Tag: Cocktails

Tanis Inspired Cocktails #3 – The Navigator

The huge reveal of Tanis Episode 209 was that The Navigator is…

Yeah right, as if  I’m going to spoiler that!

No way!  You have 21 fascinating  episodes of murder, madness, conspiracy and stray right feet washing up on beaches before you can get to that reveal.  Having said that, there’s no need to be daunted, the Tanis back catalogue is still small enough that you could binge listen to it all in a weekend.

So get onto it. It is actually one of those things that is also worth a second (or third ) listen.

You could have a Geoff Van Sant moment and grab a beer while you listen. Or, even better,  make this super dry, super citrussy cocktail called The Navigator.

the-navigator3The Navigator & Clues to Tanis

The Navigator is to Eld Fen what the runner is to Tanis. Basically,  to get there you need one.  And you also need a map.

the-navigator4But maybe not a map like this.

Because even when you have a Navigator / Runner, you can only get to Eld Fen / Tanis when the stars don’t align.

As soon as I heard about the stars not aligning my first thought went to the line from  Space Oddity,  “And the stars look very different today”.   I don’t think it’s at all relevant but except maybe for the writers tipping their hat and giving a little nod to the late, great Mr David Bowie.  I hope it’s that and the twist about to come is not aliens.

The Navigator Cocktail

I found this on the ever reliable, always excellent Difford’s Guide.

Dry Gin, Limoncello and Pink Grapefruit Juice…three of my favorite things!  I added some additional lemon juice to mine.  I figured that if I was going to cut open a lemon from the garnish, I may as well use some of it in the drink too!

the-navigatorThis is so good!  The stars all align with The Navigator.  It is:

  • Lipsmackingly dry from the gin
  • Sweet from  the limoncello
  • Sour from the lemon juice
  • Bright with a hint of bitter from the grapefruit.

It’s like a flavour explosion in your mouth.

The Navigator could easily become one of my favorite cocktails!

Print

The Navigator

A refreshing dry and tangy citrus cocktail

Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 shots dry gin
  • 3/4 shot Limoncello
  • 1 1/4 shot freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
  • 1/2 shot freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • Lemon wheel to garnish

Instructions

  1. Shake all the wet ingredients with ice.
  2. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
  3. Garnish with the lemon wheel.
  4. Enjoy!

Tanis Speculation

I have no doubt Nic is about to go into the forest again but with whom? Per the first series, you need four.  So, Nic, The Navigator and two others.

If I was Nic, I’d take Geoff Van Sant and MK.  But then, given the choice, I’d probably take GVS and MK anywhere with me.  They’re the best.  I think GVS is my secret podcast crush.  What can I say, I happen to have a thing for guys with messy hair and alert eyes who like a drink or two.  And in my head he looks like Paul from Orphan Black.  And that is never a bad thing!

And MK is just the best.  She may also be my secret podcast crush!

I can’t wait…the series two final is fast approaching….I will try to align my fourth (and final) cocktail with that happening!

Breaking News!

Ladies of the PNW who need a thrilling secret conspiracy to liven up their lives?  GVS is trying dating again.  Why not have a beer with him?

‘kay people of the internet, we’re done.

Keep looking!

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REPOST – Future Classics – Australian Table – August 2001

Remember how I said I had a fab idea for a whole new series of blog posts whilst on holiday?  Here’s the thing, along with hundreds of cookbooks, I also have a huge collection of food magazines, most of which sit on shelves in my back room doing nothing.  Once a year, I grab a handful of the oldest, take them on holiday and cut out the recipes I want, throw away the magazines, and cook the recipes over the next 12 months.

Vodka With Crushed Limes2

Crispy Duck with Green Pancakes2jpg

Currently I have a few mags from the late 1990’s but they are most from the early noughties onwards.  So they are not quite but well on their way to becoming formally vintage.  My thought on holiday was….”These are the things that will shortly become the vintage recipes of the future.  So, instead of ripping them up, I’m going to start cooking from them.  Once a month, I’ll revisit one of these magazines, cook a thing or two and decide if these are future vintage classics – or just junk taking up space in my backroom.  Here are the early years to 2013:

Magazines1And here are 2014 to the present day:

Magazines2so, to start, we are stepping back in time 15 years to the August 2001 edition of Australian Table:

Australian Table August 2001 I also thought it might be fun to revisit some of the content of these magazine as well as the recipes, so without further ado, here are the:

Flavours of The Month – August 2001

This section spoke about what was in season.  I thought I might give it a little Retro Food For Modern Times Twist!

Sweet Potatoes

Huh….my plan was to insert a recipe or two from the blog.  However, apparently I have made nothing with sweet potatoes. I’ll link to some recipes  below.

Baby Bok Choy

Or anything with Bok choky.  What have I been cooking in for the last four years?

Cumquats

Hooray – Finally!

Click here for my Four Kumquat Canapés For Four Food Heroes recipes

Pineapples

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer and MC Cocktail

Pineapple soufflé

Movies of The Month

Oh man.  August 2001 was a GOOD month for movies!  I would quite happily watch Bridget Jones’s Diary or Along Came a Spider today.  I don’t recall ever seeing Evolution but I am definitely putting that to rights, pronto.  I know it’s probably a little late with the picky picky however, Australian Table, I would like to point out that the chocolate-voiced, sloe-eyed maverick investigator is actually called Alex Cross.  The ACTOR is Morgan Freeman.  And what a difference a letter makes.  Slow-eyed which I typed at least a dozen times in the above paragraph makes you sound like you should be taking special classes.  Sloe-eyed…hello sexy!

Movies - August 2001

Music Of The Month

Well, I guess you can’t have it all.  I listened to none of these at the time nor do i have any real desire to seek out any of these.  Maybe the Elvis Costello.

Music August 2001

The Food

I chose two recipes from an article on fool proof party food starting with:

Vodka with Crushed Limes

Australian Table August 2001These are my flavours…this was so good!  Tangy, sweet delicious!

Crispy Duck with Green Scallion Pancakes

Crispy Duck with Green PancakesNo, these are my flavours!  Spicy, seductive!

Australian Table August 20012

Berry and Rhubarb Crumble

This recipe came from an advertisement for a 3 in one hand blender.  Crumble is pretty much already a classic but the addition of rhubarb instead of the more traditional apple?  Genius!

Rhubarb and Berry CrumbleRhubarb and Berry Crumble Recipe

Everything I made from this mag was SUPER! My view is that this is a definite future vintage classic!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk down memory lane!  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a mag from September 2001.  I hope it’s as good as this one!

Have a great week!

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B is for Baby Bundt, Bacon & Bay and Blonde Bombshells

B is also for Bozo, Blog and Birthday.

Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt

As in guess which bozo forgot to celebrate her own blog’s 2nd birthday on May 25th?

So, today we’re having a Belated (don’t worry, I promise I won’t capitalise every word that starts with a B) Birthday, (no really, I won’t) celebrating my second annivesary with food using the second letter of the alphabet.  See what I did?  Second year, second letter?

You’d think I planned it.

Maybe you should keep thinking that….I”m all for anything that makes me look better!!!

So anyway, it’s my birthday so let’s get this party started.  And I’ve said it before, and no doubt I will say it again, (purely because I’ve got a bottle of the stuff that isn’t going to drink itself) a retro party isn’t a retro party without Parfait Amour. And any party is better with a blonde bombshell!

Nope not like this, the blonde bombshell I am referring too is a cocktail made with the aforementioned Parfait Amour. I’m not sure why it’s called a Blonde Bombshell as it comes out a gorgeous dusky pinky purple.

First Course – The Birthday Blonde Bombshell

It’s my party…cocktails count as a course….in my perfect world, we would skip main meals altogether.  We would move from cocktails to fingerfood to dessert.

Blonde Bombshell

Wow!!!  I think I may have found my Parfait Amour drink of choice.  This was lovely!!!  Sweet and florally and almost kind of musky…it reminded me a little bit of Turkish Delight…maybe it was the roses in the Parfait Amour. Very girly, very pretty. Easy to drink….hmmm….maybe getting rid of that bottle won’t be as hard as I previously thought!

Second Course – Bay Wrapped Bacon and Prunes

Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon3
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon3

This is basically a take on a Devils on Horseback.  But wrapped in a bayleaf. And I added a little smear of my Strawberry Habanero Sauce to the bacon before wrapping it around the prunes.

Note for the unwary – grilling bay leaves makes your entire kitchen smell like you’ve been smoking marijuana.  For about a week.  Which is fine until you have a plumber come to fix your leaking tap and they ask you if you can score them some bud.

Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon

I barely even know what that means.

Despite that, you really can’t go wrong with these…salty, sweet, spicy, crispy…The bay leaves added a slight resiny flavour that was quite pleasant but prevented the bacon from getting really crispy which was slightly disappointing.

I served it them with some more of the strawberry habenero sauce.  And the saltiness was a great foil to the sweetness of the Blonde Bombshell.

 

Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon2
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon2

Delicious!

But now to the piece de resistance. The dessert.

So….what’s better than a triple chocolate baby bundt?

A QUADRUPLE chocolate baby bundt.

And what’s better than a quadruple chocolate Baby Bundt?

A Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt!

Third Course – Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt

So, if you’re following me on Instagram you would have already seen me post my first experiment with the Spice Peddler’s Mexican Chilli Chocolate Cake Mix.  That was a Chili Chocolate Cupcake with a Chilli Toffee Shard topped with Vanilla Icecream and my Strawberry Habenero Sauce.  OMG, I thought this was the best thing ever…so, so good.  The cake was fudgy and spicy and delicious, the vanilla icecream and chilli sauce worked together perfectly and the chilli toffee was a cute and quirky touch.  Basically, this was me on a plate!!!!

Chocolate Chilli Cupcake with A Chilli Toffee Shard
Chocolate Chilli Cupcake with A Chilli Toffee Shard

Gahhh….so how do you top that?

Well, I found a recipe for a cake called a Tyroler in a Delicious Magazine and I had a little play with it.  And came up with the Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt.   I used the Spice Peddler Mexican Chilli Chocolate Cake Mix as my base and it was super delicious!

Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt 5
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt 5

This was really good.  Then again, how could it not be?

It had quadruple chocolate.

And a touch of chilli.

And walnuts.

And rum soaked sultanas.

And did I mention quadruple chocolate?

Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt3
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt3

So, it may have been belated but worth the wait because these were all awesome!!!!

I’ll try to be on time next year and if not, I can always repost this and rename it Birthday 3 – Cocktails, Canapés and Cake.

Hope you all have a fabulous week!!!!

(Recipes below)

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Print

Blonde Bombshell

A delicious cocktail, perfect for a celebration.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1/2 ounce Parfait Amour
  • 1/2 ounce St Germain Elderflower Liqueur
  • Sparkling Wine, preferably pink, definitely chilled

Instructions

  1. Pour the Parfait Amour into a chilled champagne flute.
  2. Add the Elderflower Liqueur.
  3. Top with the sparkling wine.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1

Cheap Love and a Cheap Date…Happy V Day!

As Valentine’s day looms,  I thought I would take a leaf out of the lovely Emily (aka Yinzeralla’s) book and share one of my dating horror stories with you.

Then we’ll have a cocktail and drink to forget.

Cheap Love Cocktail
Cheap Love Cocktail

But first lets step back in time to the late 90’s.  I was fancyfree and footloose.  And I met a boy who was funny, handsome and smart.

Or so he seemed the night I met him.

Mind you, my view may have been slightly skewed by a shit ton of booze and a pair of inch thick beer goggles. He called me a few days later and we arranged to have dinner at a Thai restaurant in the city.  He claimed it was the best Thai restaurant in Melbourne.  I’d never heard of it.  This should have been a red flag.

 

Cheap Love Cocktail
Cheap Love Cocktail

It wasn’t.

The place looked like it should have been condemned.  And believe me, I had plenty of time to examine it as I waited for him to show up.

At 15 minutes, I ordered a glass of wine and placed mental bets on which cockroach would crawl up the wall faster.

At half an hour I called his cell.  It went to voicemail.  I ordered another glass of wine. And, bored with the cockroaches, I counted the rest of the health code violations.

He arrived 45 minutes late.  “Got caught up” he said.  No sorry.  Just “Got caught up”.

Another red flag.

Cheap Love Ingredients
Cheap Love Ingredients

Which I ignored.

Because I’m stupid.

And you  know, it wasn’t like he was a brain surgeon, who couldn’t put down the scalpel to make a call.

He was an auditor.

Third red flag.

We moved from the bar to a table.  He ordered two Coronas.

“Wow, you  must be thirsty” I said. “Two beers”

“One of them’s for you”

“I don’t drink beer”

“Beer goes with Thai food.  No one drinks wine with Thai food.”

Yeah?  Just watch me.  Waiter?  Another Sauv Blanc please.

Cheap Love Ingredients 2
Cheap Love Ingredients 2

He then proceeded to order for both of us.  And let me tell give you a little clue gentlemen who read this…this is not Mad Men retro sexy.  It’s arrogant and obnoxious and patronising and makes your date want to punch you in the face. Repeatedly.

And quelle surprise, he had an unerring ability to pick the exact things on the menu I least wanted to eat.  Not that I wanted to eat there anyway.  Refer  back to my comment about the cockroaches and the code violations….

So,  by now, I kind of hated him and just wanted this farce to be over.  He could have two meals to go with his two beers.  I ordered another glass of wine.

He frowned.  “That’s your second” he said,  voice aghast.  It was actually my fourth but who was counting.

“Yeah, I know” I said.

“But….but…they’re seven dollars a glass”

“I’ll pay for them,”  I may have said this through gritted teeth. Then next time the waiter passed, I asked him just to bring the bottle over.

Muddling the Cheap Love
Muddling the Cheap Love

My date then talked about himself the whole meal.  And ate all the food.  Often at the same time.

That was delightful and endearing.  Whoops, no, I meant disgusting and nauseating.

When the bill arrived, I put down a 50 for the food I hadn’t eaten, (I paid for my wine separately).  He claimed not to have any change, pocketed my money and paid on a card.  I’d eaten a piece of broccoli and a spoonful of rice.

He then asked me how I was getting home.

“Taxi” I said.

He offered to drive me home.  Which seemed like an incongruous act of chivalry.  But yeah, ok…given I had paid for six fifths of the dinner I reasoned he probably felt he owed me.

So we drove to my house.  Parked out the front.  He turned and gave me a look of intense expectation.

I’m sure I didn’t do a good job of hiding my horror.  He honestly didn’t expect me to kiss him did he?

Cheap Love 3
Cheap Love 3

Short answer, no he didn’t.  Because the next words out of his mouth were  “So, what would a taxi here cost?”

“Twelve….maybe fifteen dollars”

“So how about you put in ten for petrol?”

I didn’t have a ten.  He took the twenty I gave him and drove off.  Thankfully, never to be seen or heard of again.

I went inside and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich.  Nearly a hundred bucks down and I still had to make myself dinner!

But, enough about him.  Let’s talk about the Cheap Love.

Cheap Love 4
Cheap Love 4

Parfait Amour, meaning Perfect Love in French is a much maligned liqueur, redolent of the 1970’s and sickly sweet concoctions.  However it is a gorgeous colour and my  local alcohol shop claims it is used in many romantic cocktails.

“Flavoured using rose petals, vanilla and violets it is no wonder that Parfait Amour is so closely associated with love”

Wait up what?  Rose petals, vanilla and violets?

You may as well just say raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens….

 

Parfait Amour
Parfait Amour

So , what could be better than celebrating Valentine’s Day with a cocktail made from a liqueur called Perfect Love?

And voila…..

The Cheap Love Cocktail

To make the Cheap Love, you mix Parfait Amour with  delicious berries, yummy orange and lovely lemonade.

So on the surface this should be the most amazing cocktail ever right?

Hmm, yeah….Not so much.

Best I can say is….it wasn’t awful.

And that’s what you call damning something with faint praise…

No, seriously, it wasn’t bad, it was just….bland.  And horrendously, tooth achingly, sweet.  And that’s coming from someone who has been known to sit in front of the telly with a tin of condensed milk and a spoon!

If I was to make this again,  I would add some zing, maybe with some lime juice and also maybe a kick of a flavoursome gin like Hendricks – I think the floral notes in the Hendricks would combine well with the floral notes in the Parfait Amour.

And now that I have a bottle of it to get through, we may be seeing a little bit more of it on here.

I can’t hardly wait.

Anyway, Happy Valentines day everyone, and in a complete reversal of this post may your dates be sweet and your cocktails cheap!

Oh and sorry, sorry, sorry if you got a bulk lot of everything I ever posted yesterday….we’re having some technical problems at la maison de la retro food!

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Retro Food In the News – Vintage Christmas Ideas

I read an article called Have Yourself a Very Vintage Christmas today.  (It is no longer online so I have removed the link.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/christmas/have-yourself-a-very-vintage-christmas-20131204-2yqzu.html

The Pita Bread Christmas Trees mentioned in the article  are adorable.  And, will be featuring in my Christmas menus.

The article mentioned Susan’s Party Loaf which is this gorgeous looking thing

However, if you are going down that route you could also try this very pretty version from Betty Crocker.  You really know you’re taking a ride on the way-back machine when you have a completely gratuitous use of food colouring!

Betty Crocker Party Loaf

And the Madras Cocktail ?  Take a look at this piece of awesomeness…

Madras Cocktail
Madras Cocktail

Don’t drink them all they say?  Who are they kidding?   The recipe which is here

put me in mind of the old Dorothy Parker quote:

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under the  host.”

This thing might not just knock your socks off, it could take your ankles with it.

I  can’t wait to try it!

So what retro treats are you all planning for Christmas?

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