This week’s Bloody Mary recipe is fairly simple. Simple, yet delicious. My husband ordered a dirty martini a couple of weeks ago and asked for a shot of Bloody Mary mix. He drank down the martini enough to add the Bloody Mary mix, and pretty soon, five other customers in the bar were also drinking the Dirty Mary (which can also be called the Bloody Martini, if you prefer).

I personally think that the Dirty Mary tastes best when you ask the bartender simply to look at the vermouth, but of course, it’s up to you. Make sure to make it with vodka and not gin. I got this recipe from my friend John, bartender extraordinaire. Here’s how you make it: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not just for Catholics anymore, if it ever was. I have several non-religious friends, and the topic du jour (particularly in Facebook status messages) is what people are giving up for Lent. Interestingly enough, a lot of decisions involve food. So far, the most popular decisions I’ve seen are giving up potato chips, eating out, chocolate, sugar, alcohol, and meat.

So, how does your life change when you decide to give up a food group for forty days? Read the rest of this entry »

The great thing about making a Gazpacho Mary is that most of the ingredients in Gazpacho can be found in your Bloody Mary mix or your vodka: hot sauce? In the mix. Pepper? In the vodka, if you choose Absolut PEPPAR. All you have to do is blend a cucumber into the mix and choose your garnish carefully, and voila! You can drink your Gazpacho!

I just want to say, before I continue with the simple recipe, that we are having a great time creating these recipes and then trying them to see if they are any good. I was hesitant about the Taco Mary. I can admit that now. But it’s AMAZING. So, if you haven’t tried it yet, do yourself a favor and mix one up.

Without further ado, I introduce the Gazpacho Mary. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I want to address before continuing with specific breads is flour: What kind of flour are you using? Because there is a big difference between baking with whole wheat flour and white flour.

One major difference is nutrition. Whole wheat flours have more fiber and more nutrients. Using whole wheat flours is healthy, and it will give you a different bread than using white flour. Whole wheat breads are denser and heartier. They taste great, but baking with them is a little trickier than with white doughs, and this can lead to baker frustration. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we are going to try Taco Marys! This is not to be confused with a Bloody Maria, which is made with tequila and bloody mary mix, rather than vodka. This week’s drink is designed to give you a few extra spices and a little bit of fire, so if you have a bad cold like I do, this should help clear you out.

Because we like our base mix so much (Zing Zeng Bloody Mary mix), we like to add variations to it. But if you have a great Bloody Mary recipe that doesn’t involve a mix, I’d love to hear it (and I do have plans for a drink without a purchased mix for the coming weeks). I also mentioned last week that this week we would talk about vodkas. I am not going to talk about brands, but instead, the fact that there are so many great flavor variations out there that you can use with a Bloody Mary. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most intimidating thing about making homemade bread is the fear that the bread won’t turn out. There are a couple of ways we can define the bread as not having turned out: The bread is burnt, or the yeast fails to rise at some part in the process, so instead of a light loaf, you get a dense, undercooked mess.

If the bread is burnt, sometimes you can cut off the burnt parts. But what to do with the dense mess that sort of seems like bread, and might even be edible as bread, but isn’t something you want anybody else to find out you made? That is when you make bread pudding, if you don’t want to throw the whole thing out.

It might make you feel better to know that sometimes I have bread failures; I had one last month, actually. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think in my case, it was a combination of factors. I let the bread rise on a wood stove, which may have killed the yeast if it got too hot. I also baked it at a friend’s house, at 35o degrees instead of 450, and there was a casserole baking in the same oven. What we ended up getting with the bread was the dense “brick” I was describing. It was a disaster. Read the rest of this entry »

My husband Dereck loves Bloody Marys. He claims that he didn’t like them a few years ago, but now they are his favorite cocktail. He isn’t a snob: He will order one in a bar or restaurant. But his favorites are the ones he makes at home.

Cooking relaxes Dereck, and so does playing around with Bloody Mary concoctions. He says he is going to develop a bunch of new recipes and then have a Bloody Mary off on his May 6 birthday. So, I thought I’d share some of his recipes here, and invite you to drink along!

Read the rest of this entry »