I’ve had this recipe for so long it’s not true…and also, I have no inkling of the original source. Apologies to the brilliant individual who came up with it! And if that individual is you, please reach out so I can give you proper credit!! đđ»
Ingredients (for 1 serving â though can be multiplied easily for a crowd!) Âœ c tequila (yes, you read that right!!) 4 T freshly squeezed juice (I typically start with 4 lemons, 2 limes and half an orange, then add more in increments until I have enough) 2 T honey
Technique Pour the tequila into a measuring cup (I’m usually making a batch of 2-6 of these at a time, so start with a cup size that’s large enough to handle the final liquid amount) and measure honey into the measuring cup to let it get comfortable with the booze. I give it a stir at this point and then turn my attention to the juice â squeeze those lovely little citruses and stir them all together. Going back to the boozy part, stir the honey in with vigor (but no spilling!!) until it’s a nice, golden mixture. Measure the juice in, give it another stir, then pour into a glass and top with a fair bit of ice. And sip away!!
This recipe is both delicious and unusual, can be served hot, cold or warm… and you should make it right now!
Ingredients (for 4 servings) Pasta 4 Tbsp rice vinegar 2 Tbsp soy sauce 2 Tbsp black vinegar 1 Tbsp chili oil (like Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Chili Oil) 1 Tbsp shrimp sauce (like Lee Kum Kee Fine Shrimp Sauce) 2 tsp sugar 12 oz Fettuccine (or whatever pasta you have on hand!)
Pork 1 Tbsp oil (I used olive oil, but any mild oil will work) 12 oz pork, minced 1 tsp salt 5 garlic cloves, minced 1 2-inch piece ginger, grated on microplane 4 green onions, light parts finely chopped, green parts reserved for garnish (see below)
Garnish 1 carrot, brunoised 3 Tbsp rice vinegar 1 Tbsp water 1 tsp sugar œ tsp salt œ cup cilantro leaves Œ c Italian parsley leaves 6 radishes, julienned Green onion greens left over from the pork preparation, sliced on the diagonal
For Pasta Make dressing by combining rice vinegar, soy sauce, black vinegar, chili oil, shrimp sauce and sugar in a large bowl. Stir until sugar dissolves and set aside. Fill a dutch oven with water and season heavily so it tastes of the sea. Bring it to a boil and then turn off and cover. When all other components are ready to roll, bring the water back to a boil, add pasta and cook until just al dente.
For Pork Mince garlic, grate ginger (if you use a microplane for this, there’s no need to even peel it!) and chop the light parts of the green onions and set aside. Mince the pork with a sharp knife (a good trick is to freeze the meat for 15 minutes or so and then mince it because that makes it easier to handle), and keep in mind that slightly non-uniform pieces are a good thing, as they add a nice contrast to the final dish. Heat oil in a larger frying pan over medium heat and add minced pork and salt. Cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until pork is mostly cooked through. Add garlic, ginger and chopped green onions and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed, then set aside.
For Garnish To make pickling liquid, stir together vinegar, water, sugar and salt in a small bowl until dissolved. Brunoise carrot, then add to the pickling liquid and let set for 15 minutes (or more!) until ready to serve. Slice green onion greens on the bias, pull cilantro and parsley leaves from stalks and set in two piles on cutting board, then julienne radishes and reserve with the herbs.
To Serve When the pasta is perfect, pull it out of the boiling water and drop directly into the bowl of dressing (I use tongs for this, as I’ll also use them to plate) and toss together until nicely coated. Use tongs to twirl a nice helping of pasta onto a plate or into a wide, low bowl on one side and add pork to the other side. If there’s more dressing in the bottom of the bowl, drizzle that over the noodles (yum!) then drain pickled carrots and sprinkle over pork. Arrange herbs, radishes and green onions over pork and pasta and serve it up!
All plated and ready for someone (like me!) to dig in.
This dinner started with an idea I saw in the New York Times, and quickly became my own!
We recently threw a little shindig at our house. It was kind of a house warming but mostly it was just time to throw a party. I mean, we moved in almost a year ago and have been madly sourcing more furniture and hanging artwork (we upsizedâŠI know. WHO DOES THAT?), working in the yard (we REALLY upsized the yard!) and making good on all the travel weâd planned before we moved into a big olâ house. So maybe it was past time that we threw a party!
Anyway, we had about 85 people over and I cooked for days, or maybe it was a week. Either way, the point is we had a fabulous time and enjoyed ourselves so much and the food was enough of a success that there are folks who want recipes. Which I am so happy to share! So, I thought Iâd just write a quick post with links to the base recipes and notes on the tweaks I use to take said recipes from good to great (there is, seriously, an entire blog post topic right there, so stay tuned for more on that!).
We tried to make sure that we had all the bases covered with the menu so there would be something for everyone â veg-y people, meat-y people, cheese-y people, gluten-free people. ALL the people. And so, the decision was made to have platters of things (by which I mean to say cutting boards, because I almost always use a bunch of cutting boards to set out the food at a party) like meats and cheese and veggies with dip along with baskets of sliced baguette and crackers (with AND without gluten, of course!). Which is also, note to self, a smart set-up for the hostess who wants to do more than just slave in the kitchen for the whole party!
Ready? Here we goâŠ
Cutting Board One â Meat-y Things
Served with cornichons and lots of Dijon mustard (my fav is Edmond Fallot)
Pork Rillettes Recipe: by David Lebovitz (I know Iâve already written about this Rillettes recipe, but it is such a winner that I think Iâll be making it for every party untilâŠwell, until there are no more parties). Tweaks: NOPE. None. Not even a one. So good just as it is!
A couple of nice cheeses on one side with a glorious Baked Brie en CroĂ»te on the other. Served with a mass of grapes…we found the most beautiful black grapes at Costco (of all places!) and they set off the cheeses quite nicely.
In an effort to keep it simple, I used green beans (blanched in water as salty as the sea for 4 minutes and then cooled on towels), heirloom baby tomatoes (I may have had a few leftover, which I turned into an amazing pasta dish a few nights later!) easter radishes (so pretty!) and rainbow baby carrots. Served with a bold, herby White Bean Dip (again, thank you David Lebovitz!) and a tangy Thousand Islands Dressing which is a gorgeous Saveur recipe that has earned a place in my secret arsenal of all things bullet-proof.
Last but not least, cookies. Said fella is a big baker and in our house, it’s a toss up as to which cookies are the bestâŠso he makes the kind I like AND the kind he likes. So everyone wins! His favorite is this Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the New York Times and mine is this Cranberry & White Chocolate Cookie recipe from his mother, Alice share with us by his sister, Heather. You really can’t go wrong with either, and the smart people usually have some of each which I feel is a very fine policy.
Plus, you know, we had sparkling water and wine and gin and vodka (with mixers) and rye whiskey (without!) and friends who brought wine like Tom and Lorrie Wilson from their award-winning ChĂąteau NoElle Vineyards & Winery and all the other fabulous folks who contributed wine or booze and good cheer and took the time to come on over to sit a spell and share stories with one another.
Which is, as far as I know, the secret to a really good party…it’s the people you know who come and make it wonderful. And on that count we feel very lucky indeed.
This sassy bunny is Jean Dau (born Polly Jean Boyles, but she couldn’t stand that first name, so Jean it was), whose 99th birthday would have been today.
She was my one and only grandmother, who we called Gram because as the grandkids started showing up when she was only 50 she would have no part of being a GRANDMOTHER or any such nonsense. I called her Granny Gooch and she called me Nilrad and we got on like houses afire except for when we didn’t. She taught me to ride horses and kick ass and take names and I taught her to swear like a sailor. Peas in a pod, really.
Despite tough times and all the good and bad that go into living on this planet, hers was not a sad story. Hers was a story of a rodeo princess and lifelong horsewoman who became a school teacher and lived the life she wanted to live with no apologies and plenty of grit who even now inspires me to keep putting one foot in front of the other even when I think I’m too tired to ever possibly go on.
At any rate, I digress. Suffice it to say that the only bad thing about my Gram dying at 91 in 2011 is that I don’t get to call her on the phone every Saturday any more. Though I do think I talk to her more often these days, oddly enough. I figure she can hear me better now without any device needed because I’m certain that wherever she is, she’s got her eyes and ears on me.
Every year on her birthday, I try to do a little something to honor the time I was lucky enough to spend with her, which usually involves eating something DELICIOUS that might be BAD FOR ME. Doesn’t that sound like fun??
This year, in honor of GG, I decided to whip up her favorite breakfast of biscuits and gravy and serve it for dinner (as one does). By which I mean to say, tender, fluffy, glorious biscuit pillows soaking up hefty dollops of milk gravy full of sausage and black pepper and served with eggs basted easy in bacon grease. We are, after all, talking about a woman who would sit and eat mayonnaise by the spoonful out of the jar with a look of sheer joy on her face.
I pretty much followed the recipe, with the exception of seasoning the gravy. It calls for sage and fennel, but when I reached into the spice cupboard to doctor it up, I discovered no sage…but I DID spy my little tin of fennel pollen and in a moment of inspiration, used that instead. (Side note here: if you haven’t had the good fortune to bump into fennel pollen yet, it’s worth the time and trouble to track some down. It is truly a little sprinkle of heaven! I found mine on Amazon. And if you get some and don’t know what to do with it, the nice folks at the Escoffier SCA have some ideas to share.) It makes it a little schmancier than the gravy that Gram used to eat, but from the results I can vouch â she would have loved it!
So here’s what things looked like when all was said and done. We drank a toast to Jean Dau and then tucked in to our breakfast for dinner (on the china that Gram gave me, of course!).
Baking powder biscuits, sausage gravy and bacon fat-basted egg
As luck would have it, weâre planning a trip to London and Paris for later this fall (I know, spoiled, right?!) and weâre busily getting various ducks in a row for said trip (or not so busily, because life seems to be zipping by more quickly than ever right now!), and I must say that the best part of the process is reaching out to our friends for recommendations and thoughts on planning.
For some magical reason, I happen to know a lovely and generous couple who hail from those exact places â sheâs from France and heâs from England â who are also both in the hospitality industry. I ask you, who better to shepherd us to all the bestest, rightest things to eat, drink and pretty while weâre there?!
When I pitched them with the idea of getting together, they graciously agreed to come over for dinner and share their thoughts, and so a date was set and the planning of a menu was begun and our home was readied for an evening full of all things French and English and delicious.
But, what to serve? Menu planning was a bit of a challenge, as Seattle is currently cusping from Summer to Fall. A particularly problematic, transitional time of year both for getting dressed and for planning menus, as far as I’m concerned: itâs hot, no itâs cold, no itâs windy, no itâs rainy. So hard to find the âjust right,â Goldilocks solution to so many things that are so rapidly changing… donât you think?
At any rate, after much backing and forthing, I settled on this:
Course 1 Rillettes (recipe courtesy of the always amazing @davidlebovitz) with cornichons and dijon
Course 2 Daube de Boeuf (a truly “arsenal-worthy” recipe from one of my favorite all time books, Cooking for Mr. Latte by the rockstar @amandahesser, formerly with The New York Times and now helming Food52 ) which requires a bit of time management and planning but is TOTALLY worth it (not even kidding… you may never make any other beef stew recipe again!)
Egg noodles fancied up with some compound butter and lots of fresh, chopped parsley
Course 3 Plum Cake (another “arsenal” recipe that comes from the Deb “the Delightful” Perelman of @smittenkitchen!) served with gently sweetened, softly whipped cream
And that, really, was that (unless you count that washing up). So with bellies full and hearts bursting with gratitude, we found ourselves a tiny bit closer to having a proper travel agenda and happily crawled into bed to, as the French so charmingly put it, “make beautiful dreams.”
From the very beginning of who we are, says a friend of mine, we have a motto in our heart of hearts. Sort of a âLife T-shirt,â if you will. At every party we went to in our 30âs, that was her icebreaker question to people she would meet, âWhatâs on YOUR Life T-shirt?
My original Life Tshirt, from birth I swear, is,âYou arenât the boss of me!â. Which morphed, over the years, into, âI donât know who you THINK you are, but youâre not the boss of me!â. Sassiness, evidently, increases with age.
And speaking of age, now that Iâm (ahem!) a bit older than dirt, I am happy â THRILLED, really â to have discovered that if weâre lucky and paying attention, we might even get to have more than one. So I have added another Life Tshirt to my mental wardrobe. Wanna know what it is? Open up your mind and say AHHHHHHHHH because itâs a really good one, if I do say so myself!
Are you ready for it? It is: JUST. SAY. YES. Three simple little words strung together in a row that can make things turn out even better than you can possibly imagine, no matter where you are or what youâre doing. Just say yes to those you love, to your dreams, to your aspirations, to opportunities that present themselves, to your very own little selfâŠto life. That is it. Just say yes to life.
I am fortunate to be surrounded by lots of ‘pretty’…after all, making the world a prettier place to be is what I do for a living! Every so often I work on a project that comes out so well and makes me feel so good that it’s hard to resist posting about it. So, the short and the sweet of it is that Treveri Cellars is one of the best wineries in Washington state â it’s a family operation making the most delish sparkling wine in the traditional method (you read that right: ALL SPARKLING ALL THE TIME!!). They just happen to be a client at my day job…a favorite client, if the truth be told, and yes we do ‘drink their koolaid’ as much as we possibly can.
Together, we worked on creating a special logo and label (based on the Grieb family crest) for their Reserve Club which focuses on Extended Tirage sparkling wines (if you want to read up on such things, Wine Folly has a great primer on such things here!). To see more great stuff from our work together, you can surf on over and read about a few projects herehere and here. OR, if you’re feeling footloose fancy, free and like a road trip would do you a world of good, skeddadle to their winery in Wapato, grab a bottle of bubs and sit out on their patio and enjoy the view…and the wine, of course!
I am a HUGE fan of simple, delicious, amazing cocktails. By which I mean to say, how few ingredients can we get away with and still fill our cups with an elixir that even the Gods couldn’t resist?
How about you? If you’re in that club, have I got a recipe for you! I found it when I was casting about for a cocktail to serve with Sausage Cheddar Balls (not even kidding) before a dinner of barbecue ribs and slaw with my fella and my dear friend Denise Minard (yes, it was scrumptious… yes, she will vouch for that… and yes, I will post about it in future so you can give it a whirl!).
I found this recipe on theMix That Drink website, and it seemed to fit all the usual requirements. Plus, it’s gin based (which they love and I don’t, really, but a good hostess must make the occasional concession!) AND, really the best part of all, I could use the transformational Empress Gin to make it drop dead gorgeous. Full stop on that â if you haven’t experienced the most beautiful gin on the planet, go out and get thee a bottle right now and mix it with anything acidic and prepare your jaw for dropping. It’s made with butterfly pea blossom, so changes color as acid is added…and if you layer the ingredients properly, there’s more than one color change! Try this: gin + limoncello = green + lemon juice = pink. YAY!
At any rate, it was a smash hit and summery and lovely and so I thought I’d share it here with you. You can find the recipe on my Pinterest quaffs board and I’ve even designed a little pdf you can download if you’d like something pretty to show your guests when you make it…. because you will.
Iâm a fan of keeping a larder stocked with lots of things that make certain moments easier. Moments like âhoney, some friends and I are on our way and everyone is famishedâ or like âwhat a day, whoâs cooking, oh shit itâs meâ. You know those moments, or at least Iâd like to think that Iâm not the ONLY one with those moments. And in the spirit of sharing our superest and handiest secrets so we can all live our best lives, hereâs an example of what one might do in just such a moment.
This is a dinner I threw together one bleak night after my fella and I had experienced a fairly long day. A day so long that we didnât even want to go out and have someone else cook (!) and I couldnât bring myself to do absolutely nothing, because doing even just a little something in the kitchen always makes me feel better. And so I turned to some tasty bits that are usually lurking in the back of the fridge and pantry to make a little something out of nothing.
First, I made a batch of tuna and chickpea salad (for which there really is no recipe, but does have lots of lemon juice and zest; chopped onion, parsley, celery and celery leaves; a bit of mustard; a good glug of olive oil and a generous amount of salt and black pepper), which you can see at the center of the board and lettuce leaves for dolloping it into and wrapping around for munching.
To the left is a dish of the most delightful Thousand Islands Dressing (recipe courtesy of Saveur) that our fridge is never without (we use it for dipping things into and spreading onto things and are always amazed at how delicious it is on EVERYTHING) and a variety of fresh veggies sprinkled around it for dunking.
Thrown in some stone ground crackers, a dish of Truffled Marcona Almonds from the Trader Joeâs and a little pile of whatever charcuterie happens to be on hand, and you have yourself a perfect little picnic. We threw a blanket on the floor and opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed it tremendously.
And when you next have one of THOSE moments, I heartily encourage you to do the same!
