or lemon
slices. Makes 6 servings.

Again I used stevia and the flavor was great. I poured it over ice and made this rhubarb basil cocktail from Elizabeth at The Kitchn. It was refreshing and perfect for a hot summer day. I took several photos of my rhubarb cooking but have to resort to using her beautiful picture as my husband left the house with our camera this morning. Probably for the best as my picture couldn’t do it justice. Yum!

{The Kitchn}

(Note to mom: I need more rhubarb)

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.