Category Archive

Hello world,

I know I know. We neglected to mention we were shutting off the blog for for a few weeks. It’s because Hanne and I had planned on posting over the break. We spent a week and a half in Edmonton with family and friends and had a big plans on posting recipes for the Christmas food Hanne and I grew up eating. But instead of spending time in our parent’s kitchens we were on the freeway between their homes and balancing schedules. Married life is tough, I tell you.

Excuses! Both of our families had new ice cream machines and a few SiS requests for us, so we fine tuned our stout ice cream and corrected a major mistake on the pumpkin one. Really though, if anyone out there was gullible enough to put 14 teaspoons of salt in their ice cream instead of a 1/4 teaspoon, you got what you deserved. Just desserts. Heh heh.

We also had big plans for the second half of our trip in Los Angeles.

But there’s no internet on the beach.

Our camera is gagged on gigs of photos of great food. We also hauled a suitcase full of citrus, booze and various ingredients back over the border to Montreal. So we’re now set to get back to work on SupperInStereo.

Did you miss us? Not as much as these guys did:

Above is Sophie-Cat making sure the duffel bag stays empty. The second picture is of Presto Petman, who attached himself to my leg for the better part of the afternoon. Worked for both of us. He got to feel that he was preventing me from leaving him (ever) again and I got to kick back for a couple hours with some new books and a dry martini Hanne made.

The martini recipe is from the back of this Fee Brothers bottle. The flavour of Orange Bitters comes from the oils of orange skins. It smells like orange soda and tastes like mandarin orange peel. The citrus taste cleaned up the mouth smack of the last drop of old vermouth that was sitting on our bar since before we left. Recipe goes:

1 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. Dry Vermouth
3 dashes of Orange Bitters

CHEERS!

Welcome back to Booze Stereo, delayed gratification edition. Last week, I talked about impulsive food prep (does a cocktail count as food? Not so much, I guess). As soon as I read about apple vermouth cocktail on Serious Eats (original recipe from Paul Clarke), I knew I had to have it. You know when a taste springs into your mind fully formed? Yeah, that’s what I had. Of course, after my impulsive assembly of ingredients, I had to wait and allow my sliced apples to steep in a litre of vermouth for five days. We finally got to taste our concoction on Saturday, when we cracked open the bottle as a brunch accompaniment.

My expectations were totally warranted. This cocktail is fruity without being froufy, as the herbal notes of the vermouth tone down the apple flavours and add a bit of sophistication. It was a great brunch drink as it was nice and light. I wish I had one of these, because I think it would be amazing fizzy. But maybe that would be over the top.

The assembly was very easy too. I made the executive decision to leave the skins on the apples, because I wanted the vermouth to pick up a nice pink colour, which it did. There was a bit of sediment in the final product after I strained it through just a fine-mesh strainer. However, I also strained it through several layers of cheesecloth and after that it came out nice and clear (see the above picture), with a beautiful coral pink tint. Another change to the recipe that I’d recommend is to reduce the number of apples. On Serious Eats, the number of apples was 8. I only used five. I had one mason jar full to the brim with apples and vermouth, and another jar that was only half-full. Next time, I’d fill two jars 3/4 full, as I found that the apples browned less in the jar that wasn’t full to the brim. I’m not sure why, but it worked better that way, maybe just because the apple-to-vermouth proportion was lower.

This was an altogether satisfying experience. I can’t wait to make another batch!

I work from home, which is usually pretty great, but is not always the enviable position you might imagine. Often it means that there’s no escape from work, and I’ll find myself lounging on the couch watching TV in the evenings, worrying about the pile of work sitting accusingly on the table next to me. However, one great advantage (slash disadvantage) is that when an idea strikes me I can go ahead and do it. And, because I’m a great procrastinator and I welcome any distraction, I usually do it immediately. Case in point: this apple vermouth cocktail. I read the recipe on serious eats an hour ago and I knew I had to try it. A jog to the grocery store (and two liquor stores) later, it’s sitting in the fridge. I’m not much of a patience kind of person, I guess. I do, however, have to wait at least five days to try this out. We’ll let you know how is tastes next week.

p.s. As I don’t have a mandoline, I used the slicer of my food processor to do the work. You could also slice the apples by hand. Also, the recipe doesn’t specify whether or not to peel the apples, so I didn’t.