drink

Blood Orange Margarita

February 22, 2018

Well, friends, this may be the fastest turn-around in the history of the blog. As I sit here typing this I am still sipping on the very blood orange margarita that I took pictures of just moments ago.

Truth be told, I took the photos 2 hours ago, but I am such a light-weight that I drink most of my drinks very slowly!

Anyways, I had to get this post up today because, by a sheer stroke of luck, today happens to be National Margarita Day! This is actually a wonderful coincidence because I had no idea it was National Margarita Day until about 30 minutes ago. Now I no longer have to feel guilting about drinking at 2:00 pm on a weekday because really I am just celebrating the holiday!

And this blood orange margarita is a delicious way to celebrate!

How to Make It

For this recipe you will need:

Blood oranges
Limes
Tequila
Agave syrup (or sugar/simple syrup)
Salt

You have all of that on hand, right? No? Okay, I will wait here while you go to the store and get them.

Alright, now you are ready to make some margaritas!

Juice a blood orange and a lime and then measure out 2 ounces of the juice. Combine the juice with the agave syrup (or your sweetener of choice) and tequila.

If you have a cocktail shaker, it’s time to dust that puppy off and shake your margarita mix with some ice cubes to get it nice and cold. If you are like me and do not have a cocktail shaker, just stir it around in a large glass until it’s chilled.

I personally like a salt rim. If you are, too, you will want to rub a lime wedge around the rim of your glass then dip into some coarse salt. Once your glass is ready, you can pour in your blood orange margarita!

Now you are ready to celebrate with me!

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Golden Mango Turmeric Smoothie

July 26, 2017

Turmeric is so hot right now. Have you noticed? Everywhere I look, turmeric is popping up in very unexpected places. In milk. In cake. In supplements. And now in this mango turmeric smoothie!

There is a reason turmeric has become so popular – it is so good for you! Who knew that this bright yellow spice could also help prevent Alzheimer’s, lower blood sugar, treat arthritis, boost your mood, and cure cancer! Okay, that last one is a bit of an exaggeration, but just barely.

Because of all those reasons (and more), I now start my day with this delicious mango turmeric smoothie.

This smoothie doesn’t just have the added benefit of turmeric, but I also snuck in some carrot juice. Gotta have some veggies in there!

To give the smoothie its flavor, I mixed together some of my favorite Summer fruits: mango and pineapple which create a delicious tropical flavor!

Now, you may also notice an unlikely ingredient lurking down in the corner of the picture – pepper. Why on earth would I add pepper to my smoothie? I’ll tell you why! All those benefits of turmeric aren’t well absorbed without it. Basically, don’t bother adding turmeric if you aren’t going to add the black pepper.

The good news is that you can’t even taste the pepper. I don’t add a lot, just a pinch of two. Enough to make sure my golden mango turmeric smoothie isn’t consumed in vain.

Since you all know how to make a smoothie, I won’t bore you with those details. Instead, I will tell you about some other things I like to add to my smoothies.

I almost always add a protein powder to my smoothies. Right now my favorite is collagen protein because I like to think that it’s helping my joints and my skin (let’s be honest, it’s really about my skin).

If I am drinking my smoothie right away, I may add some chia seeds, too. However, if I am taking my smoothie into work, I will leave the chia seeds out because after a few minutes then turn into a gelatinous blob….not super appetizing in a smoothie.

Also, for the most part, I only use frozen fruit in my smoothies (don’t be fooled by the fresh stuff in these pictures). I do that because 1) frozen fruit is always available, and 2) there’s no need for ice cubes! I even freeze my bananas. Since I typically only use half a banana per smoothie, I will cut the other half up and store it in the freezer for those days when I run out of the naners.

Ok, enough about the intricacies of smoothie-making. Who knew it could be so complicated?!

This mango-turmeric smoothie is my go-to breakfast right now. Not only does it help me beat the heat after my train ride into work, it is delicious and extra nutritious!

If you want to make this smoothie at home but are not convinced about adding carrot juice, you can swap it with some orange juice instead. But definitely give the turmeric a shot. I promise you will be all the better for it!

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Watermelon Rose Slushie

June 30, 2017

I should really give my husband more credit. For instance, this watermelon rose slushee was all his idea. You see, he likes to browse Reddit, where he finds all sorts of crazy things, one of which was a watermelon keg. In the video (or maybe just a post) they cut open the top of the watermelon, used an immersion blender to blend the inside, then poured in some rose. Add a tap, and you have yourself a watermelon keg!

Now, I’m pretty sure we didn’t need a whole watermelon keg. But a watermelon and rose cocktail sounded delicious!

HOW I MADE IT

I started by cubing then blending the melon until smooth.

Then I poured it through a sieve to get rid of all the pulp.
I poured the juice into an ice cube tray to let freeze overnight.

The next day, I blended the watermelon ice cubes with rose and a toich of lemon juice until I had something that resembled the Slurpee I used to get at 7-11.

It is basically a grown up Slurpee. Just not as sickenly sweet and, you know, boozy.

But its not too boozy. I only used 3/4 cup of wine for what was essentially 4 large cups. You could definitely add more if you want more of the rose flavor. But I loved how refreshing it tasted thanks to all that sweet waltermelon juice.

It’s the perfect Summer cocktail!

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Not Your Father’s Root Beer Float

May 27, 2016

A couple weekends ago we had some out of town friends staying with us while they looked for apartments deciding whether or not to move to Charlotte. Of course my husband and I rolled out the red carpet which involved stops at some of our favorite breweries and barbecue spots. Somehow after a day of beer drinking and meat eating we thought it would be a good idea to stop by the grocery store to buy up all the flavors of Oreos we could find and fixings for some root beer floats. The girls were in charge of the Oreos (we left with 6 of the over 10 possible flavors), the boys were responsible for the root beer floats.

Somehow they ended up with some Not Your Father’s Root Beer. Typical boys right? If you haven’t had it before, it tastes EXACTLY like root beer, but is alcoholic. It’s very dangerous. And you know what makes it even more dangerous? Pouring it over vanilla ice cream.

Seriously, It had been a while since I had a root beer float, but man they are good. And I am not sure it it was all the Oreos are the kick in the root beer, but this was the best root beer float I have had. Creamy, sweet, refreshing, with a bit of a kick.

I know there are some other brands of alcoholic root beer, but this is the only one I have had and can vouch for. If you can’t get your hands on some but still want to make your own adult root beer float, I would recommend adding a shot of vanilla vodka. I mean, if you really wanted to have a party you could add the vodka with the alcoholic root beer and I bet it would be amazing.

So if you want to have some nostalgic fun this Memorial Day weekend, make yourself your own Not Your Father’s Root Beer Float (or any adult root beer float). I promise it will bring back some childhood memories with all the grown up benefits!

Have a safe and happy holiday weekend!

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Summer Sangria

August 7, 2014

Sangria is one of my husband’s and my favorite drinks to make during the Summer months when we are either hosting or attending a party. It can be as simple or as complicated as we’d like and very easily scalable to however many people we are making it for.

For this batch of sangria, we chose to use lots of fresh Summer stone fruit, like peaches, plums, and cherries. Peaches are wonderful in sangria because the really give off a lot of flavor, making the finished product sweet, yet still a bit tart from the wine.

To make this drink even more Summery, we added watermelon ice cubes. We stole this idea from a bar in Raleigh we visited a couple weekends ago, but I will probably be adding watermelon ice cubes to all my drinks for the rest of the Summer. It’s genius! And they are super easy to make: 1) cut up some watermelon into cubes; 2) freeze.

There is no real rhyme or reason to chopping up fruit for sangria. I like to leave the pieces relatively large so they don’t get too mushy sitting in wine for a couple days, but not so large that you can’t fish a piece of fruit out of your glass and eat it, in all its drunken glory.

And for the wine…well, again, there are no standards (at least none that I am aware of). I prefer to use wines that are a little bit sweet and fruity already. But not too sweet. I stay away from Chardonnays and Rieslings. Somewhere in the middle, like a Savignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio. For this batch, we used a Spanish wine (I can’t think of the grape variety for the life of me), which seemed pretty appropriate.

We also like to throw in a splash of whiskey, like Crown Royal (or the Kirkland equivalent, as in our case). Partly because we like the added flavor, and partly because my husband will only drink a fruity drink if there is whiskey in it.

We let our sangria sit for at least two days. My husband wanted me to emphasize TWO days (he literally walked in as I was typing and said, “please put on your recipe that we let ours sit for at least two days”). You definitely could make this the night before and serve it the next day. However, you won’t be doing your sangria any favors. All the flavors from the fruit will not be as fragrant. After two days, the fruit has gotten a chance to break down and release its juices and the bite from the wine is a bit less noticeable.

I think sangria is just the perfect drink for the Summer. The Spanish really knew what they were doing when they came up with this idea. It is just so refreshing and flavorful. However, I can sometimes forget that I am drinking wine…which can be a problem. So pace yourself! One batch can last you a while. If you don’t think you can finish it off after about four days, strain out the fruit and store the rest in the fridge. You can add back in fresh fruit when you are ready to serve again.

What is your favorite Summer drink?

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Sugar-Free Strawberry Lemonade

May 27, 2014

Summer has not officially started yet, but as usual no one has informed the weather that June 21st has not yet arrived. For the past few weeks we have experienced some pretty warm weather almost everywhere, at least below the Mason-Dixon line.

I don’t know about you, but one of my all time favorite Summer (or really, anytime) drinks is strawberry lemonade. I love lemons. I could eat lemons raw, that’s how much I love them. I also love strawberries, so what could be better than the combination of the two, right? One of the things I don’t love about lemonade is how much sugar is in it in order to counter act the sourness. Instead of sugar, I used Stevia, which is great to use in drinks because it dissolves pretty easily without having to heat up your liquid. It is also much sweeter than granulated sugar so you can use less.

The strawberry juice also adds some extra sweetness which means you can use less sugar. There are a couple ways to add strawberry juice to the lemonade:

1. Juice the strawberries using a electric juicer;

2. Puree the strawberries and add it to the lemon juice, seeds and all; or

3. Puree the strawberries and run it through a sieve in order to remove the seeds and pulp.

I choose option #3. But all are fine options.

If you do plan on making this recipe, use it more of a guideline. Start with your lemon juice and strawberry juice, then add part of the sugar and water, adding more until you get the desired sweetness and concentration. You may want to add more stevia/sugar/sweetener and water than I have listed in the recipe. Like most of my recipes, I encourage you to play with it and make it your own.

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Mango Margarita

May 4, 2014

This recipe was inspired by a picture on Instagram. I really wish I could give credit to the person, but I didn’t “like” the picture so I have no idea who posted it. Who ever it was, thank you for the inspiration!

I love a good margarita (clearly, since I am willing to make it into a tart). But some times its fun to mix things up. So when I saw that mango margarita posted to Instagram, I knew I had to try to make my own.

What makes this a bit unusual, is the chili-salt rim. Growing up in Southern California, the chili-mango flavor combination was very popular. It may seem a bit unusual but they actually go really well together! It is not at all spicy, and the smokiness of the chili and the salt really bring out the sweetness of the mango. However, the margarita is just as good without the chili if that is your thing.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!! Salud!

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