Cocktails, Thai Fresh, Homemade Raisins, Ispahan, and Sakura Ebi

To play catch up on my blog posts, this one is going to combine many topics.

Last night's cooking with Jam @Thaifresh and Dave @ TipsyTexan proved to be fun. Cocktails and food. Need I say more? The cocktails were refreshing, especially the one debuting at Farm and Plate tonight. It was flavored with rosemary and Paula's Orange Liquer, and it reminded me of the rosemary lemon blueberry muffins I made several weeks ago. The recipe I came up with was very Sandra Lee Semi-homemade like. First, I boiled 3 springs of rosemary in 1/2 a cup of lemon juice for 3 minutes, then let it steep for 10. Using Martha White blueberry muffin mix, I substituted 1/2 the liquid for the rosemary lemon juice. Follow package directions, and all done. It couldn't be easier.







While watching Dave make cocktails, I had two booze inspirations. Having spent 5+ weeks making homemade raisins, I decided that I needed to soak them in rum. I think I'll turn those rum soaked raisins into a carrot cake in a few months. I also have to say that making homemade raisins is terribly long and drawn out when weather has been rainy, wet, cool, hot, humid, rainy, and wet in no particular order. My second inspiration was to turn the Ispahan into a drink. Classic Ispahan is raspberries, lychees, and rose water (cupcake recipe coming soon). I'm thinking raspberries muddled with vodka and lychee juice spritzed with rosewater.

And last but not least, I finally got the Cherry Blossom Shrimp (Sakura Ebi) Fried Rice recipe up. Enjoy!