Back to the Future: 1.21 Gigawatts Wake-Up Juice

 

 

There’s one 80s movie that consistently comes top of the ‘100 greatest’ lists. It was never one of my favourites – the male leads, sci-fi theme and plot that revolved essentially around a car – never really appealed to me as a little girl. But I always enjoyed it when the film came on TV and conjured up a picture of the future, where we had self-tying trainers, self-drying clothes and hoverboards.

 

That movie is of course Back to the Future, and do you know what day it is today? October 21, 2015 is the day in the second movie that Marty went forward to…. In the future. Well, we may not have all the things the film predicted, but in some cases, we are not that far off.  Lexus has managed to invent a hoverboard (of sorts),

 

 

  

mobile tablets and wearable technology is here to stay and Pepsi has launched a limited edition Pepsi Perfect to tie in with the film today.

  

I wanted to make something based on the film, and struggled a little – I’d love to make a cake in the shape of the Delorean but time is not on my side. Instead, one detail stood out – in the first movie, the Delorean needed 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to make the return trip. That much power can only be generated by a nuclear plant, or a bolt of lightening, which is how the movie culminates in a race to connect a wire from the clock tower during a storm.

 

There’s another scene where two characters give a drink called “wake-up juice” to Doc after he has drunk too much in a saloon in the 1800s, which revitalizes him quickly (and unpleasantly).

 

I decided to combine these two things into my own recipe, for what I’m calling:

 

1.21 Gigawatts Wake-Up Juice

An original recipe by Caroline Makes

 

Half a can of Red Bull

1 shot Raspberry vodka (Absolut is good)

1 shot tequila

Blue Bols foam - this is something I bought ages ago online and forgot until now I had. It comes in different flavours - I have cassis - and it comes with a pump you insert into the bottle. It turns the liquid into a foam so you can get it to sit on top of the drink, but it still tastes alcoholic, which is really cool - and I think makes this drink a bit futuristic!

 

Before the foam is added...

and after!

Cheers!

 

Watermelon Passionfruit Margarita

Fruity cocktails are perfect for the summer whether it is at a barbecue, at a beach bar or even just at home grumbling about how long it is taking to move house when you are dealing with the world's most frustrating people. Or is that just me...?

This month's Random Recipes from Belleau Kitchen is not a cooking challenge this time; instead Dom wants us to select a cocktail book at random from our collection (I have one or two I think, not enough that choosing at random would be hard!) and choose a page at random and make that cocktail. Now, as I was expecting to have moved house by now, nearly all of my cookery books are sealed up in boxes. As it turns out, my vendors are on holiday this week and my buyer on holiday the week after (no holiday for me, sigh) and there's still no sign of when we are going to exchange. Which means I need a stiff drink!

I hope Dom doesn't mind that I didn't select a recipe at random, but the way this cocktail came about is still fairly random. My boyfriend's mum had bought a watermelon on a whim but then decided she didn't know what to do with it, so gave it to me (random ingredient). I then opened my drinks cupboard (which funnily enough wasn't yet packed and sealed up, it was just that we left the kitchen until last, promise!) and grabbed the first bottle I found, which was tequila (random selection). And then decided to make a cocktail from those ingredients.

Tequila is used in margaritas so that's what I've made. The watermelon is lovely frozen, and then you have a frozen margarita, so if you have time, cut a slice of watermelon and pop it in the freezer for an hour or so.

Chop the watermelon into cubes and put in a blender with about 100ml of either lemonade lemon and lime flavour fizzy water.

To sweeten the drink still further (I do like a sugary cocktail!) you can use either sugar syrup or passion fruit syrup - I bought this online from Funkin Syrup and have been using it in all sorts of things lately. Add a generous glug or more depending on how sweet you want it. Pulse in the blender until the watermelon is pureed. Finally add the tequila (a shot's worth per person) and either pulse in the blender again or transfer to a cocktail shaker and shake well.

Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a wedge of watermelon.

I'm sending this to Random Recipes, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen.

Chicken and tequila tagliatelle

This recipe is another from my recent purchase, America's Most Wanted Recipes by Ron Douglas. It's meant to be a recreation of the Chicken-Tequila Fettucine served at California Pizza Kitchen but a) I've never been to that chain and b) I didn't like some of the ingredients, so I adapted it quite heavily to make my own dish. It tasted really good!

Place half a cup of chicken stock, 2tbsp tequila and 2 tbsp lime juice in a small pan. Bring to the boil then simmer until thickened and reduced.

Chop up some chicken (allow one breast per person), pour over 3 tbsp soy sauce and leave to marinade for five minutes or longer

Fry some red onion and red pepper then add the chicken and cook

Meanwhile cook some pasta - I used fresh tagliatelle and added some broccoli to the same pan

Here's the reduced stock, tequila and lime sauce

The recipe now called for one and a half cups of double cream. I had some in the fridge left over from another recipe but as you can see, I was debating whether to go with the healthier option and use 0% fat Greek yogurt instead... which I did.

Stir about 2 tbsp of the yogurt or cream through the chicken and pepper mixture, and stir in the tequila sauce

Serve with the pasta and broccoli - this was delicious!

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted by Turquoise Lemons, as the theme this month is using up liqueurs and cordials. This is a great recipe if you have a bottle of tequila in the cupboard!

Mexican chicken in mole sauce (and a margarita)

That's mole as in the Mexican sauce, not the cute little character from Wind in the Willows - though something of a tautology perhaps as I gather 'mole' comes from the Spanish word for sauce. So this is Mexican chicken in sauce.

I've come across a few recipes for mole before which involve cocoa powder, and I always wondered what sort of flavour that gave to the sauce but was never brave enough to try. But thanks to a combination of blog challenges this month I was inspired to give it a go!

I have got a Mexican recipe book that I wanted to use, but I only hit upon this idea while at work, the day the challenge ended, so I had to find a recipe online. I also had some leftover chicken from a roast at the weekend that was on its last legs so found a recipe that combined spices, cocoa powder, tomato soup and green chillis- though for reasons you will understand later, I'm not putting the link for the recipe up. Also, I couldn't get one of the main ingredients on the way home so had to improvise.... still, isn't that how new recipes are born?

I started by frying some onion (I used red onion for the flavour)

Add about 1 tsp of cumin, 1 tsp of coriander, a squirt of garlic puree and 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder.

Then stir in some passata - the recipe said to use tomato soup but I don't like tomato soup (weird as I do eat passata) and also I had some open that needed using. You are then supposed to add one can of diced green chili peppers. This is an American recipe and as far as I know, peppers in this country don't come in a can. And just my luck, my little Tesco Metro didn't have any green peppers of any kind, chilli or bell. I decided not to buy a red bell pepper as it wasn't the same thing at all, so I threw some dried chilli flakes into the pan instead (which isn't really the  same thing either, but never mind).

Before adding the chicken to the pan I decided to taste the sauce... and I'm glad I did. This is no reflection on the recipe and probably a combination of the fact that I didn't have the right ingredients and personal taste, but.... it was horrible! It was the first time I have made a savoury dish with chocolate and, much in the same way that my bacon brownies were (in my boyfriend's words) a crime against chocolate, I don't think this was much better. I'd be interested to know if anyone has any good savoury recipes with chocolate that they can recommend... because based on this one, I don't think I'll be making one again.

I had some pasta for dinner instead...

But decided that in the spirit of all things Mexican, I would make myself a margarita!This recipe I did use from my book, inventively called Mexican Recipes.

First moisten the rim of a margarita glass with the rind of a lime and dip in salt. Shake off the excess. I seemed to get rather a lot of salt around the edge of my glass, I don't know if there's a trick to it!

You're supposed to use crushed ice but I didn't want to go to the hassle of putting ice in a blender so I just bashed some ice cubes up a bit (and since I was the only one drinking it, that was good enough for me). Mix one shot of tequila with one shot of triple sec and one shot of lime juice - shake in a cocktail shaker and with the ice and pour into the glass.

I think this might have been the first time I've had a proper margarita and it was pretty good, though there was far too much salt around the edge of the glass - I think I got too much on the rim but would probably have preferred to do without entirely. I might have to try out a few more cocktails and put them on this blog!

Despite the fact that it didn't turn out very well, I am sending my Mexican mole sauce to this month's We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and Chele at Chocolate Teapot, as their theme this month is sugar free chocolate, which includes cocoa powder.

I am also sending this to the Bloggers Around the World challenge hosted by Chris at Cooking Around the World as the theme this month is Mexican food. I'm hoping some other people can give me some recipes that turn out better than this one!