Author: Mary Anne

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Finishing Up Serendib Cocktail Party

Stephanie’s here, and we’re finishing up this little e-book, Serendib Cocktail Party. We promised to do this, and Serendib Tea Party as part of our Vegan Kickstarter, and we’re finally getting these out. If people like them, I may do expanded print versions.

This will have 14 recipes, mostly fruity tropical-ish cocktails & mocktails. If there’s an interest in my doing an expanded print edition, I’d like to add:

– more recipes overall (maybe 16-20 total?)

– a tasty and interesting mocktail for every cocktail (not just ‘leave out the alcohol’), so the book is equally as useful for those who are sober or throwing a sober party

– seasonal divisions, so there are cocktails for spring, summer, fall, and winter (which means I have to develop a bunch more fall and winter cocktails, oh noes)

– suggested appetizers that you could serve with them (I don’t want to fill the book with food, I think, but at least 1-2 for each season?)

Exciting! Book book. 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Summer Cooking

Benjamin left Monday afternoon, so I ended up doing one last big feed before he left. We fired up the grill with burgers for us (veggie burger for him), corn, asparagus, bell peppers and red onions. I topped my burger with Divina caramelized onion jam, yum.

The corn served with fresh cilantro from the garden, combined with a little mayo and lime juice, salt and pepper. Rhubarb lemonade (rhubarb simple syrup courtesy my friend Nara) with raspberries from the garden, and plenty of sliced watermelon.

Summer cooking.

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I Had to Make Rose Ice Cream

The Blaze climbers have been putting out so many roses, I pretty much had to make rose ice cream. Recommend serving with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, which adds great complexity and balance to the sweetness of the rose, and some fresh fruit — mango is great, but berries would also work well.

I used a custard-style recipe: https://food52.com/recipes/37653-rose-ice-cream

(Note — good recipe, but made more than my ice cream maker could hold, so I had to do it in two batches.)

You might want to check that you / people in your household like rose-flavored desserts before going to the effort — Americans aren’t so used to them anymore, though rose used to be a popular flavoring here, before vanilla took America by storm. Kevin sadly thinks rose tastes like soap — he can’t get the floral connotation out of his mind. He’s missing out!

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Before They Are Eaten

Enough raspberries harvested today that I *could* make a crisp, but there’s no way that’s going to happen before they all just get eaten — Ben has slathered some on top of the bagel that he’s eating right now.

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It’s Cherry Season

Made clafoutis again because it’s cherry season so why not, and also Ben had never had it before, which was tragic. I tried mixing two kinds of cherries — worked great!

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Turned Into an Omelette

Leftover grilled salmon and asparagus from yesterday, turned into an omelette for me and Ben today, which we consumed while plotting out our session on plot. Well, character and setting and plot, but that’s not as funny. 🙂

Sauté minced shallots in butter until golden, add leftover chopped grilled asparagus and chopped grilled salmon, mix eggs with salt and pepper in a bowl, pour into asparagus / salmon mix. Cook ’til set, garnish with reserved asparagus tips, chopped fresh chive, feta cheese; serve with fresh cherry tomatoes.

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A Little More Cooking This Week

Doing a little more cooking this week, I expect, since I have Ben visiting. Grilled salmon with ramp butter from the farmer’s market is the star of the lunchtime show, accompanied by grilled asparagus, and some Costco orzo salad.

15 minutes, start to finish. Well, add 5-10 for preheating the grill, I guess.

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Father’s Day Cherry Clafoutis

While we were watching the D&D movie with Anand, I baked Kevin a cherry clafoutis, which was about as much as we were going to do for Father’s Day — we don’t really celebrate it or Mother’s Day much here. But he does love cherries, and they’ve just come into season, and clafoutis is super-easy if you have a cherry pitter. (Thanks, Ann Whyte for ours! We love it.)

Take a few minutes to pit the cherries, mix the batter together in a blender, bake 20 minutes, sprinkle with sugar, bake 20 minutes more. Let cool as long as you need to — I like it pretty hot still, personally. 🙂 But it’s also good lukewarm or cold.