Because 2 days is never enough.

Erik and I are addicted to smoothies. It started as a summertime weekend treat when we lived in San Francisco, and has developed into a multi-day affair in the form of breakfast Monday through Friday. We’ve put just about everything in season into a smoothie at some point, although some concoctions are more successful than others, and some can never be recreated since we don’t remember what was in them (sadly). Some items are better paired with yogurt, some with soy milk, others with chocolate soy milk. Some items go well with a little green tea matcha, some with a scoop of sorbet. The process lends itself to endless experimentation, which is part of the fun.

The smoothies this week have been so good that we’ve actually managed to make the same smoothie four days in a row (very rare in our smoothie making experience since we usually run low on at least one ingredient after the first day). The amounts below are estimates since we just eyeball everything or throw in the amounts that happen to be on hand.

Add to blender:

• 1/4 cantelope, cut in chunks
• 1 peach, sliced
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (preferably homemade)
• Scoop of mango sorbet (or other complimentary fruit, preferably homemade)
• 1/4 cup Ceres Medley of Fruits juice (natural guava, pineapple, papaya, etc.)

Makes enough for 2 pint sized glasses.

Here’s another yummy mix for late season peaches when the bounty of apples start to appear at the farmer’s market:

• 1-2 peaches
• 1 large honey crisp apple
• 1 heaping cup of plain yogurt (preferably homemade)
• 1/3 cup apricot juice
• honey to taste

Enjoy!

After all the running around and fretting and choosing, I finally put together all my holiday gifts in time to distribute a few of them at our holiday party.

The Goods:

1. Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate
I found big bags of ancho chilies and boxes of my favorite Ibarra Mexican chocolate at a big grocery store at 135th and Broadway, right near my office. The neighborhood is largely Dominican and the supermarket has all kinds of great ingredients. Each set included a disk of chocolate, a clear bag with the chili and a cinnamon stick and instructions to make this delectable, spicy, sweet delight.

For Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate:
4 cups milk
1 ancho chili
1 cinnamon stick
1 disk Mexican chocolate

Heat milk, chili pieces, and cinnamon in medium saucepan until just steaming. Remove from heat and let steep, covered, for 10 minutes. Add chocolate, mixing until melted (I used my wooden spoon to mash up the chocolate in an attempt to accelerate the melting process, one recipe I saw recommended using a blender).
Strain.
Enjoy.

2. Mulling Sachets
See “Mulling It Over: II” for description of the mulling sachets. I put these single serving mulling sachets in metal tins from the container store. I only made four or five of them because a few sources indicated they wouldn’t be very popular. But then I picked up some cider and tried it out the other night. Yum. I had one friend who chose the sachets over the chocolate and I think he’ll be pleased (even though I do so love that Mexican chocolate).

3. Holiday CDs
I’ve been slowing teaching myself Illustrator over the past year or so by choosing projects that make me use it. This time, I used the drawing functions more than I have in the past to make a wintry tree with a bird in it for the cd cover. I learned a lot of new functions and tricks (although my big breakthrough definitely came with the valentine’s card I made last February). I still have some issues with PDF files. I don’t have a color printer at home, so I need to print from a PDF at Kinko’s or Staples. Alyce came to the rescue for part of that problem, but I still ended up printing out 25 copies before I realized that when I converted to a PDF, the image was resized. All my covers were too small. I almost wept when Karl said, “That’s not going to fit in a cd case.”
Enter the spray mount and the colored paper.
And ack! This morning I just realized there was a typo in the song list.
We’ll I’m still figuring it all out.

4. Unfortunately, the pottery I made to go along with the holiday beverages was still in the kiln on Saturday, so I won’t have that until tonight.

15 bags of Mexican hot chocolate, 4 tins of mulling sachets, 25 holiday cds, 5 ceramic mugs, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I realized the key to last minute holiday craft success is to limit the amount of time I spend sleeping. I’m starting to get circles under my eyes - it’s not pretty.

The good news is that I found 160 proof vodka in my neighborhood last night so I can attempt to make my own limoncello. I had a bit of a setback this past week since I was told grain alcohol is illegal in the state of New York. I contemplated asking my co-workers who commute in from New Jersey to pick some up for me, but I was worried they would think I was an alcoholic. This led to my insecurity about asking for 160 proof vodka in the liquor stores. Every time I went into a store to ask for it I felt compelled to explain that I needed it to make my own liquor. I figured you can’t just ask for 160 proof vodka without having a legit reason. My liquor store only had one brand at that proof and the bottle looks small-time, almost homemade, and it’s from a town upstate that I’ve never heard of. It’s called Devil’s Creek and has two primary warnings on the label:

1. Highly flammable.
2. Do not drink without out diluting it first.

Nice.

I was so excited about the vodka purchase that I peeled 11 lemons last night at around midnight, dumped them into an airtight container with the liter of vodka, and hid the concoction in a safe corner of my kitchen. When I peeked in on it this morning, I noticed the liquid already started turning yellow in color. I feel like a prohibition era moonshiner preparing my own hooch. I’ll report back in a few days to let you know how step 2 of the process turns out.

I’m not multi-tasking very well, so, at this point, I’m about 1/3 done with about 4 projects, but not finished with anything–except maybe with myself… next year, I swear, I’m planning ahead better. But I too tried out mulling sachets. Mine were from a recipe in the Martha Stewart magazine called Holiday, mentioned here before (Karl has his bike porn and I have my craft porn). These little guys go in a mug with some hot cider for a nice single serving treat. I’m not getting the best feedback on this item, so I think I’ll concentrate my remaining efforts on the other projects. But… some of you may just be lucky enough to get a tin full of these spicy holiday treats.

I’m worried about making my gifts in time for the holidays. This is complicated by the fact that much of what I want to make is food-related and can’t be made too far in advance. In order to stave off a panic attack, I’ve started with a few items that are not time sensitive such as herbal tea mixes and mulled wine sachets.

Mindy’s Variation on Mulled Wine
2 cinnamon sticks
1 whole nutmeg
1 handful allspice berries
1/2 orange zest (or 1 handful dried orange peel)
1/2 cup sugar (or sugar to taste)
Magnum of red wine (equivalent of 2 standard bottles)

Mulling Sachet
Fold a piece of cheesecloth in half and cut an 8-inch round. Place the cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and orange into the center and tie with kitchen twine.

Mulled Wine
Add the wine to a saucepan along with the mulling sachet and sugar. Simmer on low heat. Ladle wine into mugs or remove sachet and serve.

These sachets also work well in apple cider (about 1 1/2 liters).

It’s not so much that I NEEDED more booze in my life, but just that, well, this one is so darned great.

In honor of the Turkish book most of us didn’t get through, I decided to pick up a bottle of raki, the Turkish liquour, for our book club. Raki has been around since Byzantine times and is usually made from raisins or fresh grapes and occasionally from figs. We partook of Yeni Raki brand.

Now, the anise flavor isn’t for everyone, but as an avowed lover of black licorice, it tasted pretty nice to me. What’s more, it was sort of fun to watch it cloud up as I mixed the water into my glass. But, the best thing of all? it just makes you feel happy. Not drunk…happy. I didn’t partake nearly enough of this lovely drink when I was in Turkey last year (I think I was just so excited at the ubiquitity of tea), but I’ll certainly be partaking of it enough moving forward.

Get ready!