posted
I don't drink whisky or bourbon as I find that drinking those makes me really argumentative, so it's generally a bad idea.
I pretty much only drink wine and gin these days. (Well, and coffee of course, but that's like saying that I breathe oxygen and is just necessary to survive a day).
I've massively reduced the amount of wine I drink but upped the cost per bottle which, whilst having the bonus of having amazing tasting wines at home does mean that I'm generally a bit disappointed by wines I have when out for a meal as there is no way I'm going to spend £40-£50 on a bottle of wine with a meal.
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I mostly drink flavoured vodka as otherwise you really don't know you're drinking anything other than a soft drink. I choose it as a good option for not much hangover!
I do love a nice spiced rum though on a weekend, or a bourbon.
quote: I went on a 'team-celebration' thing recently at the Bols House of Spirits place in Amsterdam and learnt to make a couple of cocktails. They do a remarkable yogurt liqueur that you can use to make a cocktail called a Cheesecake - that might make for something a bit more substantial than vodka, perhaps if you need a good hearty breakfast.
That sounds good and definitely a bit more nutritious than vodka
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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I can definitely recommend the Bols Cheesecake, even though it sounds a bit like something you boys might find in your pants after a long run.
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quote:Originally posted by Octavia: I can definitely recommend the Bols Cheesecake, even though it sounds a bit like something you boys might find in your pants after a long run.
And thus my quest for my first Bols Cheesecake ended before it even started......
quote:Originally posted by Cherry In Hove: I pretty much only drink wine and gin these days. (Well, and coffee of course, but that's like saying that I breathe oxygen and is just necessary to survive a day).
I've always thought I like the odd cheeky G&T, but I think the last time I had one was in Hamburg 10 years ago. However I had some rather fantastic flavored gins one night that Octavia (who never ceases to astound me with her crafting talents) had concocted - I'm hoping that one day soon the children will be introduced to their mother's talent, and then exploited 8 hours a night to produce vast quantities of this elixir in the garden shed.
posted
Eight hours? I would give it about eight minutes of them working in a distillery before it descended into a three way rolling fist fight followed by an explosion.
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quote:Originally posted by Octavia: I can definitely recommend the Bols Cheesecake, even though it sounds a bit like something you boys might find in your pants after a long run.
And thus my quest for my first Bols Cheesecake ended before it even started......
Hey I had a mouthful of slightly sweaty cheese sandwich when I read it. Least it wasn't salty I guess
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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quote:Originally posted by Waynster: However I had some rather fantastic flavored gins one night that Octavia...had concocted
Hah! This has inspired me to bottle up some blackberry gin and sloe gin this autumn.
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posted
I've been thinking of doing the same. Blackberries and sloes are all looking pretty ripe at the moment.
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
posted
Googling 'gin infusions' is also a source of good ideas. Got my eye on an apple-and-cinnamon combo at the moment that sounds v Christmassy. I came across a Clementine one too.
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Do you basically just get a bottle of gin, jam a load of fruit in it and wait a while? I tried to make elderflower vodka once and it all went very badly wrong.
Started pretty with the little flowers floating in the clear liquid loveliness that is vodka. And then over the space of a few weeks I watched the flowers and the vodka both turn a delightful shade of mouldy brown. I'm not sure that should have happened. I opened it and sniffed, cos you have to sniff things in life to see just how bad they really are, and it smelt like a cat had weed on a flower bush and jammed the whole sorry mess in a vodka bottle. My cat was clever, but not that clever.
So I'm always jealous of successful alcohol infusers, share your wisdom please
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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I've never done anything with elderflowers, at least partly because I had to do a load of corporate stuff when pregnant and the only fucking soft drink that was ever served at 'do's was elderflower cordial. I got sick to death of it. But for berry gin: get a large glass jar fill half full of berries (wash them first, or tbh frozen ones are as good) shovel in a couple of tablespoons of sugar top up with gin
Turn it every week or so for a few weeks, then decant into a nice clear glass bottle so you can see how pretty it is.
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quote:Originally posted by Octavia: I've never done anything with elderflowers, at least partly because I had to do a load of corporate stuff when pregnant and the only fucking soft drink that was ever served at 'do's was elderflower cordial. I got sick to death of it. But for berry gin: get a large glass jar fill half full of berries (wash them first, or tbh frozen ones are as good) shovel in a couple of tablespoons of sugar top up with gin
Turn it every week or so for a few weeks, then decant into a nice clear glass bottle so you can see how pretty it is.
I know what I'm doing this weekend now! Cheers
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posted
Last time I made sloe gin I made up some sugar syrup rather than adding raw sugar. Not sure it made much of a difference either way.
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Kanye is going to be absolutely disgusted when he comes back to here, sees all the new replies and expects to be able to wank himself into a coma from all the dinner descriptions he is about to gorge on. Then he'll see it is people discussing infusing alcohol and his erection will drop faster than a child's shorts at Michael Jackson's house.
(I appreciate that metaphor might not be the most up to date one that could be used, but you know, some of the other posts I've been reading on here seemed quite stuck in the past as well)>
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quote:Originally posted by Octavia: I've got a black pudding and I need some ideas about what to do with it.
Two things that I regularly use black pudding for:
1) Break it up and push it under the skin on the breast of a whole chicken and then roast it. It's great.
2) This Nigel Slater Sausage, Black pudding and parsnip dish. (Although, it's a bit early for nice parsnips, so you might have to wait a few months really and then your black pudding will be off).
I've also made scotch eggs with black pudding instead of sausage meat and they are good but a bit of a faff.
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Dainty black pudding as an accompaniment to scallops was all the rage on Masterchef a few years ago. Along with a cheffy smear of cauliflower puree. But, again, bit/lot of a faff.
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
posted
Lacking a chicken, and having fed Thorn vegetables two nights in a row (thus ruling out salad) I'm going to fry the black pudding with onions, garlic, chilli and tomatoes then bake it for a pasta sauce.
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quote:Originally posted by Octavia: Lacking a chicken, and having fed Thorn vegetables two nights in a row (thus ruling out salad) I'm going to fry the black pudding with onions, garlic, chilli and tomatoes then bake it for a pasta sauce.
Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
posted
quote:Originally posted by Waynster:
quote:Originally posted by Octavia: Lacking a chicken, and having fed Thorn vegetables two nights in a row (thus ruling out salad) I'm going to fry the black pudding with onions, garlic, chilli and tomatoes then bake it for a pasta sauce.
:inserts standard Homer Simpson drooling gif:
Happy to report this was really good. Left the seeds out of the (big) chilli, and added a spoonful of red wine vinegar for sweetness. Short pasta, not spaghetti. Repeatable.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I had pork and beef ragu from the freezer on sourdough toast with a garnish of white truffle mayonnaise. It was very tasty.
Totally meat and dairy fest, sorry Benway.
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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quote:Originally posted by H1ppychick: white truffle mayonnaise
posted
We stumbled across Truffle Hunter while at the Good Food Show a few years back. Excellent black truffle mayonnaise, if spending a shilling short of a tenner on stuff in a small jar is your thing.
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quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: We stumbled across Truffle Hunter while at the Good Food Show a few years back. Excellent black truffle mayonnaise, if spending a shilling short of a tenner on stuff in a small jar is your thing.
You want to be spending a good amount on anything containing truffle as that increases the chance that it actually contains truffle rather than truffle oil which is very regularly used and is pretty repulsive.
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quote:Originally posted by Cherry In Hove: You want to be spending a good amount on anything containing truffle as that increases the chance that it actually contains truffle rather than truffle oil which is very regularly used and is pretty repulsive.
Yep. Just looked at ingredients. 2% truffle, no mention of truffle oil. Truffle flavour though, whatever that means.
I actually made my own truffle mayonnaise some years back, but it was around 10% truffle. It might have been too much for some people.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I never really 'got' truffle till I went on holiday to Croatia last year, to a region famed for its black truffles, and I realised how nice proper truffle can be. The mayonnaise that I had was white truffle from Harvey Nicks and was a present from a holiday-mate after we returned. I do have jars of minced truffle that I brought back from holiday with me and I've also purchased some Truffle Hunter oil.
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