Memorial Day in the Kitchen

On the weekends when I don't have to work or travel, I usually take one of the days to recover from the work week (that is, I'm a lazy bum) and take the other day to do all the personal errands and housework that I ignored during the week. Over Memorial Day weekend, I had been super lazy on Saturday, and super productive on Sunday; therefore, come Monday morning, I was in a bit of a quandary as to what to do with my extra free day.

So I thought back to Independence Day last year, which was probably the last extra day off when I wasn't otherwise obligated. I spent that extra day off on two cooking projects: making another batch of strawberry basil jam and setting up my Eat Your Books account. Spending the day in my kitchen was a delightful prospect, especially since my weekend errands had included going grocery shopping, visiting the local orchard, stopping by my small local liquor store, and trekking out to the local distillery. As a result, I had a bounty of fresh vegetables, a large bag of baking grade Granny Smith apples, two bottles of specialty liqueur, three bottles of pink wine, and random ingredients for some long awaited projects. With a little thought and a touch of research, I figured out that I could probably tackle the following:

- Gazpacho
- Cupcakes for my project manager's farewell
- Green Apple Pectin
- Red Wine Jelly or Tea Jelly
- Pork Soup Dumplings
- Applesauce

Of course, the first problem was motivating off the couch and away from my book and coffee mug to start these projects.

Cucumber Liqueur Blood Mary

My trek to the local distillery on Sunday afternoon was undertaken with a specific purpose: to redeem two specially marked empty bottles for two full bottles. When my really good friend, her crew, and I took the distillery tour earlier in the month, the Lady of the Lair told our tour group a secret: if you find a bottle with a special mark on it "out in the wild," you can return that empty bottle to the distillery for a free bottle. About two weeks after the distillery tour, I stopped at a liquor store near my office to pick up two bottles of their lime liqueur because I needed both a birthday present and a hostess gift for my travels over the weekend. The store had a great stock of their liqueurs and I had some time on my hands, so I checked all the bottles for the special mark. And I found two! One was on a bottle of birch liqueur, and the other was on a bottle of chai spice liqueur. I bought both, emptied them into glass lemonade bottles, and brought them back to the distillery for redemption. Sure enough, the lovely lady at the distillery offered me the option of choosing two full bottles or one t-shirt. I opted for a bottle of rose liqueur and a bottle of cucumber liqueur because I enjoyed the sample bottles that I had tested in cocktails late last year.

While relaxing on the couch with my book on Monday morning, I was struck by what I thought was a genius idea: I could use the cucumber liqueur to enhance a Bloody Mary. Since I wasn't really sure what went into a Bloody Mary - aside from V8 and vodka - I texted my sister and a few of my friends to see whether they thought mixing cucumber liqueur into a Bloody Mary would be a good idea. The answers varied, but there was enough positive response that I decided to go forward with the idea. What was the worst that could happen? If it was disgusting, I would just dump it down the sink.

Of course, the next trick was figuring out what went into a Bloody Mary. I don't have them often enough to know the answer because I usually go with the mimosa or bellini option at boozy brunches. I sent out more text messages. My sister replied with what she considered the basics for a good Bloody Mary, and the add-ins that made for a great Bloody Mary. My really good friend replied with a recipe from Liquor.com. Unfortunately, Liquor.com makes you provide an email address to get access to their site, and I wasn't feeling up to providing that. I get enough garbage email as it is! But that gave me the idea of Googling "Bloody Mary Recipes." Up popped the usual suspects: Epicurious, All Recipes, Food Network, Serious Eats.

Since I usually have extremely good results from Serious Eats, I decided to go with their recipe. It was pretty basic, but at least I had almost all the ingredients. I had celery seed instead of celery salt. I gave a moment's thought to grinding my celery seed with kosher salt to make the required one tablespoon of celery salt, but then I read the recipe and realized that they only used the celery salt for rimming the glass. However, my sister had indicated that was one of the basic must-have ingredients. So I measured the celery seed into my mixing glass in the same quantity as the ground black pepper. On the advice of my really good friend, I skipped the horseradish. She thought that might clash with the cucumber liqueur. I also inadvertently skipped the dash of cayenne pepper because I didn't see it on the ingredient list until after the drink was mixed. After another moment's thought, I decided to measure equal parts vodka and cucumber liqueur, rather than halve the vodka and make up the difference with the cucumber liqueur. I stirred everything in a mixing glass, poured it into a pretty glass, and walked out of the kitchen.

The resulting Bloody Mary was actually really good. The high quality cucumber liqueur balanced out the super cheap vodka, so the drink didn't have a harsh alcohol taste. Since the drink was half alcohol, it didn't have the off-putting thickness of tomato juice. I would have preferred to have poured it over ice - to give it a bit more lightness and a quick chill - but I didn't have any ice in my freezer. That wasn't enough of a showstopper for me to dump the drink!

Gazpacho

When I went to the local orchard on Sunday, I didn't really plan on doing anything other than get a sandwich from their deli counter. But the quarts of tomatoes perched near the deli looked so beautiful and smelled so fragrant that I had to bring one home to eat raw. That gave me the idea to make gazpacho for dinner, so I hustled over to the vegetable counter to pick out some cucumbers and red bell peppers in order to seal the deal. Unfortunately, after I finished running all my errands for the day, I didn't feel like putting any additional effort into dinner. Rather than go through the hassle of finely dicing vegetables for the gazpacho, I opted to finish the homemade chicken soup that was already defrosted in my refrigerator.

While enjoying my Bloody Mary on Monday morning, I remembered that I actually had a second recipe for gazpacho from The Vegetable Butcher, which was one of the first NetGalley books that I ever read and reviewed. That recipe yielded a more luxurious gazpacho than the Time-Life Books version; more importantly, that recipe required no diced vegetables. However, there was a problem: I still couldn't access the files from my deceased personal computer. After a few more sips of my Bloody Mary, I realized that I might have incorporated the recipe into the first NetGalley addendum that I printed out for distribution at Christmas two years ago. Sure enough, I was in business!

The Vegetable Butcher recipe was easy enough: puree garlic, tomatoes, cucumber, and olive oil until smooth; add in red bell pepper, red onion, bread, sherry wine vinegar, and black pepper; puree until smooth; refrigerate to blend flavors. Still, I encountered a few hiccups. I got a little overzealous in counting my tomatoes (they were small) so my cucumber barely fit into the blender. Even though I was able to achieve a smooth puree, there was no room left in the blender for the remaining ingredients. So, I poured half of the puree into my plastic pitcher and then proceeded to add the remaining ingredients. Except the red onion. Although it looked good on the outside, that turned out to be rotten at the core. Even with half the tomato-cucumber puree missing, the remaining ingredients filled the blender yet again. It was a bit of a challenge to get everything pureed, but I managed it. Then I mixed the two batches of puree in the plastic pitcher, which was more than large enough to handle it all.

Rather than wait the recommended four hours for the soup to chill and the flavors to blend, I poured myself a bowl immediately. It was as good as I remembered it, which made me quite happy! After a lunch of gazpacho, guacamole, and wheat pitas, I played Tetris with the contents of the refrigerator in order to fit in the plastic pitcher. Even if I didn't get to the pork soup dumplings, I would have something delicious and nutritious ready for dinner.

Gluten Free Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes

It was already three o'clock by the time I finished cleaning up from both the Bloody Mary and the gazpacho. That meant that it was time to start on the cupcakes for the project manager's last day before she transferred to a new position. I actually had a bit of time, since her last day wasn't until the end of the month, but I didn't want to have to squeeze this project into an evening when I was already exhausted from a day at the office. Besides, the cupcakes that she had asked for were a little complex: gluten free chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and peanut butter frosting.

Ever since I made my first gluten free chocolate cake to recipe test Cake Magic! for NetGalley two years ago, I've maintained a fairly robust stock of gluten free flours so that I can whip up a gluten free cake on a moment's notice. However, I'm always concerned that I might be missing the one key ingredient that prevents me from completing the project. But I had it all: flours, yogurt, eggs, chocolate, and lots of butter.

Even though I've made this cake at least half a dozen times in the past two years, this time I decided to do something different. As usual, I mixed the dry ingredients and set them aside. I ignored the sifting requirement in the book and carried on by just thoroughly stirring the dry ingredients together. Yes, I do own a sifter; I'm usually just too short on time to break it out and find another large bowl to sift into. Of course, today my excuse was mere laziness.

After a nap and some dinner, I picked up with the addition of the wet ingredients. For some reason, it finally occured to me that - if the butter needed to be melted and the chocolate needed to be melted - I could melt both the butter and the chocolate together in my makeshift double boiler. Usually, I put the two sticks of butter into a bowl and put that into the toaster oven to melt; then I put the scant four ounces of chocolate in the double boiler to melt. Maybe I was still fuzzy headed from my nap and unconsciously looking for a way to make the process go more quickly. Whatever the reason, I gave it a go - and it worked! The batter came together flawlessly, with one fewer bowl to clean up.

It wasn't until the cupcakes were already in the oven that I decided to check the peanut butter jar. I was fairly determined that I should make a double batch of peanut butter buttercream - if only because I didn't want half a box of confectioners sugar hanging out in my pantry. Unfortunately, by the looks of my peanut butter jar, I didn't even have enough to make a single batch. So, off to the store it would be! All I needed to do was wait for the cupcakes to come out of the oven, as I'm not a fan of having a hot oven in an empty house.

Once I got back from the grocery store with my peanut butter (and a few other goodies), I immediately started on the peanut butter frosting. I figured that I would start by piping the peanut butter frosting in the center of the cupcakes so that it would be easier to pipe the bittersweet chocolate frosting around the edge. Although it takes me forever to load and prep a piping bag, piping the frosting goes so much faster for me than spreading frosting with a knife. And it seems to be less messy too.

Unfortunately, the peanut butter frosting was very stiff so it took for ever to pipe. And it didn't make smooth lines. I was very tempted to take a knife to the frosted cupcakes in order to neaten them up. But it was almost 10pm, and I wanted to get a decent night's sleep. Fortunately, the bittersweet chocolate frosting piped like a dream! Then it was just a matter of tediously unwrapping the candies and placing them in the centers of the cupcakes. They weren't my prettiest work, but I knew that the project manager would sincerely appreciate the thought.

The Verdict

Although I didn't finish all the kitchen projects that I had planned for my bonus day off, I was still satisfied with what I did accomplish. I had really been looking forward to experimenting with the pork soup dumplings and the tea jelly, but it was more important to be fresh for the office on Tuesday morning. Besides, I didn't have any after work appointments on Tuesday, so I could always use that evening to move at least one of the projects along.