Tom Kha Gai Martini

Yes, like the Thai soup, but only vaguely. Tom Kha Gai is such a yummy awesome savory soup whose prominent flavors are coconut milk, lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves.  Sounds like a drink to me.
I came up with this martini last year as a way to deal with all the amazing citrus that I scored on the ranch. The Kaffir limes were especially intriguing to me with their wrinkly skin, all puckered and slick.  And they smell uh-mazing.
I have since seen them at Whole Foods for a few bucks a pop. I would say that the flavor of these Kaffir limes are so distinct and fresh that they are totally worth it in these martinis. The first thing I did was I infused a bottle of vodka with a stalk of lemon grass. Nothing fancy, I basically just put a bunch of beat up lemongrass (if you smash it, the oils come out) into a bottle and let it infuse on a shelf for about a month.
I had this in my freezer all ready to go when the Kaffir limes came my way, so everything was fresh.  Not sure if the Kaffir limes will be around in January still, so I'm sure you can infuse the vodka in a week if you want to try this asap just stick some more lemon grass in there.

Then I made an infused simple syrup.

Kaffir Lime Simple Syrup
The Rind of 2 Small Kaffir Limes
2 Cups of Sugar
1Cup of Water

I took the rind of two small Kaffir limes and placed them in a sauce pan with 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water. I brought it to a boil and let it cool and stew a little. Once the syrup cooled on the stove top, I strained out the rind pieces and transferred the liquid to a squeeze bottle.

Here's what you need...

Tom Kha Gai Martini
1/4 Cup Lemongrass Infused Vodka
1/4 Cup Coconut Water (optional dash of Coco Loco if you like creamy drinks)
1 Tablespoon Kaffir Lime Syrup
Juice of 1/2 a Key Lime (or regular limes)

In a shaker filled with ice, combine the ingredients and shake it up.  Put it into a sugar rimmed martini glass and party.  It's perfect for holiday cocktail time.  Beware though... they are strong and taste like wonderful.

Spiced Cranberry Poached Pears

These are my Holiday secret weapons. The ultimate in versatility. This recipe yields so many options and culinary variations that making them a few days before any holiday is just smart. It yields a cocktail mixer, garnish, a holiday salad component, dressing ingredient and a wonderful desert.

Spiced Cranberry Poached Pears & Syrup

1 gallon of sweetened cranberry juice
5 bosc pears
1 slice of lemon peel
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of mulling spices (juniper berries, star anise, cloves)

Peel pears with a fruit peeler.
Slice them in half, leaving the stem on if you like (I like).
Core with a melon-baller and a paring knife.
Find a nice cranberry juice or juice blend (one without high fructose corn syrup)
Put the cleaned pears in a large sauce pan and cover with the juice.
Add cinnamon stick, lemon peel, star anise, cloves and juniper berries.

Cook until the pears are tender. Remove the pears and spices and let the sauce reduce by over a half.

Once it is thick, sweet and syrupy (coating the back of the spoon) and your house smells like wonderful, consider the following options...

#1 Warm poached pears with vanilla ice cream and spiced cranberry syrup
(Or let the syrup and pears cool in the fridge for up to four days and make...)
#2 Salad w/baby greens, chilled poached pears, blue cheese & candied walnuts
#3 Cranberry salad dressing (olive oil, cranberry syrup, Dijon mustard, lemon, salt & pepper)
#4 Cranberry/Champagne cocktail (Champagne, cranberry syrup & a lemon peel)
#5 Chilled pears for breakfast. Perfect for a New Years hangover.

I hope you try them and I hope you love them. If you come up with any other awesome uses for these beauties, leave a comment below because I can't get enough of them.

The Bride, The Groom... & Fernando The Taco Man

A few weeks ago, The Husband and I threw an engagement party for our good friends Rick and Robin (whose wedding we are officiating in June). This party was so much fun to put together. We gave it a vacation theme because Rick and Robin's initials are R&R and also because, well, they like to party. We live in the front house of a triplex and our neighbors in the back have a huge beautiful yard. With their generosity, in two days, we turned that yard into a vacation-party paradise.

Meet the bride and groom...

This is Fernando the Taco Man. I'm in love with his Tacos. Like crazy in love. We had to feed 35-40 people at our party, so instead of working myself to the bone, I made drinks and cake and Fernando took care of everything else. It was awesome.

He brings his cart and all the ingredients and stays for 4 hours. His tacos are fresh, well seasoned, and delicious. We had, pastor, carne asada, carnitas, chicken, grilled onions, grilled mild peppers, rice, beans, guacamole, chips, two salsas, cilantro chopped onions, radishes and limes wedges. If you are planning a party where you have too feed 30+ people, I absolutely recommend Fernando (his number is (626) 278-6327). He was such a nice man, with such an amazing service. Look at all this yum....


The Husband ate seven tacos that afternoon. Seven. And the best part was that there were plenty of leftovers for dinner that night (and then some).

I made homemade margaritas with fresh squeezed orange juice.

We bought Mexican Cokes made with cane sugar. Yum.

And the Bride's favorite beer.

I made a double batch of The Pioneer Woman's Tres Leches Cake and managed to tier it.

And this Lemon bundt cake is my favorite recipe from the book 'Under The Tuscan Sun' buy Francis Mayes (I'll blog this one soon, it's too good).

Rick has an affinity for beer coozies, so we stole all of his collection and added some of our own for everyone to use. This one was epic.

Until...

The whole day was so fun because I didn't have to kill myself in the kitchen and we could still eat like a kings. But best of all, Rick and Robin had a blast and all their friends left happy and full.
We cannot wait for next Summer! These people, know how to party. Love you R&R.

The Santa Barbara Mojito Party

My Mother loves mojitos. This wouldn't normally be adorable and strange except for the fact that most of my life, my parents never drank. Growing up, we had a stocked bar in the house but only used it for parties. Every once and a while they would maybe have a glass of wine, but that was rare and reserved for special occasions. It's astounding that my sister and I share their genetics. I'm not sure what happened to my Mom and Dad exactly but somewhere between becoming empty-nesters and retirement, my parents started to drink a little more often. Usually it's just one (lets not get crazy now) at a dinner party or restaurant. My mother loves a mixed fruity drink and my father a glass of red wine. I'm not sure why I find it so endearing. It's just that they have always been such highly functioning, by-the-book intellectuals it's nice to see them (in their 70's) throw caution to the wind and have a mojito every once and a while. Who says people can't change.

I grew up in Santa Barbara. I am totally bias but, I think it is the the most beautiful place in the world. My parents lived there for 40 years and then two years ago, they moved and retired to North Carolina. I am still coming to terms with this fact. I mean, North Carolina is beautiful and they are happy there but it seems pretty fucking crazy to me that anyone would voluntarily move out of Santa Barbara. I mean I moved, but I was also, 22 and I have never claimed sanity.

My Mom and Dad still come 'home' every now and again to visit their doctors, dentist, friends and daughter. But I think they are missing us less and less. North Carolina is a charmer. A month ago when they came to town, I threw them a big fat (don't you miss us) party. And to sweeten the pot, I made mojitos. There were a lot of mojitos and Cuban fish tacos. It was quite a feast.

Dorien's Mojitos
In an empty rocks glass (the short fat kind) muddle together
One T Sugar (NOT POWDERED)
Fresh juice of one lime
1/4 cup of fresh mint leaves
Add ice to glass
Add one shot of light rum
Top off with sparkling water
Mix with spoon
For extra flavor add a floater of one T dark rum (optional)

I didn't take any photos of the cocktails because I spent most of the night muddling them and they were consumed in seconds. Mea Culpa. Here was my spread...


This fish taco recipe was taken from ALL RECIPES and they were the best grilled fish tacos I've ever made/eaten. The chipotle-lime crema was to die for.


I also made this awesome and incredibly SIMPLE SALSA From Mary and Alison's beautiful blog. I've made both the salsa and fish tacos again since this meal. I cannot reccomend them enough.

My godparents hosted the party at their beautiful Upper West Side Spanish bungalow, a home that I practically grew up in. All the usual suspects showed up. Friendships that my parents have cultivated for 30 plus years picked up right were they left off. We ate and drank and laughed into the night. I would be fooling myself if there wasn't a little part of me that hoped that they would be convinced to stay but the following week they packed up their little red car and drove back across the country. Yes they drive. Somethings are not subject to change.

Sweet Tea & A Grownup Arnold Palmer

Since I began my exploits into the realm of mixology, I've had tons of leftover Lavender Simple Syrup. It's also been hotter than balls so I made this...

Dorien's Sweet Tea
8 C boiling water
2 Lipton Iced Tea Brew Tea Bags
A handfull of mint
Lavender simple syrup to taste

Boil the water and steep tea for 5 minutes, throw mint in while it's hot and let it cool on your stove. Transfer to a pitcher and into the fridge when it's tepid. You can sweeten the tea after it cools or while it's hot (the syrup dissolves regardless). It's so simple but so refreshing when all you want to do is take a nap in your refrigerator. Alright, now for the doozie, on the 4th of July we modified this recipe and made these...

Grown Up Arlonld Palmers
1 part vodka
3 parts "Dorien's Sweet Tea"
1 part lemonade

Good luck with that. Happy Friday.

Kumquat & Lavender Gin Rickey ('The Mouth Party')

Last weekend, I won (barely) the 2010 Lake Hume Conquistador's Original Drink Contest. That sounds a lot more official than it really is. Basically what it means is that I now have a crystal moose on my fridge.
He needs to be mounted and engraved but for now, he's just a freestyle moose, hagnin' out with the booze.

I kid you not, there were some really, really good drinks made on this camping trip. One couple, boiled pine cones in lemonade chilled it and served it like a Gin and Juice. One drink had pine liqueur, another made fresh grapefruit juice, another made one called 'Gone Swedish Fishing" with lingonberry syrup and a Swedish fish floating at the bottom of the glass. All were super tasty. The one that I voted for and tied with was a muddled drink that had mint, lime, cucumber, gin and ginger beer. We won in a tie breaker but we probably should have just tied. That drink was awesome. I'm going to try to get the recipe to share with you because I really want to make it again. Until then, here's what I made...

"The Mouth Party"

-Gin
2 (750ml) bottles of Tanqueray Gin
1 lb of kumquats (approximately enough to fill a strawberry basket)
One big jar

-Lavender Simple Syrup
1 T culinary lavender
2 c refined white sugar
1 c water

-Mixers
Limes, oranges, grapefruit, lemons (a combo of any, or all mixed together)
sparkling water

For The Gin

2 of these.

Take the kumquats and wash and quarter them all. Then peel back the meat and discard into your compost. The skin on a kumquat is much much sweeter than the meat inside. You can leave it on but it will make your Gin very bitter.

It should look like this.

Add the gin to the kumquats and let the citrus flavor sink into the gin.

I eventually filled this jar to the top with gin. Also, make sure your jar is airtight. Find it a home on the counter or in a cabinet (not in the fridge) and leave it alone for 2 + months.

For The Lavender Simple Syrup
(make a few days before you drink the cocktail)

Add sugar and water in a sauce pan

Culinary lavender can be purchased at a specialty store, online or at a local farmer's market. Don't cook with the sachet kind please.

Add lavender to sauce pan.

Simmer on medium heat until sugar is melted, and mixture is the consistency of maple syrup.

Let the syrup cool and strain off lavender buds.
I put it in the fridge in a $2 squeeze bottle from the restaurant supply store. Otherwise it gets messy.

Mixing The Cocktail

1 part citrus juice (any are good, I use lemons and limes the most)
1 part lavender simple syrup
2 parts Kumquat Gin
4 parts sparkling water

Gently shake it up (beware of the soda explosion), put a little syrup on a plate and rim the glass with it then garnish with a wedge of citrus or a sprig of fresh lavender (I didn't have any). It's like a really complex grownup lemonade. So, so good.


I only had one, I swear.

Kitchen Gadget Glory: Mukka Express

I've never been a fan of fancy kitchen gadgets, or I wasn't until I got a bunch of awesome ones as wedding gifts. Before the wedding, I was using my mother's old warped pots and pans and some plastic cooking utensils that family friends gave me when I got my first apartment. Every now and then, I would get a nice knife as a Christmas gift or I'd invest in a good baking dish or cast iron pot. But I never passed a Sur La Table with the intention of buying anything. I was fine making due with what I had and teaching myself to cook great food on a starving-artists budget.

Now that my idealism is out there, I should probably come clean...

I always secretly coveted my friend Becca's stove top cappuccino maker. I'm not sure what it was exactly, the foam, the espresso, the combination of the two? But it made the greatest coffee. I would drive up to Santa Barbara for a weekend at her house and get super excited about breakfast. I'm not normally a morning person but I loved that cup of coffee. 6AM? No problem. I loved it so much that I started adding on a mid day pick-me-up cup. By the time I made the drive back to LA, I was either on a full blown caffeine high or crashing into oblivion.

Happily, I seem to have taught myself a little moderation, now that Becca's parents have bought me one as a wedding gift.

I say me not us, because The Husband doesn't drink the stuff. Insanity, I know. So here is the vehicle for my happy morning time. If you are a gadget person, I would highly recommend buying one. If not, come over and I'll make you a half dozen cups or so.