Non-alcoholic spirits: Strykk Not G*n review

Sunny days are invariably linked in my mind with cocktails - probably as they remind me of beach holidays from two decades ago when my main requirement for a holiday was sun, a hotel pool and a drink with a little umbrella!

Back then, the cocktails were usually strong - in Greece I remember them being heavy on the spirit, light on the mixer - and I would usually go for something like sex on the beach or pina colada.

I still prefer my cocktails sweet over sour but these days as I’m either more discerning or just can’t cope with hangovers any more - I’d rather have one or two expertly crafted cocktails served in a martini glass where the spirit stands out and the predominant taste isn’t grenadine.

But as a busy mum and someone who doesn’t get to go out much at all, sometimes I want a delicious drink to enjoy in my garden in the evening that isn’t actually alcohol but still feels like the experience of sipping a cocktail from a martini glass.

I think this desire for a sophisticated cocktail experience at home - but without the alcohol - is what has led to the rise of alcohol free spirits. Seedlip say they created the first range of distilled non-alcoholic spirits, blending a range of botanicals to create three flavours - grove, garden and spice. Other companies have followed in their footsteps and I came across Strykk, which makes what it calls 'proper' non-alcoholic alternatives, like Not G*n which is a botanicals and juniper based alternative to gin, Not R*m (rum alternative) and Not V*dka - a vodka alternative which has recently been followed by a vanilla vodka alternative which I really rate.

We had a party for a family birthday recently and as there were almost entirely non-drinkers (either because they don't drink anyway or they were driving) I made a big pitcher of punch - a mixture of cloudy apple juice, elderflower cordial and sparkling water (you can also use soda water). It's nice with a few sprigs of mint added too. It tasted even better with a little Not G*n added!

Another drink I had considered making but didn't in the end was a rhubarb sour with Not G*n, rhubarb syrup and lemon juice, topped up with soda water.

I feel like there are so many new possibilities open with a grown up non-alcoholic alternative to spirits and I have already bought the vanilla vodka alternative to add to my gin - or not gin rather. Have you tried any non-alcoholic spirits and which ones do you recommend?

Cheers!

Summer Watermelon Spritz

You can find frozen diced fruit in most supermarkets for making smoothies but I found something I'd not come across before recently - Tesco has frozen watermelon balls in beautiful little spheres which are good for so much more than throwing in a blender!

I made this drink which took just moments but tasted delicious. It's a glass of lemonade straight from the fridge with frozen watermelon balls instead of ice cubes and some fresh mint. If you like tonic water you can try that and I bet it would be nice with a splash of something alcoholic!

I muddled the fruit around in the glass as it softened and ate it at the end using a milkshake straw - a straw that has a little spoon on the end. It was just the thing for this hot weather we've been having!

I'm sharing this with CookBlogShare hosted this week by Lost in Food.

Lime and Coconut Halloween Slime Ghost Cake

Halloween baking is such fun - you can really push the boundaries of how you would normally decorate a cake, and make it as over the top as you like! Obviously subtle black and purple looks very stylish and striking but this Halloween I decided to go for..... green slime!

The theme for Food 'n' Flix this month is Ghostbusters - the 2016 remake which was chosen by host Coffee and Casseroles. I did enjoy the film and didn't think there was anything odd about an all-female cast - the film was funny, it carried on the ethos of the original Ghostbusters film and there were even several nods to the original - which I won't spoil if you haven't seen it, but you will have fun spotting the cameo roles to the extent that I'd worked out who Patty's uncle was (who she refers to a few times) long before he appears on screen!

My heart is loyal to the original Ghostbusters though (the first one anyway, not the sequel - which I don't remember being that bad but is largely panned). It came out when I was five years old so I don't imagine I would have seen it right away, but by the time it was shown on TV (in the days of only four channels, you had to wait a couple of years for new movies to appear on screen!) I would have been about seven or eight and was transfixed. I even used to run around the playground at primary school with a group of friends acting out Ghostbusters stories - though as one of the only girls I was always forced to be Janine. Though it could have been worse, the other girl played Slimer!

In terms of choosing a recipe for Food 'n' Flix, my mind turned straight away to the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man from the first movie... from the remake, one of the over-riding foodie references is to Chinese takeout - there's a standing joke about takeaway food that Abby (Melissa McCarthy) gets from a Chinese restaurant, and their HQ is above a Chinese restaurant.

But as it's Halloween I wanted to make something 'spooky' and not Chinese food. Slimer, the friendly green ghost, features in both the original movie and the remake, so I took him as my inspiration and decided to make a cake oozing with green 'slime' buttercream!

For the cake itself I used this recipe from RTE for Irish chef Rory O'Connell's toasted coconut and lime cake though I did change it a little. I didn't cover it with the toasted coconut and I didn't make the cream cheese filling and instead did a lime flavoured buttercream which I then added green food colouring to.

 

Despite being green the cake looks quite elegant like this... but I wasn't going to stop there!

 

On top of the cake there is more green buttercream, plus some green candy floss I bought in a tub from a shop called Tiger and some marshmallow ghosts and chocolate eyeballs, also from Tiger.

Does it look like Slimer has been at this cake?!

I'm sharing this with Food 'n' Flix and Cook Blog Share.

 



Mini Trick or Treat No Bake Lemon Cheesecakes for Halloween Party

 

Party food for Halloween parties is pretty easy, I think - as well as all the usual suspects (sausage rolls, sandwiches or mini burgers or quiche or whatever) and then any kind of 'scary stuff'. Here's an idea that's hopefully a little bit different.

I wanted to make something a bit different for Halloween but wasn’t quite sure what. I was in Iceland picking up a few groceries and saw these on the Halloween display: a pack of six mini plastic pumpkins, which you can fill with treats (or tricks!) and use as a game, a bit like an Easter egg hunt perhaps. They were only £1 so I bought them. I had a better use for them though – use them to serve desserts!

 

 

Of course these are plastic and can’t go in the oven but my mind went straight away to no-bake mini cheesecakes. When I got home I devised the following recipe.

I made, and served, each mini cheesecake inside the pumpkins – I went with a lemon flavour with a ginger biscuit base, but you could always do pumpkin flavour cheesecake or anything you like. I wanted to make one of the six a ‘trick’ rather than ‘treat’ and thought about putting a small plastic spider inside to surprise the recipient – but didn’t think that would go down too well with my husband!

 

Instead I decided to colour one of the cheesecake toppings green with food colouring. You could easily do that to all of them for a children’s Halloween party, but I thought it would be a nice touch when I served the mini cheesecakes in the closed pumpkins, if everyone chose their own and when one person opened theirs, they got a bit of a surprise!

Here’s the recipe I came up with

Mini no bake Halloween lemon and ginger cheesecakes - an original recipe by Caroline Cowe @Caroline Makes

 

 

Makes six mini cheesecakes

You can also make these mini cheesecakes in paper cupcake cases, or ramekins, or anything you think will work!

6 McVitie’s ginger biscuits

2 level tbsp. butter or marg, melted
175g cream cheese
60ml double cream
50g caster sugar
Juice of ½ lemon (or more to taste)
Couple of drops of green food colouring if desired

Crush the biscuits either in a food processor or with the back of a wooden spoon. Melt the butter either in a small pan over a low heat or in the microwave and stir in the crushed biscuits.

Divide between the cheesecake cases and press the biscuit mixture down using the back of a teaspoon.

In a separate bowl, beat the cheese, cream, sugar and lemon. If you want to colour all the cheesecakes, add the food colouring now.

 
Divide the cheesecake mixture between the cases. If you are only making one green, reserve a little of the cheesecake mixture in the bowl, add the food colouring then fill the final cheesecake.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

 

 

I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Kat the Baking Explorer and also with Cook Blog Share.

Summer Soft Drinks: Apple Ice Tea and Orange & Lemon Barley Water

 

 

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You replied on 17/08/2016 06:17.

It's nice to have soft drinks in the summer that are a bit different - especially if you're having a barbecue and don't just want to serve lemonade, water or squash.

I've made two drinks over the last couple of weeks that are delicious and really nice in hot weather - I made up a big jug and served it over ice.

The first one I made was a very simple ice tea using an instant mix from Whittards and the second was orange and lemon barley water, from a recipe in Tesco magazine (see below).

 

 My favourite instant tea from Whittards was peach flavour but they don't seem to make it any more. This time I tried Turkish Apple flavour - I made it up with a little boiling water to dissolve the granules then topped up the jug with cold water and waited for it to cool. I added some sprigs of fresh mint from my garden and some apple slices - a few added extras like this make drinks look even more appealing at summer parties.

I came across the recipe for orange and lemon barley water and realised I'd had no idea you actually use pearl barley to make it.

 

 

 

 

 

To make a large jug, you need:

75g pearl barley

1 lemon and 1 orange, zested and juiced, plus extra slices to serve

3 tbsp. runny honey

 

Soak the pearl barley in cold water for 15 minutes. Drain, then simmer in 1.5 litres of water for 20 minutes.

 

Remove from the heat and add the orange and lemon zest. Allow to steep for 20 minutes.

 

 

 

Strain the liquid to remove the zest and barley and allow to cool. Stir in the orange and lemon juice and the honey and garnish with extra slices of orange and lemon.

 

This is a lovely refreshing drink that tastes as good as, if not better than, the shop bought stuff but with nothing artificial!

 

 

BBQ Pulled Pork - finished on the barbecue

I've made pulled pork in the slow cooker before with barbecue sauce flavour, but I've never actually done it on the barbecue.

I found a recipe booklet in my cupboard called 'pulled pork for lazy days' from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board - I have no idea where I got it from. It includes recipes like chilli con carne pulled pork and pulled pork Middle Eastern flatbreads but I decided to start with the basics and make the BBQ pulled pork rolls. It takes about 6 hours to cook on a low heat in the oven and then you finish it off on the barbecue - though that last part is optional. The weather turned out to be not very good that evening so we didn't put the barbecue on in the end!

To serve 6 (with leftovers), you need:
1.6kg pork shoulder
2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. smoked paprika
2 tbsp. American mustard
6 bread rolls to serve

Preheat oven to 220C, fan 200C, has 7. Line a roasting tin with a sheet of foil large enough to go over the top of the meat as well as underneath. Remove the string from the pork shoulder and unroll and put it in the tin on the foil; fold the rest of the foil as you don't want to cover the meat just yet.

Mix the salt, sugar, paprika and mustard. Rub half the mixture over the pork and reserve the rest. Put the pork in the oven for 30 minutes to brown.

After 30 mins, turn down the oven to 150C, or 130C fan (Gas Mark 2). Take the tin out of the oven and fold the rest of the foil over the pork, return to the oven and cook for about 6 hours.

For the last 30 mins of cooking transfer the foil-wrapped pork to a hot barbecue. To serve, carefully unwrap the foil and pull the meat apart with two forks and stir in the rest of the rub mix.

Serve in bread rolls. I found this pulled pork a little dry compared to the ones I did in the slow cooker but the meat was really tender and if the weather had been good enough to finish it off on the barbecue I think it would have been even better!

Party Pizza Pinwheels

Over Christmas I spent a lot of time going backwards and forwards between family and friends in four (non-adjacent) counties. While not cooking Christmas dinner was probably something of a relief, I would have liked to have taken something with me, such as the starter for Christmas dinner at my parents, or a dessert for my fiance’s family’s house on Boxing Day. But we weren’t home long enough for me to cook anything!

 

I didn’t want to go empty-handed though so came across this very quick recipe for some tasty treats. They are great for buffets or parties and are very fast to make if you use ready-made puff pastry.

 

Roll out a sheet of puff pastry and spread with tomato puree, then sprinkle liberally with grated cheese. You can also add wafer-thin sliced ham.

 

 

 

 

Roll up the pastry to make a long sausage shape and slice into thin rounds.

 

 

 

Bake in the oven until the pastry is risen and golden brown. Serve hot or cold – they taste really good!

 

I'm sending this to Treat Petite, hosted by Kat the Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi as the theme is fruit and veg.

Vegetable Tortillas and Spicy Chicken Tortillas

A few months ago I went to a cookery demonstration from Old El Paso, where I discovered the ‘stand and stuff’ tortilla kits – soft tortillas that stand up by themselves and resemble little boats; they are so easy to fill and eat and make Mexican food really fun.

 

Last Saturday I had two of my bridesmaids over for a dress fitting – we had a really nice day of trying on dresses (theirs and mine) and then discussing everything from shoes to nail varnish back at my house, while my long-suffering fiancé played computer games! They stayed to dinner and I made Mexican fajitas – a meat version and a vegetarian (actually, a vegan) version.

 

The tortillas are vegan and so is the seasoning mix that comes with the kit. To make the veggie one, I chopped half a butternut squash into cubes and decided the best way to soften it enough was to simmer it in a little water in the bottom of my Ozeri wok – so not boil in a pan of water as such, but I didn’t think frying alone would soften it enough.

 

 

When it had been cooking for about ten minutes I sliced a red pepper, green pepper and yellow pepper and added them to the pan with a sachet of the seasoning mix. With the water that was already in the pan it made a nice sauce. I also added some diced courgette.

 

For the meat option, I cooked three butterflied chicken breasts, again with a sachet of the seasoning mix (you can purchase them separately which I did as I wanted two and you get one in the kit) and when the chicken was cooked I shredded it with a knife and fork.

 

 

In the meantime I cooked some potato wedges in the oven and then heated some refried beans from a tin and put the sachet of salsa that came with the meal kit in one of the little bowls I bought in Mexico. I also grated some cheese, put some salad in bowls and quickly heated the tortilla boats in the microwave, and then allowed everyone to fill their own. It made for a really nice meal and was very easy to cater for both meat eaters and vegans or vegetarians.

 

I'm sending these to the Extra Veg food blog challenge as this is a fun way to eat more veg if you're not that keen perhaps - for some reason assembling your own and the little tortilla pockets are much more palatable than a plate full of veg! The challenge is hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

 

 

Cinnamon Puff Pastry Twists

These are super easy and quick to make so if you are catering for a crowd or throwing a party, or just need something sweet that won't take long, they are just the thing.

It's not a recipe as such but a few very simple instructions. Roll out some puff pastry to a rectangle on a lightly floured surface.

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

Mix 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon and spread over the puff pastry, pressing down.

Cut the pastry into strips then holding each end, twist it a few times.

I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Jane at The Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Place each twist on the baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes. Serve either warm or cold.

Italian buffet party menu

 

 

It’s the Italian Grand Prix and for Formula 1 Foods this time I’ve got not one Italian recipe, but a whole buffet menu!

 

We had family over for my boyfriend’s birthday earlier this year and I decided to do a buffet with a mixture of hot and cold food. I wanted to make sure there were a few fairly substantial dishes along with things like sausage rolls and hit upon the idea of giving the whole meal an Italian theme. There are so many things that work well for buffets, from pasta dishes to cold antipasti. Here’s a description of what I made and bought (after all who has the time to do an entire buffet from scratch?). As I was also catering for vegetarians I’ve noted which dishes are suitable with (v)

   

Cold food – nibbles and starters:

Bread sticks, aka grissini, with sour cream and chive dip which I bought (v)

 

 

 

Caprese salad of sliced mozzarella, tomatoes and basil leaves, drizzled with oil (v)

 

 

 

Antipasti: red peppers from a jar (v); stuffed olives (v); sliced salami and prosciutto

 

 

  

Hot food: nibbles and starters

Mozzarella sticks: mozzarella pieces in breadcrumbs which I bought from Iceland and cooked in the oven (v)

 

Sausage rolls – not really Italian but my boyfriend wanted them!

 

Garlic bread (v)

 

Mini margherita pizzas, which I bought and cooked in the oven (v).

 

Main dishes

Italian herb chicken mini fillets (from Tesco)

 

Tomato and mozzarella pasta bake (v)

 

Meatballs with farfalle pasta and tomato sauce

 

Tuna, cannellini bean and red onion salad with a mustard dressing (mix olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and garlic to taste). Can also do a portion without tuna for anyone who doesn’t eat fish.

 

 

 

Stuffed peppers, filled with risotto rice and melted mozzarella

 

 

 

Dessert:

Mini Profiteroles from Iceland – these are sometimes known as a French dessert but were apparently invented in Italy

 

Nigella’s cappuccino pavlova

 

 

 

I also served birthday cake, cupcakes and cookies, which you can read about here.

 

  

 I'm sharing this with Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host, as the theme this month is Italy.