First Market Dinner 2009

This is the second year we've had a first market dinner. The plan, as you can probably imagine, is to go to the first farmers market of the year (this year seemed very early, March 21), grab what looks good, and build a meal from those ingredients. Last year, there were four of us, myself, Cam, Bonnie, and David. This year, we had the pleasure of including Joe and Sarah. As you can see from the picture above, Bonnie really set a beautiful table.

The evening began with rangpur gimlets. We made these at last year's first market dinner, and luckily Raynblest Farm had plenty of limes for both drinks and dessert... For snacks, baby carrots and radishes.

Cam made ravioli with stinging nettles and ricotta, and lightly covered it in a butter/garlic/hazelnut sauce. While waiting for the water to boil, we drank a bottle of the 07 Reverdy Sancerre Blanc.

David brought the sides, wonderful wilted spinach and a mixture of sauteed carrots and leeks.

We then had a little salad made from a mixture of greens from Veridian.

Finally, the evening ended where it had begun, with rangpur limes. I made a panna cotta with rangpur lime zest. It didn't seem limey enough, so I made a little rangpur syrup to go on top. That with some 08 Elio Perrone Moscato d'Asti and Cam's homemade Vin d'Orange was just perfect.

Other wines included:
98 Lindemans Hunter Valley Semillon
98 Marsh Estate Hunter Valley Semillon
04 J Christopher Croft Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc
05 Le Rocher des Violettes Montlouis "Touche Mitaine" Sec
98 Guyon Corton Clos du Roy Grand Cru
00 Thomas Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

This is turning into a nice annual tradition.

2 New Ryes This Week

Picked up two new Rye Whiskeys this week, (ri)1 and Russell's Reserve 6 year. Both are pretty tasty and worthy additions to my rye collection...

Repeal Day

I had a little party at my place for repeal day. I put together a little cocktail menu and made the following cocktails; the aviation, the bijou, the blood and sand, the daiquiri, the fourth degree, the old fashioned, and the sidecar. Fire in the fireplace, snacks, and friends. Thanks to all those who made it by for a cocktail.

Pink Lemons

Just got back from New Seasons, where I ran across pink lemons. I haven't cut into them yet, but I'm thinking up ways to use them tonight (read cocktails). I couldn't find much info on these little beauties online, but Four Winds Growers sells trees. Here's their page on this citrus.

Yum

This is a generic photo of a sidecar taken from Esquire's drink page. Tonight, we made meyer lemon sidecars.

1 1/2 oz Germain-Robin Brandy
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz meyer lemon juice

Shake with ice and serve up. We decided against the sugared rim.

New drink, worthy of re-making...

1 oz Hangar One Kaffir Lime Vodka
.5 oz G.E. Massenez Creme de Gingembre
1 oz lime juice
.5 oz simple syrup

Shake and serve up.

TB1 and TB2

BC is out of town, and I've been given the task of perfecting a Thai Basil cocktail while she is gone. A quick Google search brought up a few ideas, the most prominent being Thai Basil syrup, lemon juice, and a base liquor. I used the syrup recipe from found here, but I used 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup loosely packed thai basil leaves.

Additionally, I liked the idea of thai basil with saffron, so I used the two saffron infused/flavored base spirits I had...

TB1
2 oz SubRosa saffron vodka
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz thai basil syrup
Shake with ice and strain, serve up

TB2
2 oz Cadenhead's Old Raj gin
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz thai basil syrup
Shake with ice and strain, serve up

The TB1 was the winner of the two, but both were a bit too sweet. I like my drinks with a little more acid. When making drinks at home, I prefer a ratio of 3 pts spirit, 2 pts sour, and 1 pt sweet. My concern in using that ratio here is that with only 1 pt in 6, the thai basil flavor will be lost.

I think that muddling the thai basil will be the focus of the next round of drinks.

To be continued...

Image from Wikipedia

Flor de Mayo

I was in Cali two weekends ago, and picked up a few bottles of liquor to bring home with me. One of those was a bottle of Qi White Tea Liqueur from (I believe) St. George Spirits (I also grabbed a bottle of the Black Tea Liqueur, but that's for another post).

So, Tuesday evening rolls around. Another day of work is over. What better way to celebrate than a cocktail?

I'm between getting the mail at the post office and heading to Lovely Hula Hands with BC and DJ. Looking over the liquor shelf, it occurs to me that I haven't made a drink with the Qi liqueurs yet. A quick check of the Qi web site provides a number of ideas. Having recently tackled the old school Daiquiri, their Flor de Mayo looks like it might be up my alley. Here's the breakdown:

• 2 oz dark rum (they suggest Pampero Anniversario, which I happen to have on the shelf)
• 1 oz Qi White Liqueur
• 1 oz lime juice
• .5 tbsp simple syrup (they suggest 1 tsp)
• Combine, shake, strain, drink

The drink itself is pretty good. Unfortunately, the orange flavor in the Qi really outshines white tea.

Rangpur Gimlet

[Ed. note - I wrote this weeks ago, just never posted...] This past Saturday was the first PSU farmer's market of the season. C, D, B, and I made plans weeks ago to attend the market together, and then make a "First Market" dinner. Weather was dim and rainy, but that wasn't going to hold us back.

My contribution was a plate of baby carrots and French breakfast radishes with coarse French grey salt and hand churned butter (unfortunately, Noris dairy wasn't at the market so I settled on Strauss cream). Pleasant and simply, ultimately fresh and tasty.

I also offered to handle the cocktails for dinner. I bought a number of ingredients at the markets, but the most interested were Rangpur limes (also called lemanderins). I bought 6 of them, which wasn't quite enough for 4 small cocktails.

I spent part of the afternoon making syrups. For this drink, I made a simple syrup with Temple de l'Aube tea (a green tea with bergamot and lemon) and unrefined organic cane sugar.

• 1 c water
• 1 c unrefined organic cane sugar
• 2 teaspoons Temple de l'Aube green tea
• Bring water to a near boil, steep tea for a few minutes, strain, add sugar, dissolve sugar, pass through cheesecloth, cool.

I also made rhubarb syrup and ginger/black pepper syrup, but those are for another story.

Anyway, I dragged all kinds of bar tools to CC's place, and prepped this cocktail, which I'm calling the Rangpur gimlet (and yes, I know there is no Rose's in this recipe, but I don't care, I prefer fresh juice and a little sugar).

• 1.5 oz Junipero gin
• 1 oz rangpur lime juice (although I was a little short)
  
• .5 oz Temple de l'Aube simple syrup
• Shake with ice and serve up on a cocktail glass
• I didn't add a garnish

And that's it. The flavors were actually more subtle than I had expected. The citrus really shined in the finish, and the tea syrup added a lovely note to the nose.

I'd certainly make these again (and if fact, I probably will next weekend). Oh, and if you want to buy these limes at the market, see the honey and egg folks at the far South end of the market. They'll cost 2 for $1 for the medium size (3 for $1 for the small ones).

Photo courtesy of CC.

The Lady Panther

Hello peeps.

It's been a while. No good reason. Most likely, no one even checks for updates here anymore. That's OK. It's understandable.

I've gotten into cocktails since my last post. In a big (read unhealthy [?]) way.

One ingredient I've really been digging is St. Germain. Not heard of it? Again, understandable. It's fairly new to our Portland, OR market. It's a liqueur made from the elderflower, a blossom of the Elder tree. If you buy into their story (and I'm not sure I entirely do), the blossoms are hand harvested (during a several day window in spring) in the French Alps and delivered, by bicycle no less, to the distillery.

My belle like St. Germain too. I've mixed it into a drink that she likes. Originally it was an impromptu vodka collins...

sort of via Ben Reed's The Art of the Cocktail

• 1.75 oz vodka [I've been using Lovejoy from Integrity Spirits]
• .75 oz lemon juice [because I can't conform to the rules, I use meyer lemons]
• .5 oz simple syrup
• club soda
• a splash of grapefruit juice (texas red)
  
• more than a splash of St. Germain.

I've been trying to refine that into an actual recipe, but I can't seem to recreate the magic (although I've enjoyed the experimentation).

Unfortunately, meyer lemon season is nearly over, and the quest for the perfect "Lady Panther" (the name I am giving the as-of-yet unperfected drink) will have to wait until next year.

Congratulations, Lady Panther, you have won this round. But I will be back.

Drink

Impromptu mini-party at my place last night. We were thinking of trying to recreate a drink from Siam Society, the Midnight in the Garden (fresh blueberries pureed with vodka & a splash of fresh squeezed lime juice served on the rocks, according to their web site). But, realizing that blueberries aren't in season, we opted for cranberries instead. Since these little red beauties are a bit more tart than their blue siblings, we needed to tweak the rest of the ingredients a little...

Here's the recipe we came up with...

• 1.5 oz vodka (we used Ciroc)
• .5 oz Cointreau
• .5 oz fresh lime juice
• .5 oz simple syrup
• 1 heaping tablespoon pureed cranberries (fresh cranberries and a little water)
  
• .5 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• Put all ingredients in shaker with a generous amount of ice, shake well, and pour into a cocktail shell

Yep, that's it. Super easy and super tasty.