Queen Eleanor

We finished the evening on the balcony with the Queen Eleanor, a delicious extension of a Martini. The added Crème de Pêche and Celery bitters gave a lovely combination of fruity and herb, bitter and sweet. I forgot to add the lemon garnish (it was late and we had already had Pimms and split a bottle of Sake), but the cocktail was still a winner.

Dark Rum and Carpano Antica

I was looking for something with Carpano Antico in it, and I ended up doing a variation on this recipe on the Cocktail Virgin blog, because I don't have any Bénédictine. I used Grand Marnier instead, so mine came out much more orange-y. Still very drinkable though. And my photo is better than theirs!

Veal Escalope

Wednesday, 24th July 2013

Not much to say about this. Simple pan fried veal escalope. Fried mushrooms and onions with baby spinach added to the pan for a couple of minutes at the end, with a dash of champagne vinegar.

Red Dwarf

Still getting most of my cocktail ideas from the Cocktail Virgin blog. This one was very pleasantly bitter, and the with the lovely pastis flavour underneath.

Pasta with Bacon and Mushrooms

Monday, 22nd July 2013

Soften onions and garlic, add bacon and fry, then add mushrooms and cook through. Add a little wine and reduce, then add cream and bubble until thickened. Season and sprinkle chopped parsley. Pretty simple but very nice.

Pasta with Meatballs

Tuesday, 16th July 2013

For the meatballs I bought some bratwurst, removed the skins and mixed the meat with plenty of ground fennel and pink peppercorns. Fry some onions and garlic in plenty of oil, add the meatballs and brown, add halved cherry tomatoes and adjust seasoning. When the pasta is cooked at a small amount of the cooking liquid to the meatball pan and bubble it up, so the sauce has some juice. Delicious.

Black Cadillac

We had one spare egg left over from the the weekend's recipes, so I wen looking for a cocktail with egg in it and found the
Black Cadillac. Naturally, I had to substitute a different dark beer, as well as a different scotch, a different rum and a different syrup. Oh and different bitters. But the egg was as specified!
I discovered that shaking a cocktail with a lot of beer in it leads to some rather explosive results, and that it is important to pour out the result properly if you want to keep the frothy head.
This had a fairly strong coffee taste, which I can only assume came from a combination of the beer and the Mole bitters I used. But it was not too alcoholic and nice, quaffable alternative to the powerful after dinner drinks we've been having.