BERRY WEEK: Berry Sangria

Hello internet friends,

As you might have already guessed, my favorite group of bloggers has teamed up again to bring you Berry Week!  I love doing these theme weeks because it spurs on my creativity in using ingredients for something new.  This week I decided to make berry sangria!

I’ve posted several berry recipes in the past, but this “recipe” is one of the easiest and by far the booziest.  I put recipe in quotes because it’s mostly dumping ingredients into a pitcher.  Ain’t nobody got time for a more complicated cocktail recipe. The most complicated recipe we used in college was “D the B”, in other words, drink the booze.

I had the best time acting as a mixologist for berry sangria because each variation needed its own glass taste test. *hiccup*  In the extensive taste testing, I discovered Triple Sec is the secret ingredient and cannot be omitted.  Also, there are many different schools of thought on sangria, but my own personal beliefs are that wine should never be diluted with soda. Ever.  Amen.

You will need:

• 1 pint strawberries
• 1 pint blueberries
• 1 pint raspberries
• 1 orange
• 1 lemon
• 2 bottles chilled white wine, preferably Riesling (I used Firestone)
• 1/2 cup Triple Sec
• 1/4 cup sugar

Thoroughly wash all berries.  Slice orange and lemon into rings.

In a large pitcher (or a small pitcher + awkward Tupperware container like me) stir together wine, Triple Sec, and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Toss in the fruit and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.  The long chill time allows all of the booze to soak into the berries.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can easily halve it if your party is small.  The OTHER great thing about this recipe is that it tastes delicious.  The other OTHER great thing about this recipe is that you get to eat a ton of booze berries at the bottom of your glass.

What’s your favorite use of summer berries?

-Mads

P.s. Check out all of tasty ways you can use summer berries with these fantastic recipes:

• Monday: Comfortably Domestic-Fresh Strawberry Pie / La Petite Pancake-Berry Sangria
• Tuesday: Inside NanaBread’s Head-Annie’s Blackberry Cake / From My Sweet Heart-Summer Berry Terrine with Mascarpone Whipped Cream
• Wednesday: Climbing Grier Mountain-Vanilla Gelato with Peach-Blueberry Compote & Honey Whipped Cream / Tenaciously Yours-Strawberry Smash
• Thursday: Country Cleaver-Strawberry Basil Sorbet Bellini / The Girly Girl Cooks-Strawberry-Rhubarb Stuffed French Toast
• Friday: Buffy and George-Black Raspberry & Cherry Pie with a Gluten-Free Crust / My Kvetchin’ Kitchen-Berry Earl Grey Cocktail / The Grommom-Berry Crisp
• Saturday: Munchin’ in the Mitten-Cherry Clafoutis / Decadent Philistines Save the World-Raspberry Marshmallows (served two ways)

Beer Week is *hiccup* here!

Hello beer lovers, beer drinkers, and beer stinkers,

Some local Californian brews I drank *for testing purposes only*

I’m here to tell you that Beer Week is in full swing on the internet!  My bloggy friends have teamed up for another week full of delicious beer-filled recipes and brewery tour guides.  From maple ale ice cream to Oktoberfest shenanigans to pumpkin beer bread, this week of beer truly has it all.

I decided to try another home deep-frying adventure because everything tastes better deep-fried.  Let’s be honest.  So I made Beer Battered Shrimp Tacos with a roasted poblano slaw.

Roasted Poblano Slaw Buddies

I grabbed what was on hand to make a sauce for the slaw.  I had no idea how it would taste, but the end result was a creamy slaw with a bite of garlic and hints of the savory roasted pepper.  YUM!

Creamy poblano sauce

Slaw:

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

2-3 Tbsp. lime juice (throw some zest in if you’re feeling frisky)

1 small clove garlic

5 Tbsp. cilantro

1 roasted poblano pepper–skinned and seeded

Combine in food processor until creamy.  Add to cabbage until desired consistency.  I kept mine on the creamy side to pair it with the crunch of the shrimp.

After you grill/roast the poblano, simply tent the pepper in foil for about 5 minutes until the skin has steamed. Then it is much easier to scrape off the skin with a knife.

Next up were the shrimpies!  Make sure your shrimp are peeled and deveined.  Sometimes the butcher will do this for you, but it doesn’t take too much skill to do it at home.

Pat those shrimpies dry with a paper towel before you start this shenanigans.  I almost added a picture of this step, but I discovered that pictures of raw shrimp are really unappetizing.  I’ll spare you the gory details.

Beer Battered Shrimp:

1 cup Flour

1/4 cup Cornstarch

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Cayenne

1 tsp Season-All Season Salt

1 tsp Pepper

1 cup Panko (I also added 1/2 cup Wheat Germ for extra crunch)–set aside for dunking later

Mix ingredients through pepper together in one medium bowl.  Set aside.

Mix panko and wheat germ (optional) in another bowl.  Set aside.

Dunking bowls

Dunk each shrimp in the flour bowl only and shake off excess flour.  Set the shrimpies aside.

Then choose the beer of the day.  I went with a light wheaty beer because I really don’t like hops.  Who’s with me?  I also thought it was cute that the bottle had a shark on it…I wanted to stick with a nautical theme. 🙂

Great White Beer from Lost Coast Brewery

Add about 1/2 a bottle of beer to the flour mixture.  Add a little at a time.  You want the batter to resemble a thick pancake batter.

Drink the other half.  This step is important!

Then set up an assembly line.  Dunk the shrimp into the beer batter.  Shake off the excess.  Then roll the shrimp around in the panko.  Shake off the excess.

Dip it, dunk it, drop it, rock it, roll it, grab it.

Once your oil reaches at least 375 degrees, add about 6 shrimp to the pan at a time.  Cook for 3 minutes or until golden brown, flipping partway through.

Such an exciting moment to capture on film!

Place cooked shrimp on a paper towel-lined plate to remove extra oil.

Assemble the tacos!!!!

Slaw + shrimp + salsa = Pure unadulterated heaven

This dinner was rated an 11/10 from the whole family.  I get that the whole family is only myself and Jonathan, but we said we would make this again in a heartbeat.  There were no leftovers.  I about passed out in the first bite.  Make these.

What’s your favorite thing to make/eat with beer?

-Mads

Check out the other fabulous Beer Week posts here:

Inside NanaBread’s Head–Dark Chocolate Espresso Stout Cake

Comfortably Domestic–Brewer Biography and Black & Tan Brownies

Tenaciously Yours–Oktoberfest Prost!

Munching in the Mitten–Pumpkin Beer Bread

From My Sweet Heart–Beer Pretzel Caramels & Beer Orange Caramel Sauce

Climbing Grier Mountain–Pale Ale Shrimp Po’ Boy

Country Cleaver–Schnitzel and Dumplings

Decadent Phillistines Save the World–Spicy German Mustard, Ale-Soaked Sweet Potato Oven Fries, Maple-Ale Ice Cream

Peach Bellini

Hey hey folks,

It’s Cocktail Week on the internet!  And by the internet, I mean the few incredible blogging women who have decided to join me on this quest to quench The Thirst.

I recently got married…where have you been?!?  The wedding prep, bachelorette night, bridal showers, wedding night, etc. have naturally been brimming to the top with champagne.  I also recently discovered that champagne is a MUCH better cure-all than ice cream.

The point is, we’ve had a bottle of Freixenet Cordon Negro on tap since January.  Think nothing of it.

But sometimes that bottle of champagne needs a little facelift.

This recipe is perfect for ladies brunching, cheers-ing newlyweds, commiserating a friend’s breakup…you name it!

Step 1:  Create a simple syrup by heating up equal parts sugar and water.  Cool this off in the fridge before you blend your cocktail.

Step 2: Peel yo peach!

If you are using a huge batch of peaches, it’s best to do the boiling pot method of peeling.  However, since I’m the only one drinking the Bellini at the moment, I can peel a single peach with a potato peeler faster than I can boil water.

Magic!

Step 3: Pop that peach into the blender and pulse to a pulp!  (Yay alliteration!)

Pulse that peach!

It will resemble baby food, but don’t even trip.

Step 4: Mix champagne, peach puree, and simple syrup.  Serve and enjoy!

As always, in the words of Barefoot Contessa, “How easy is that?”

I really loved this cocktail.  It’s like an elevated mimosa and all of your guests will be impressed.  🙂

You will need:

6 peaches

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

1 bottle champagne (Prosecco and sparkling white wine also taste fabulous)

Heat water and sugar on stove until sugar has dissolved.  Cool in fridge until ready to serve.

Peel peaches and blend into pulp.

Combine peach pulp, champagne, and simple syrup into pitcher and serve.  Or pour a splash of each ingredient into champagne glasses to serve one at a time (this is my preferred method because everyone likes a different ratio of booze to fruit).

-Mads

P.S. I’m getting tipsy off of all of the bubbly floating around in blog land.  Check out some of the other zippy drinks my friends have whipped up:

Raging Aztec Frappe (includes a KitchenAid giveaway!)

Peach Pie Prosecco Palmer

Raspberry Thyme Tom Collins

Traverse City Cherry Mojitos

Amaretto Sours

Watermelon Mojo

Paloma

Radlermass

Blueberry Smash Cocktail

A merry drunk Christmas to you

I’m off to Minnesota to spread some holiday cheer.  Have a safe fun holiday break!

(video has some swears in it, but I can’t imagine Christmas without swears)

-Mads

TURKEY DAY!!!

I am making my first homemade bird.  I am going with Comfortably Domestic’s Citrus Herb Roasted Turkey recipe!

Luckily, the roasting pan came in the mail just in time.  Thanks, Pioneer Woman!

The corn bake is done (recipe soon to follow).

The stuffing is prechopped.

The bird is waiting for instructions.

My wine glass is full.

My fat pants are ready.

I’m getting my game face on:

"I wanna wear wipstick so I can wook wike a wady"

 

Can you tell this post was written with a glass of Riesling in hand?  Perhaps…

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

What’s your favorite dish at Thanksgiving?

-Mads

p.s. All posts tagged “I can’t remember” are posts I wrote while under the influence.  Have fun with that.

Perfect Margaritas

Summer is coming to an end, which is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on which part of the country you live in.

This summer I spent the majority of my time farting around and living up the last few months of freedom before school starts.  Oh yeah, school starts in 1 week!  Yipes.  I’d like to say I’m mentally and emotionally prepared, but the only thing that’s prepared is a backpack full of notebooks and pens.

So, in order to make this last week of summer truly count, I am making margaritas.  I feel like we could all use a cyber-cheers this week.

Who’s with me?!

2 cups margarita mix

1 cup tequila

¼ cup Triple Sec

1 capful Rose’s lime juice

Fill blender ¾ full of ice.

Add ingredients and blend.

Put in freezer until ready to serve.

Cheers!

-Mads

A Pug’s Happy Hour

Want to know the greatest thing about the dog park being in the middle of downtown Long Beach?

No, it’s not the homeless people who yell at your dog.

No, it’s not the fear of traffic running over your dog as you exit the park.

Man, you are not very good at guessing.

It’s the bars with patios right next door!

Jonathan and I decided it was time to break Josie into the happenin’ social scene, so we went to the Congregation Ale House for “Midday Mass” (aka happy hour).

Religion not required

Congregation has a pub feel with an extensive beer menu that rotates daily.  Waitresses in Catholic school uniforms serve you $2 fries and some of the best sausages and flatbreads I’ve ever had.  The grilled artichoke is a personal favorite.

In true bloggy style...His: Strand 24th Pale Ale Hers: Duvel Single

Josie had the water.  A fine choice.

I love themes.  I particularly love themes that work well in bars.  Congregation pulls it off:

Now we just need the 10 commandments of craft beers.

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If you have pets, do you ever take them to patios?  Is that too icky?

I have never thought of pets in restaurants as icky.  Mainly because I’m not eating off of the floor, but I can see how some would hate for Josie to tag along.

-Mads