Yum Yum Punch

I talked about this last year, but it never ceases to amaze me how spring creeps up on Edinburgh. The flowers come in phases: first the snowdrops, then the crocuses, the daffodils, the tulips, and eventually the cherry trees all turn into fluffy pink candy floss cones—my favourite part. We’re not to cherry tree stage yet, but the days are getting so much longer, the sunlight is stronger than it ever is in the dead of winter, and the winds are calming down just enough to let you know that spring is really in the air.

So, of course, when we decided to host a wee dinner party for some friends, I had one thing on my mind: warm weather. It might not be summer here in Edinburgh yet, but if you live anywhere else in the world, you’re probably doing a fair amount of ‘sitting on porches sipping things’ right about now, and this punch would be a worthy addition to any porch party, dinner party, festival pre-game (Atlantans, looking at you!), or beach day.

This drink is basically a riff on a pina colada that allows you to make it without a blender, and makes the whole thing a little lighter… and less likely to give you a brainfreeze. Plus, the addition of ginger beer makes it a little less summery and perfect for the kind of interim spring weather we're having these days. Seriously, it’s just sunshine in a cup. We spiked ours with dark rum, but this would be equally good with light rum or even vodka—but do yourself a favour and spike your glass, not the pitcher, otherwise it’s harder to mix evenly.

Another recommendation I learned the hard way is that coconut cream has to be really mixed to incorporate well into the punch (when making a pina colada, the blender does this for you). I’ve amended the recipe a bit below to help make sure the punch stays uniform consistency, and to account for adding booze to it… if you choose. Another thing we ran into was the simple fact that we don’t own a punch bowl. We’ve gotten around this in the past by using a soup tureen (I know), but it makes a giant mess when people inevitably drip everywhere and I haven’t got a pretty ladle anyway, so we made this in a very tall pitcher and it was just fine. Plus, honestly, this isn’t the most beautifully coloured drink anyway, so you’re not missing out by having it a little more hidden.

Depending on how coconut-y you’d like this to be, you can add coconut water to cut it if needed, or, better, freeze yourself some coconut water in ice cube trays, then plop those coconut cubes into the punch to keep it from getting watery as it chills.

Since my freezer isn’t big enough to freeze an ‘ice ring,’ and, to be honest, I’m not really sure what one is, I used my favourite party-hosting trick and froze ice ‘pucks’ in a muffin tin with a wheel of lime in each—then just pop those into the punch and they look much prettier (and melt more slowly!) than plain old freezer ice.

To be clear, this punch is just as tasty without being spiked, but I’ve gone ahead and included directions for spiking it because when the weather is nice, there’s not a lot that’s nicer than a rum drink… even if your version of ‘nice’ weather is the Scottish definition of ‘I didn’t blow away yet.’

Best of all, as with all good drink recipes (boozy or not), this one is all about your own preferences, so add more pineapple if you want it, or leave out the ginger beer—this one’s all about you, baby!

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. This is really tasty, but it separates if it’s not blended like crazy, so I’m knocking off a spoon for the amount of shaking/whisking I had to do to get it to stay together.

one year ago: Double-Crusted, lightweight Cheesecake

The recipe:

Yum Yum Punch

the directions:

Pour coconut milk and a bit of pineapple juice into a cocktail shaker (or blender) and shake or blend very well.
(Shake this a lot more than you think will be necessary, as this is what helps the coconut cream emulsify into the rest of the punch).
Pour into a pitcher and add the lemonade and the rest of the pineapple juice.
Whisk again, very well, until of uniform consistency.
At this point, if you want to, you can freeze some of the mixture in a muffin tin or ice tray to chill the drink later.
Chill punch very well and whisk again immediately before serving.
Just before serving, add ginger ale to punch to taste, stir very gently to incorporate, and serve in punch cups.
Spike each serving with a shot of rum or vodka as desired, but be careful! The coconut cream covers a lot of boozy flavour so don't make it too strong!

the ingredients:

9 oz coconut cream (like Coco Lopez, if you're Stateside-- NOT coconut water or coconut milk)
12 oz lemonade (NOT fizzy lemonade, if you're in the UK)
40 oz pineapple juice
32 oz ginger ale
Dark rum (or light rum or vodka) to taste

Optional: coconut water to taste; lime wheels to garnish; ice frozen in a muffin tin to chill

Note: the above quantities are totally just suggestions. I included those quantities because that is 1 UK-sized can of coconut cream, 1 Tesco-sized bottle of the first lemonade I found, etc. Basically, get yourself a container of each of the above and go to town.

Chocolate Peppermint Sandwich Cookies & Butter Crispies

A few weeks ago we had some friends over for a homemade-pizza-and-games night, so of course I had to make some easy-to-hold desserts to munch while we played games. I was stoked to make some chocolate sandwich cookies, but I was a little wary since they include peppermint extract, an ingredient notorious for overpowering anything it's put into. I was hoping I wouldn't be able to find peppermint extract at the shop and would have to use vanilla or coffee extract, but, alas, per the rules I set for myself, I found peppermint extract so peppermint extract it was.

Luckily, the recipe comes from a card with a handful of variations for 'flavor-rich butter cookies' from the Sunday News in 1959, and each variation only takes half a batch of dough... so I had a backup recipe of 'butter crispies' to make in case the peppermint chocolate sandwich cookies went awry.

But go awry they did not... at least not in the way I was expecting. The chocolate cookies came out perfectly-- crisp on the edges, soft in the middle, uniformly-sized thanks to the rolling and chilling, and beautifully dark cocoa brown. I whipped the filling together with the tiniest dash of peppermint, but when I realised it was roughly the consistency of spackle, I started to get nervous. The cookies were fairly brittle, so I was afraid that as I tried to smear them with the thick, dry-ish filling, that the cookies would crack and crumble.

But here I was wrong again-- they did not. Instead, the cookies came out perfectly crisp with the lightest hint of peppermint in the thin swipe of filling. The texture was perfectly buttery with a rich, bittersweet chocolate flavour offset perfectly by the sweet peppermint filling. Judson and I ate them so fast that we nearly ran out before our friends came over, and that texture? Perfect for holding the two thin, crispy cookies together without making them soggy.

I have a hunch these would be just as good with vanilla extract, bourbon, or coffee extract in place of the peppermint extract, but the next time I make them, I'll probably just go straight for the peppermint again... because can you imagine how good these would be with a bowl of ice cream?! Seriously, if you're an Oreo fiend (and, let's be honest, who isn't?), you have to try these. They're grown-up Oreos without all the processed junk, fast, easy, and just as delicious... even if you DO skip the peppermint flavouring.

The butter crispies were even more delicate than the chocolate versions, perfectly crispy with a delicate crumb and a beautiful buttery flavour (this is a recipe worth splurging on the 'good' butter for-- in my case, I used Kerrygold Salted Irish butter, and it definitely shines through)... But I must have chilled the dough too long because I couldn't roll it as thin (1/8 inch!) as the recipe requested, so the cookies puffed and swelled so much that the butterflies turned into X's, the diamonds into rhombuses, and the unicorns to... well, let's not talk about the unicorns. So I would still make the butter crispies again (the perfect blend of soft and crisp! The actual taste of butter in every bite!), but next time I might use all elephant cookie cutters, as these ones seemed unfazed by the swelling... I mean, who hates a fat elephant, right?

The verdict:
Chocolate Peppermint Sandwich Cookies:

5 spoons out of five. These were just so perfect and I had no idea I could make something that professional-tasting out of my own kitchen.

Butter Crispies:

4 spoons out of five. Delicious, but a bit more labour intensive since they have to be rolled out. But did I mention they taste just like butter?

One year ago: Broccoli & Cauliflower Casserole

The recipe:

Chocolate Peppermint Oreo-Style Cookies

the directions:

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
Cream butter.
Add powdered sugar gradually and cream until fluffy.
Add egg, vanilla, and vinegar if using, and beat well.
Sift together dry ingredients (including cream of tartar if using) and blend into creamed mixture.
Add chocolate and mix until uniform.
Form dough into a roll 2 inches in diameter and wrap tightly in parchment or waxed paper.
Chill until firm.
Using a very sharp knife, slice 1/8-inch thick.
Bake 6 minutes until slightly darker around the edges and firm.
Cool completely before filling.
While cookies are cooling, cream 4 tbsp butter, 2 c sifted powdered sugar, cream, and mint flavouring.
Spread a cookie with the filling then top with a second cookie of similar size.

the ingredients:
the cookies:

8 oz butter
1 ½ c powdered sugar, sifted
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cream of tartar or 2 tsp white vinegar
2 ½ c flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled

the filling:

4 tbsp butter
2 c powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp cream
¼ tsp peppermint extract

---

The recipe:

Butter Crispies

the directions:

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
Cream butter.
Add powdered sugar gradually and cream until fluffy.
Add egg, vanilla, and vinegar if using, and beat well.
Sift together dry ingredients (including cream of tartar if using) and blend into creamed mixture.
Chill until firm.
Roll on a well-floured surface until 1/8-inch thick.
Cut with floured cookie cutters.
Bake 4-6 minutes until just golden around the edges.
Cool on a wire rack.

the ingredients:
the cookies:

8 oz butter
1 ½ c powdered sugar, sifted
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cream of tartar or 2 tsp white vinegar
2 ½ c flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

Mariner's Shrimp & Mac

Here are some foods I love:

Cheese
Macaroni cheese (this is what macaroni and cheese is called here in the UK and I love it)
Shrimp
Olives

Here are some things I can now say with surety that I do not like in combination:

Cheese
Macaroni Cheese
Shrimp
Olives.

But here we are, and it wouldn’t be The Recipe Box Project if every recipe was a winner. I made this Mariner’s Mac during Lent, because even though we don’t change our diet, I still remember my mom’s stories about eating fish every Friday, so I figured Lent was as good of a time as any to make this dish. But then it was so terrible I’ve just been putting off the inevitable post about it because I just don’t really know what to tell you about this.

To begin with, I should note that, for some reason, macaroni cheese in a box is almost impossible to find in Scotland. Neither of the grocery stores in my neighbourhood carry it, and neither does the one near my office. I couldn’t muster up the energy or desire to ruin a batch of homemade macaroni cheese by turning it into Mariner’s Mac, so I opted for a family-size macaroni cheese from the refrigerator section as my base… but it was from Waitrose—the fanciest grocer in Edinburgh—so it was still a little gourmet.

Also, the recipe doesn’t say what kind of olives should be used, so I went with pitted kalamatas. This was a mistake, though not as big of a mistake as this entire dish turned out to be. The worst part was that it’s impossible to eat around all the nonsense that goes into this dish, because the onions (which are raw for added shudders) are minced so small they’re invisible under the cheese sauce.

I am, however, starting to have a theory that the advent of all the boxed foods that appeared in the 1950s and 1960s are responsible for these weird ‘casseroles’ in a way I didn’t expect. I mean, if you were a housewife in the 1950s, and you had only ever tasted food made from scratch, wouldn't the taste of boxed macaroni just disgust you (not to mention feeling absolutely too easy-- like calling for a takeaway)? So how do you fix the taste of processed foods as a home cook (and how do you convince housewives to buy your product, if you're a brand like Kraft)?

You make up inane recipes to prove how 'versatile' your products are, and if you're a cook, you 'dress up' your easy boxed meals to make them seem more costly, unique, time-consuming, and fancy. At least, that's how I justify the existence of this recipe, and if you have a better idea, than I'm all ears.

The verdict:

1 spoon out of five. I feel I should at least deign to give this recipe a single spoon, since Judson and I managed to eat the shrimp and macaroni cheese and leave behind the majority of the olives and other random ingredients. But I really like both shrimp and macaroni, and it was still an unholy effort to get through an entire bowlful of this recipe. I don't recommend it-- at all.

one year ago: Easter Bread

The recipe:

Mariner's Shrimp & Mac

the directions:

Prepare macaroni as directed on package.
Stir in shrimp, sour cream, olives, pimento, and onion.
Stir well and reheat throughout before serving. 

the ingredients:

1 box (or prepared refrigerated version) macaroni cheese
1 c shrimp, cooked
¾ c sour cream
¼ c olives, pitted and sliced
2 tbsp sweet red pepper or pimento, chopped
1 tbsp onion, chopped finely