Happy Hour

We are very excited about Spring, especially for all the wonderful seasonal produce and ingredients it has to offer. We wanted to kick it off with this super refreshing and crisp cocktail. So we’ve done another guest food blog for The Fix to give you this Grapefruit and Mint Refresher. Check it out! Happy Spring!

PINK COCKTAILS! Yep, and its not some unnatural weird stuff to make it that pretty. It’s prickly pears. Do you know about them? You cut them open, and they are the most beautiful bright pink color. So we used them to make some cocktails, and my favorite kind: fizzy cocktails. The first time I had a cocktail with an egg white in it, I thought it was going to be a little strange but it turned out to be really light and makes a nice fizzy top to your drink. We made this cocktail to be a little flexible, you can use just plain old simple syrup, or you can pair it with one of these three fabulous Morris Kitchen flavored syrups. Here is where the giveaway comes in. Eat Boutique is a great little online store that carries small batch foods made by amazing boutique makers. The cool thing is Eat Boutique crafts these amazing seasonal and regional gift boxes, as well as many awesome individual items. They also host tasting events and markets. It’s a pretty cool situation they have going on. Eat Boutique was nice enough to give us three Morris Kitchen flavored syrups: ginger, spiced apple, and preserved lemon. You can win this three pack by leaving a comment below, and tell us what your favorite holiday drink is. We will stop counting comments on Thursday at 1 p.m. pst. So you have till then to comment and hopefully win! Good luck! Please note that the winner’s box will not ship till after Christmas, and we will only ship within the US. Make sure you put in your email in the email field when you comment so we can contact you if you win!
♥ Teri

Prickly Pear Fizz
Serves 2 to 3

Ingredients:
1 prickly pear
2 tablespoons sugar
6 ounces gin
3 tablespoons Morris Kitchen Flavored Syrup of choice or Simple Syrup
1 ounce heavy cream
2 lemons, juiced
1 lime, juiced
2 egg whites
cold tonic water

1. Remove thick outer skin of the prickly pear and puree flesh with sugar until smooth. Strain and reserve 1/4 cup for use, storing the rest of the puree for another use.
2. Place all ingredients, except tonic water, into a shaker and shake vigorously for about 5 minutes.
3. Pour mixture into glasses and top each with tonic water. Serve.

**UPDATE** Congrats to LIZ who said: “Coquito! It’s a Puerto Rican eggnog made with coconut, cinnamon, and lots of rum ” Check your email! Thank you everyone!

Full Disclosure: We were not paid for this post, and our opinions are our own. We just really dig Eat Boutique.

Hi Guys! We’re so excited to have teamed up with Lilly Pulitzer to recreate some of her amazing recipes. Not only are we recreating them, but we’re adding our own modern twists! First up we have Lilly’s Cranberry-Orange Ginger Ale….yum, right?! We’ve taken this classic cranberry-orange combo and pumped it up by replacing the orange juice with freshly squeezed tangerine juice. We’ve also swapped the ginger ale with cream soda….who doesn’t love a nice, thick cream soda? Finally, we incorporated a very subtle rosemary simple syrup, which helps to cut a bit of the richness in this creamsicle mocktail, it helps the drink maintain the perfect balance of refreshing and sweet. If you please, you can also add a bit of gin into the mix for an extra kick. Enjoy!

Click on over to Lily Pulitzer’s blog for the full recipe!

Teri + Jenny

I know the elections and over, and no one wants to hear about it anymore, but I’m really into flag hair lady. She is the new NASA man with the mohawk. It’s hilarious to me that people get so captivated by these kinds of things, and weirdly thrust these people into twitter / internet / meme fame. I love it. I just wonder at what moment when she got home did she realize she was internet famous? And why did she decide to put that flag in her hair anyway? Was her arm tired? I really hope someone does an interview so all of  my flag hair lady questions will be answered.

Onto this drink. I have always loved all things apple drink. I grew up on Martinellis Apple Juice (from costco of course), and Sparkling Apple Cider is one of my favorites. The mom and dad even had Martinellis on their first date in the move Parent Trap (the original, always) which was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I have always loved this stuff. So when we wanted to make a yummy fall cocktail the cider was the obvious choice. Not to mention we could put cute apple stars in the drink. How do you like them apples? (had to, sorry).
♥ Teri

Honeycrisp & Bourbon Spiced Cider
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:
6 cups honeycrisp cider (or any apple cider of your choice)
peel of 1 lemon (removing all the pith)
10 whole cloves
5 cardamom pods
3 star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 piece of fresh ginger, peeled
1 teaspoon light brown sugar (optional)
2 cups bourbon
garnish:
2 honeycrisp apples (or sweet apples of your choice), thinly sliced crosswise (about
1/4 inch)

1. Place cider, lemon peel, cloves, star anise, cinnamon sticks, ginger, and sugar into a medium pot and bring to a simmer.
2. Simmer for 10 minutes, cover, remove from heat, and steep for 1 hour. Place mixture over stove again and heat through until warmed.
3. Strain mixture and stir in bourbon.
4. To serve: Using a 1 ½ -2 inch circle cutter, cut star centers out from the thin slices of apple and remove any remaining seeds. Pour cider into individual mugs and top with “stary” apple cut outs and serve.

My favorite cocktail is a gin and tonic. Lately, instead of coming home to a beer, it’s been a gin and tonic. Not in a lush kind of way, more in a Mad Men kind of way. It’s nice to have before dinner, and most of all, its perfect for the disgusting heat waves Los Angeles has been having. The good thing about gin and tonics and that the base of the drink is already there: gin, and tonic. You can add pretty much anything you want to this drink and it will be yummy. I add raspberries a lot, sometimes blueberries or basil, and sometimes-just mint. Whatever I have extra of really. This however has been by far my favorite flavor collaboration. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!
♥ Teri

Blackberry and Meyer Lemon Gin and Tonics
Serves 4

Ingredients:
12 blackberries
20 fresh mint leaves
2 Meyer lemons (can sub. regular lemons)
1/4 cup simple syrup
12 ounces good quality gin
tonic water
ice

1. Set out four high ball glasses.
2. Place 3 blackberries, 5 mint leaves, juice of ½ lemon, and 1 tablespoon simple syrup in each glass and muddle together.
3. Fill each glass with ice, followed by 3 ounces of gin. Top off each drink with tonic water, stir and serve.

Hey Guys! Guess What?! Today Spoon Fork Bacon turns 1! That’s right, a year ago today our blog went live and we’ve been trucking along ever since. A HUGE thank you to each and every one of you for your amazing support, sometimes hilarious comments and overall honest feedback, we really appreciate it and YOU!!

Hi Guys! So first of all can I give you all a big, fat THANK YOU?!?! The initial response to the release of our very first cookbook was amazing and it’s all because of you totally kick-ass readers! So thank you, thank you, thank you! You guys really made our day!! I couldn’t be more excited about Oct 9th and hope you’re all pre-ordering your copies on amazon now!

Okay, now to today’s recipe. We have arancello for you all today! Don’t know what it is?? It’s pretty much limoncello’s less popular little sister….and absolutely delicious. The intense orange flavor that is extracted from the peels is sort of unbelievable. I’m not a vodka fan myself, but man is this good! It’s still quite strong, but on a hot summer day it’s perfect with some muddled mint, over lots and lots of ice! I also like adding a little arancello to mimosas to “spruce” them up. Just some small tips: using the freshest oranges will get you the best results (you can extract the most oil from them) and although many people just add the large strips of peel to the vodka, I highly recommend thinly slicing the peels, like I’ve done above (you’ll really get the most orange flavor this way). Anyway, I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and make this super, simple liqueur this weekend….so it’ll be ready to go in a couple weeks! Enjoy!
xx Jenny

Arancello
10 oranges, scrubbed
1 liter good quality vodka (minimum 80 proof/40%)
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups water

1. Peel all oranges with a vegetable peeler or knife, removing as much pith (white stuff) from the peels.
2. Thinly slice the peels and place into a large jar (I like to use ball jars for this).
3. Pour vodka over peels, seal jar and allow mixture infuse in a cool, dry place for 2 to 3 weeks, shaking the mixture once every 2 days.
4. After 2 to 3 weeks have gone by, make simple syrup: combine sugar and water with a pot and simmer until sugar dissolves. Set aside and cool completely.
5. Once simple syrup has cooled, strain vodka and orange peel mixture. Stir simple syrup into infused vodka and serve over ice with mint leaves or add a small amount to your favorite cocktail for an intense orange kick!

So, coke and red wine probably sounds horrible to you. It’s not. Hear me out. Kalimotxo is a really simple and really refreshing drink. My dear friend Karin turned me on to them. In Boise, which is where I am from, there is this amazing Basque restaurant Bar Gernika. They serve Kalimotxos there, and I always try to get one, and their croquetas, which are amazing. I was skeptical at first because like you, I thought coke and red wine would be disgusting. I could blab on about how coke balances out nicely with cheap wine, but I won’t. Just make it, and you will be happy. It’s easy, yummy, and I like the caffeine, helpful when you’re super lazy and drinking. Give it a chance!
♥ Teri

Kalimotxo
Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients:
3 cups (24 ounces) red wine (preferably NOT expensive)
2 cups (16 ounces) cola cola
lots of ice

1. Pour ingredients into a pitcher and stir. Pour into individual glasses and
serve.

Hi all! Does everyone have big Easter plans? Even if you don’t celebrate Easter, don’t you always feel the need to be brunching every Easter Sunday? It just seems so appropriate, doesn’t it? I have plans with the bf and his family….brunch, duh. Every year his family puts together a delightful Easter egg hunt (with prizes for the most found eggs), although the youngest person who attends is me (I’m 27). The prizes are always Nordstrom gift cards, so needless to say my competitive nature comes out and I go full force. This year, I’ll be doing the same…barreling through my bf’s aunts, uncles and grandparents to claim that last egg we all saw hidden in the bushes. No shame. None.

Anyway, I think this cocktail is the perfect [Easter] brunch cocktail….light, sweet, refreshing, and bubbly! The hibiscus and ginger both bring a great element of surprise and flavor to the drink. Plus, the hibiscus flower floating around is really pretty and adds a little extra “wow” factor, don’t ya think?! Also, the ingredients really aren’t as difficult to find as you may think; I got everything from Bev-Mo, even the Hibiscus flowers sitting in rose water syrup! I’m pretty sure you can also get all these things at a Total Wine as well. Amazon is also pretty awesome…FYI I hope everyone has a great weekend Easter egg hunting, brunching and sipping on these cocktails! Enjoy!
xx Jenny

Hibiscus and Ginger Champagne Cocktail
Makes 4 to 5

Ingredients:
4 to 5 hibiscus flowers sitting in rose water syrup
1/2 cup Domaine de Canton (or any ginger liqueur of your choice)
1 (750ml) bottle champagne or sparkling wine

1. Place a single hibiscus flower and 1 tablespoon of rosewater syrup into each champagne flute.
2. Pour 2 tablespoons of ginger liqueur into each glass and top with chilled champagne or sparkling wine. Serve.