Valentine's Day Lovin!

Mr. Lawyer came home and said "What kind of cocktail should we make? I found a recipe for a Frangelico Martini." (We've been trying to experiment with our bar a little more lately). Suddenly, I was struck by inspiration! "What if we use the whipped cream vodka?!" The response? "Done." The inspiration: the last time we went down to NYC to see some college friends we were given a Chocolate Covered Pretzel shot. You lick some salt and take the shot, equal parts Frangelico and whipped cream vodka. It was divine. It actually tasted like a chocolate covered pretzel.

Chocolate Covered Pretzel Martini

(inspired by the chocolate covered pretzel shot)

Ingredients:

Frangelico

Whipped Cream Vodka

Salt

Ice

Directions:

1. Combine equal parts Frangelico and vodka with ice in a shaker. Shake and pour into a salt rimmed glass.

We don't really like going out for Valentine's because everything is so packed and you feel rushed. Our tradition the past couple of years is to cook a nice meal together (this is actually a challenge for me as I like to have everything ready as soon as Mr. Lawyer walks through the door). I made my roasted asparagus with a twist. I added some herbs de provence instead of straight salt/pepper/garlic. Mr. Lawyer  did his baked salmon. He lightly covered the fillets with butter, seasoned with pepper and smoked sea salt and baked it at 400 for 15 minutes. It was all washed down with a bottle of our New Hampshire wine we picked up on our September vacation (Stone Gate Vineyard: their website is here!).

I'm loving these orange roses and gerber daisies!

Date Night!

Mr. Lawyer can add personal drink master extraordinaire to his resume. Not only did he keep the mixed drinks following at our basketball party this past weekend but tonight he whipped up a couple of these yummy treats. I've seen a couple of recipes that call for Bailey's instead of vodka which might be interesting. This tasted good but not quite like a sugar cookie. My sprinkles were too heavy to stick to the rim so I just threw them all in the bottom.

 Sugar Cookie Martini

(makes 2, adapted from we are not martha)

Ingredients:
6 oz. vodka
3 oz. butterscotch schnapps
3 oz. milk
Sprinkles for decorating rim

Directions:

1. Rim the glass with sprinkles if desired.

2. Pour vodka, schnapps and milk in a shaker filled with ice.

3. Shake, shake, shake!

4. Serve it up!

Perfect Lemonade

I made some homemade lemonade the other day for my dinner party. I think this is the third time I've made this particular recipe. It's very good if you like sweet things. If you don't like sweet things you'll have to dilute it a bit or let Woody make it into marvelous vodka lemonade martinis.

Perfect Lemonade

(Food Network Magazine)

Ingredients:

1.5 cups sugar (for Simple Syrup)

1.5 cups water (for Simple Syrup)

Zest of 2 lemons

2 cups lemon juice

2 more cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Remove wide strips of zest from 2 lemons with a vegetable peeler (do not remove the pith). Make 2 cups simple syrup (recipe below), adding the lemon zest before heating. Let cool, then pour into an ice-filled pitcher. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 cups each fresh lemon juice and water, and some lemon slices.
2. Simple Syrup: To make 2 cups simple syrup, bring 1 1/2cups each sugar and water to a boil, stirring until dissolved. Let cool.

Classing it up.

Girl's Night In!

With Mr. Lawyer out of town Amanda and I decided to have a totally out of control girl's night complete with fancy martinis, ice cream sundaes/milkshakes, a wonderful tv show and....college basketball (which Amanda watched just for me so thanks! Also, boooooo SU! So sad.). We are also working our way through all of Trader Joe's frozen appetizers which we seem to have at all of our gatherings. This time we had Chicken Shu Mai (dumplings) and a four cheese flatbread (we have also had the mushroom and truffle flatbread, crab cakes, and the spanakopita). We had an insane amount of toppings for the ice cream but best of all were the espresso martinis! Even though I didn't have any coffee beans to use as garnish which totally ruined the night! Ha. So they weren't that pretty but SU was stressing me out.

Espresso Martinis

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:
7 oz vodka (Stoli coffee-flavoured vodka is a good choice)
1/2 oz Kahlua
1/2 oz espresso
4 coffee beans, for garnish
Directions:
1. In a cocktail shaker, shake vodka with crushed ice for about 30 seconds.
2. Add Kahlua and espresso and give another couple of shakes to combine. Let stand for a minute, to fully chill through.
3. Strain into 2 chilled martini glasses, and add 2 coffee beans to each glass.

The following pictures were taken by Amanda!

Garnishing the martini glasses

Our Trader Joe's Dumplings

Holy Toppings! (I took this one)

And my evil milkshake with glowing red demon eyes. It was delicious.