The Rational Thought

After buying a bottle of cognac for the French Manhattan, I needed to find some other uses for it. Here is one from @cnh.photo's Instagram feed. I highly recommend it as a Fall or Winter drink. It also has a cool name. I did end up buying the curaçao for this, even though I originally intended to replace that with cointreau or grand mariner. I'm not sure if they'd be interchangeable in this. If I do a test using both side by side I will let you know. 

You need to plan ahead a little for this one because the cinnamon needs to steep into the water sugar mixture for a while to make the cinnamon syrup, so you don't want to be making this just before you are planning to put together a cocktail. 

The Rational Thought

1 oz VSOP cognac (he used Pierre Ferrand Ambre. I used whatever is on my shelf.)

.5 oz pear brandy (pear eau de vie)

1 oz dry curacao    

.75 oz fresh lemon juice 

1 teaspoon cinnamon simple syrup

1. Put all contents in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into coupe or Nick & Nora glass. 

Cinnamon Simple Syrup

5 oz cane sugar

5 oz water

2 cinnamon sticks broken into pieces

1. Put all ingredients into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for a few minutes.

2. Remove from heat, cover and let sit for 6 hours.

3. Strain out solids and put liquid into a jar that has a lid. Cover and store in the fridge. 

 

The Fallback Cocktail

Typically when I make a cocktail recipe that calls for rye whiskey, I simply replace it with bourbon. It's too much to keep so many different liquors on hand, and I like bourbon. Well, I got curious and did a side by side experiment to taste the difference of rye vs whiskey in one of my go-to cocktails. At first, I was partial to the bourbon. Then, the more I sipped I started to shift. I am no expert here, but the way I would describe it is that the rye is drier and doesn't fill up your whole mouth with it's flavor, so allows the other ingredients to come through a bit better. The bourbon isn't bad, but I am convinced that rye can be the better choice for certain cocktails. Since then, I have tried a couple more with the rye and it's working for me. 

This is another one from @cnh.photo on Instagram. He provides the history and description of each drink and I highly recommend following him. I merely post here so I can find it quickly when I need it in a font size that I don't need reading glasses for.

The Fallback Cocktail

1 oz rye whiskey

1 oz aged apple brandy 

.5 oz Amaro Nonino

.5 oz sweet vermouth

2-3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

1. Put all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake well and serve in a rocks glass or glass of your choice.

Stir Fried Broccoli

When I first became vegetarian over 30 years ago, I didn't cook at all really. I just ate around whatever was being presented to me. When I did start to cook, stir fry seemed like the obvious thing, and if my memory serves me correctly there was a stir fry craze happening at the time. Today's instant pot was the wok of that time as far as cooking trends go. I never got very good at stir fries. Over-cooked or not cooked enough. The sauce not quite right. I don't remember that well, but I largely just gave up on them. Plus, back then the vegetarian offerings on menus were very limited. As I've mentioned before, one can only eat so much mediocre stir fry, veggie burgers or pasta primavera in a lifetime. They are all dishes I grew extremely tired of and have largely avoided for many years now.

In the same vein, I've never perfected sauted or stir-fried broccoli. It seems like it should be a staple and something I can do in my sleep. When I have a side of broccoli cooked to just the right shade of green and crispness, it's noticeable to me. It seems it's the type of food that is too easily over or undercooked. And, raw? No thank you. Raw broccoli or cauliflower on a crudite plate is just not enjoyable. I eat it here or there, but only if there is nothing else available.

I've tried blanching the broccoli before stir-frying it but that is a) a pain. You need to use a pot, a steamer and a pan just to make a simple side dish. b) I rarely get it right and end up over-cooking it. With just stir-frying it often seems to be a bit undercooked. I admit I'm probably making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be, but it is something I'd like to get just right because it does make a nice dish or even the main part of a meal. I was having a strong craving for broccoli yesterday, so tried this and think it might be just the thing. If I didn't want the asian flavoring, I think doing it with just the garlic and broth would also work just fine. 

Ginger stir-fried broccoli

1 large broccoli crown or 2 smaller ones

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1 clove minced garlic

1/2 cup veggie broth (for this I use a half tspn of the jarred kind and boiling water)

1 tablespoon tamari or Bragg's liquid aminos

1 tablespoon sesame oil 

canola or peanut oil

chili flakes or toasted sesame seeds for garnish

1. Mix the broth, tamari and sesame oil in a small prep bowl and place in easy reach to the stove.

2. Heat the canola or peanut oil over medium high heat in a sauté pan that has a cover. 

3. Add the broccoli and toss in the oil for about a minute.

4. Clear a spot in the center of the pan and add the garlic, ginger, and a little more oil Stir and saute for under a minute, just so it becomes fragrant.

5. Add the broth mixture to the pan, bring to a simmer, lower the heat and cover. Steam for about 2 minutes. 

6. Remove with a slotted spoon. If you want, you could put in a serving bowl and add the remaining liquid from the pan. This would be good if serving it with rice. I didn't find it necessary eating it on it's own. Garnish with chili flakes for sesame seeds if you want.

Sage Sour

The holidays have been weird and a bit sad. Mostly I'm just pretending it's just any other day and going about my business. On Christmas Eve, I got together for Zoom cocktails with a longtime friend and her husband. We had a lot of laughs and tried a cocktail she suggested that she had seen on TV the night before. Thankfully she caught me while I was at the grocery store and told me to buy sage. That's not a fresh herb I usually keep on hand and I would not have wanted to miss out on this. I love a good sour and this inspires me to explore more simple syrups infused with herbs. My friend Catherine has made one with mint that was very nice. I think that would work well in this cocktail. I'm going to try some different variations on that and report back. This is a more sugary concoction than I usually go for with both the simple syrup and the maple syrup, but the sour aspect tempers it enough that it doesn't taste overly sweet to me. I did cut back a little on the maple syrup, but I'm going to post the original recipe.

First make the sage simple syrup 

Use a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water. I can never get through a whole cup before the syrup goes bad, so have started using only a half cup. 

    1/2 cup water 

    1/2 cup cane sugar 

    1/4 cup firmly packed sage leave

1. In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. 

2. Remove from the heat and let it all sit for about 30 minutes. 

3. Strain the liquids using a mesh strainer into a mason jar or another type of glass container with a tight fitting lid. Use the back of a spoon to press the liquid contents from the leaves. Discard the leaves. 

4. Cover the jar and put in the fridge to chill. 

 Shake the cocktail 

    1 1/2 oz bourbon or rye whiskey 

    1 1/2 oz freshly squeezed lime juice 

    1/2 oz sage simple syrup 

    1/2 oz good quality maple syrup 

1. Put all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake until cold. 

2. Pour into Nick & Nora glass. Garnish with a leaf of sage.

French Manahattan

 I hadn't ever had cognac before, so purchased a bottle of it to try a cocktail I came across. Since then, I've tasted a few different drinks with it and it will become one of my winter base liquors. It's warming and tasty on it's own or mixed with other ingredients. I believe the most common cocktail you'll find cognac in is a Sidecar. We tried one in our Covid Cocktail Club the other night. It's certainly a good standard to know how to make. I took the French Manhattan recipe from Drinking French (of course). I'm starting to lose track of the drinks I've tried, so you may see more posted. That way I can remember which ones I want to make again. I still have to look at recipes for most cocktails. I hope soon to at least have a handful I can make from memory. (I'm going to test myself and type the ingredients first before checking Drinking French for the recipe.) ((That didn't go well.))

If anyone has a favorite brand of cognac, do tell. I had no idea what I was doing so just picked a nice looking bottle.

French Manhattan

1 1/2 oz cognac

1  1/2 oz sweet vermouth

1/4 oz Grand Marnier or Cointreau 

1 dash orange or Angostura bitters

Cherry or orange peel to garnish

1. Put all contents except for garnish in a shaker full of ice. Shake and pour into a coupe glass. Add garnish.

Baked Mashed Potato Nests

 Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, without contest. Go do a running race or group ride in the morning, then hang out with family and eat a lot of vegetables. Perfect. This year was obviously different. I'm not tied to many traditions, so changing up the holidays doesn't upset me the way it does some people. The one lost tradition that did make me sad was not having 17 sides for my Thanksgiving meal. My cousin, Lori, and I pride ourselves in having ALL the vegetables, including white potatoes cooked at least two different ways. I did make mashed potatoes and to make myself feel better, I made quite a lot of them. I had planned to make mashed potato pancakes with the leftovers and top them with a mushroom gravy as I have in the past. But I was feeling a bit lazy and never made it to the grocery store to get mushrooms. So, instead, I baked the mashed potatoes which, surprisingly, I've never done in the past and then had some fun with the presentation. I turned them into nests! I am definitely making food nests again. (This is cute, right? Every once in a while I need to do a pandemic sanity check.)

There are lots of variations on baked mashed. I think it's a fairly flexible dish. This is the one I used. While they were baking, I sauteed some peas with shallots, thyme, white wine and a little veggie broth. Then, I lined the rim with some arugula and cherry tomatoes.

Baked Mashed

3 cups leftover mashed potatoes

1 egg

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

butter

Salt 

Pepper

1/2 tspn onion powder

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 and grease a casserole dish with butter.

2. Mix all ingredients, except butter in a mixing bowl and then spoon into buttered casserole dish. If you want, put small pats of butter on top and sprinkle with a little more cheese.

3. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes, letting it brown on top a bit.