Clementine Cosmos Anyone?

Recipe courtesy Claire Robinson (via The Food Network.com)

Ingredients
•3 clementines, plus 1 very thinly sliced, for garnish
•1 cup sugar
•1 cup water
•2/3 cup cranberry juice
•1/3 cup lime juice
•1 1/2 cups vanilla flavored vodka (recommend: Grey Goose


Directions
Cut the clementines into quarters and squeeze their juice into a saucepan. Add the sugar, water and clementine flesh and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Pour into a strainer set over a measuring cup, pressing on the solids to remove as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids, cool the liquid to room temperature and pour into a pitcher. Add the cranberry juice, lime juice and vodka and stir well. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Put 6 or 8 martini glasses in the freezer.
To serve, pour the mixture into an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake until very cold. Pour into the chilled martini glasses and garnish each with a clementine slice. Drink up and enjoy!

*I will use Raw Honey in place of the sugar, but doesn't this cocktail sound divine!*

Classic Cocktails

I am very fortunate to have inherited a vast and varied, collection of vintage cookbooks and recipe books. I adore them! Everything about them! The worn pages, the fonts, the sometimes extremely random ingredients, the visions I get of, what I prefer to believe was, a more idyllic time. A more civilized time. A time where manners mattered, and people dressed for dinner. My vision of this time is never complete without a cocktail. Luckily, my grandparents agreed, and thus I have some rather nifty vintage barware and a nice assortment of random promotional cocktail recipe pamphlets, like the one pictured below that was put out by Southern Comfort in 1978! This baby is as old as I am!

The "After Five Happy Hours Barguide" lists the top 20 drinks, and recipes, used by "famous bars, restaurants and nitespots". The recipes are delightfully simple, lacking the modern day pretension of acai berries and expensive bottles of spirits. Grey Goose and cranberry juice with lots of lime wedges aside, I am most definitely a classic cocktail kind of gal!
These truly classic recipes were ranked by popularity at the time, in this order:
1. Dry Martini
2. Bloody Mary
3. Manhattan
4. Whisky Sour
5. Screwdriver
6. Gin 'N Tonic
7. Tom Collins
8. Margarita
9. Daiquiri
10. Old Fashioned
11. Gimlet
12. Black Russian
13. Tequila Sunrise
14. Pina Colada
15. Bacardi cocktail
16. Rob Roy
17. Rum 'N Coke
18. Harvey Wallbanger
19. Stinger
20. Sombrero

Wine and Hors D'oeuvres!

Be it a simple plate of cheese and crackers, or an elaborate gourmet spread, sometimes there is nothing more perfect than wine and hors d'oeuvres! A snack for one, a feast for many, a welcoming gesture that has the power to set a room at ease, in a way no "meal" ever could. Many of my favorite social memories begin and end with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Then again, it is my firm opinion that there is nothing better than a nice spread of snackie treats! Maybe that is why I find the tradition of cocktail hour so appealing! Speaking of cocktail hour, here is a little treat that is a perfect complement to a nice glass of red wine. It is bruschetta basically, but boy is it tasty!
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Start with a nice loaf of bread. (I used french bread topped with garlic and spices.)
Slice the bread and lay it on a cookie sheet.
In a bowl, mix olive oil and seasonings. (I used garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and basil.)
Brush olive oil mixture onto bread with a pastry brush.
Bake bread in oven at 265 degrees for about 30 mins. or so. (I like mine really crunchy, but if you prefer it more bread like, you are on your own.)
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Meanwhile, you can prepare your tomato topping (or prepare it ahead of time and store it in a jar in the fridge, which is way more convenient).
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The tomato topping is very basic. You can dice it all up by hand or throw it in a food processor.
At your discretion, add diced tomatoes, minced garlic, olive oil, onion, sugar, basil, salt and pepper. (They sell this in jars if you aren't into making it yourself.)
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I like to heat the tomato mixture before topping my bread, but that one is up to you.
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When the bread is sufficiently crunchy, remove it from the oven and transfer to a cool plate.
Spread each piece generously with goat cheese and top with the warm tomato mixture.
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Pour a glass of wine and enjoy!


p.s.
Untopped bread is good to use the next day too!

It is not what you drink...

"Cocktail Hour!"
An elegant evening ritual? A time after work to just sit on the couch and read the paper? A little blip in the day set aside to visit your guilty pleasure... celebrity gossip blogs?
Whatever cocktail hour means to you it should be a moment of calm, a time to gather your thoughts or throw them out completely and just relax! It does not matter what you drink, where you drink, if you drink. The local drive-in has "Happy Hour" everyday 2-4 with half price fountain drinks and iced tea. This has been my cocktail hour more times than not!
So in the spirit of Americana, vintage crystal, travel trailers and long buried recipes, take a moment, slow it down and enjoy whatever cocktail hour means to you.