Archive for July, 2008
Infuse Your Booze: Making Fruit-Flavored Liquors
Fresh fruit + vodka = summer in a glass, all year round. I’ve been making fruit-infused liquors for about 10 years. I get it from my mother, who makes jars of lemon verbena liquor and blackberry brandy (and amazing Irish Cream in the winter). I know the whole fruit infusion thing has been done to [...]
Fly Me to the Moon
Wait, I’ll settle for 180 feet up. Seems like folks are always looking for new and unusual dining experiences. The Boston Globe ran an article today about Dinner in the Sky, a global dining concept (I really can’t think of any other way to describe it) that a few Boston-area entrepreneurs have brought to the [...]
Country-Style Pork Ribs
Country-style pork ribs are just about one of my favorite types of ribs. They’re meaty and big, and absolutely fall apart when slow cooked. The recipe below is a basic one (again, the one my mom used). I change this a lot, depending on who’s coming to dinner and what I have in the house.
Cream-Cheese Frosting
This is another one from my mother. It’s just the right kind of tangy frosting to top any kind of apple or carrot cake. It’s also really good on chocolate cake. I always make this a few hours before I’m going to want to use it, since it stiffens up quite a bit in the [...]
Peach Ratafia
First off, what the heck is a ratafia? (The short answer is “a really, really yummy drink,” but that probably doesn’t help much.) Merriam Webster defines a ratafia as “a liqueur made from an infusion of macerated fruit or fruit juice in a liquor (as brandy) and often flavored with almonds.” Now, this recipe doesn’t [...]
Crunchy Kosher Pickles
Seeing as it’s summer, here are the pickles I remember from my childhood. They’re the perfect complement to any BBQ. They’re really crispy, and have just the right amount of bite that they don’t overwhelm whatever you eat them with. Mom’s Kosher Pickles 4 lbs. pickling cukes 1/4 cup salt 8 cups water 5 cloves [...]
Tomatoes, Incoming!
I should start figuring out what I’m going to do with all these tomatoes, which look like they’re all going to be ripe at about the same time… Husky Cherry Tomatoes. I’ll definitely plant these again. They’re by far the sturdiest and lushest tomato plants I’ve ever had. Health Kick Tomatoes. I haven’t tried this [...]
BBQ Chicken
Slow cooked tonight. The aluminum foil in the back is a smoke bomb full of hickory chips. We don’t have a smoker (yet). This is a good way to get some honest smokey flavor into BBQ food without one. *** Copyright 2008 The Hungry Mouse™/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.
Perfectly Melty Fondue
I love cheese. Melted cheese is even better. Melted cheese on bread is about as close to heaven as I think I can get. I’m also very much an 8-year-old at heart, and love food that’s fun to eat. This is the fondue that my mom used to make when I was a kid. After [...]
Medieval Meat Grinding Party
The venerable Lady Otter is headed to the woods for a few weeks, and needs to bring some lamb meatballs with her, as part of a traditional medieval Indian meal she’s making. If she’ll be kind enough to share her recipes when she gets back, I’ll post them up here. Chickpea pancakes First, she made [...]
