Coffee Liqueur recipe

Guessssss who's gonna make dat 'coffee liquir'?

If you guessed the ol' el geophf, you guessed right(ly)! 😎 

From simplyrecipes.com.

Okay. 1 1/2 cups of ground coffee into a bourbon jar. How are we going to do that without spilling?

EASY-PEASIES!

Well, take 1, anyway.

Okay, NOW we've got the hang of it!

Pouring coffee grounds into a bourbon jar, taketh twoeth.

No disasters, DESPITE my daughter's snarky predictions. 😤

Coffee and rum, steeping. Now: we wait three weeks.

How do we KNOW when three weeks have elapsed?

#labeling #protip 

Status report

Day 0, and the coffee/rum has turned to clay.

I'm adding Rum to the mix and checking the seal is airtight.

I may need a lot more rum, which sounds like not-a-problem, right? ... until I serve 185-proof coffee liqueur, and everybody be like: 💀smh. 🙄

Irish Cream recipe

Okay. ('Ope' as my daughter, Li'l Iz, now says)

I'mma makin' di Irish Cream.

Stand back, people, and watch. #ProAtWork

Recipe from allrecipes.com.

My slight alteration: 

I’m using peppermint syrup instead of almond extract to make peppermint Irish cream.

3. Pour Irish cream into peach schnapps bottle. 

4. Wait for my cara spoza to make what she thinks is a fuzzy navel.
5. Run.
6. Hide. 😅
7. Have self-preservation kick in, and label the bottle correctly as “peppermint Irish cream.“

Why is there never scotch tape in the house? 😤 #TheRealQuestion.

The result kicks like a mule. I added coffee ice cubes and coffee, and that kicks like a mule too! #Whiskey.

The. End.

Drambuie recipe

HOW TO MAKE DRAMBUIE!

a recipe by geophf from seriouseats DIY

Step 1: 1/3 cup honey. 

... if the honey doesn't come out of the jar, run water continuously over it until the honey starts to flow.

Not that I had this problem ... 🙄

Narrator: He did. 

Step 2: 1/2 cup filtered water.

The better the quality of water, the better the drink. 

Step 3: 1 tsp ground or crushed fennel seeds.

Now, some use mortar and pestle, which is totally fine. I use my coffee grinder (after cleaning it thoroughly), which gets the same results: fennel seeds cracked open and powdery.

Step 4: 1 Tbsp fresh rosemarie leaves.

It turns out to be about one sprig's worth of leaves. 

Step 5: combine ingredients and heat until integrated into a syrup, swirling continuously.

This all happens pretty quickly: 5 or so minutes.

Step 6: pour everything into your bottle, don't filter anything, you want this all to steep. Add 3/4 cup Scotch or Whiskey, ... the cheap stuff is fine for this recipe, as the herbs really make their powerful presence felt in Drambuie.

Step 7: let steep for 3 days. Then: filter. Then: drink. Can be refrigerated for up to 6 months (???).

I don't refrigerate Drambuie, and my last bottle lasted for over a year in the liquor cabinet, but you store it however you like.

The. End.

el stroganoff du bœurf d'el geophf

So, this is my beef stroganoff-in-a-pot recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 package egg noodles
• two cans of cream of mushroom soup
• ½ onion, diced
• 1½ lbs ground beef (organic) with seasonings (garlic powder, salt, pepper to taste)
• 1 package sliced mushrooms (you can get them whole, I guess, but why)

Directions:

Dice mushrooms, put in YUGE pot, sautéing with olive oil. Add ground beef, seasoning, and mushrooms, stirring until all beef cooked. Add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, add 2 cans of water. Stir until mixed. Pour in egg noodles. Stir continuously until done.

Voilà! Serve with vodka, mais bien sûr!

Skyr

A recipe to make skyr, Icelandic yogurt-cheese.

It's really easy (and I messed it up really badly the first time, so don't give up after the first try)

So many different ways to do this, but the best-best way for me is as follows:

prep: double-boiler, so outer pot fill 1/3 with water, that is, high enough for medium-sized inner pot to fit into the outer pot and have the water up to the lip of both. Half-gallon of organic, fat-free milk, yogurt starter (any probiotic yogurt will do, I use 'siggi's skyr'). Yes, you need yogurt to make yogurt.

Turn your oven light on now, which is late evening, after supper.

1. Bring water to a rolling boil with the inner pot inverted over the outer pot. This sterilizes the inner pot.
2. Seat inner pot into boiling water, pour milk into inner pot, bring heat down to a light boil, heat milk this way for 30 minutes (it will not boil), bringing and maintaining milk temperature at 180 deg F. (it just does this, some say use a thermometer, but there's no need to fuss over this)
3. remove from heat, empty outer pot of hot water, then, in your sink, refill outer pot with cold water, stirring the milk and bringing its temperature down to 120 deg F, which takes 5-10-15 minutes of stirring. Don't overcool it, as it slows the fermenting process too much. You'll get a feel for this eventually.
4. 'Pitch' the yogurt. That is mix a tablespoon of yogurt with a half-cup of milk completely, then pour that mixture into the heated milk.
5. Cover the pot of milk with a towel, place in oven next to your oven lamp, close oven.
6. Walk away.
7. LEAVE A NOTE ON THE OVEN FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS NOT TO PREHEAT THE OVEN FOR THEIR LATEST RECIPES! (lesson learned the hard way)
8. The next morning, the yogurt is ready if you like runny-silky. That's fine for most.I make skyr, however, which is Icelandic yogurt/cheese, so:
9. Place a cheesecloth (I use a sturdy cloth napkin) over a strainer big enough to hold the yogurt, place strainer over big, outer pot, and pour the yogurt into the (cheesecloth-covered) strainer. Stow in the refrigerator. Walk away.
10. The next morning, you have skyr above the strainer and pure whey below. You can discard the whey or make whey-berry-soda if you'd like, but that's another recipe.

A cup of skyr is small, but it's equivalent to 4 cups of yogurt, protein-wise, and with no added sugar. I like to serve my skyr with home-made granola (oats, almonds, dried cranberries, honey) and with a teaspoon of lingonberry preserves. Yummy breakfast!

* need, v: 'need' as in, yes, eventually the milk will generate the bacteria that will consume the sugars and produce yogurt, but an infusion from already-made yogurt gets things moving along very nicely (like, the fermentation-process just takes overnight, not days).

Roast Chicken, a recipe de ma chère fille, Elena Marie

1. Brine chicken for 24 hours (we just use 1/3 cup salt in the brine)
2. Make sauce: 1 stick of butter, lots of mustard (EM: 'uh, at least 5 squirts'), you can add: spices: pepper, basil, thyme, a little oregano, parsley. Cover the chicken completely in the sauce.
3. Preheat oven to 375°F, cook chicken, covered (not sealed) in foil, for 2 hours
4. After an hour an a half, peel potatoes and quarter or chunk them, put them in the pan (that's right, into the drippings from the chicken).
5. After the two hours (that is thirty minutes after you put in the potatoes), uncover, cook for another 1/2 hour to crisp, increasing the temperature to 400°F

Me: Elena, really? All those extra spices in the sauce? I thought it was just butter and mustard.

EM: Eh, you could do it that way, too, if you want.

So, there you have it: the world's yummiest chicken recipe (I didn't put in the spices into the sauce myself. EM: see?). Goes wonderfully with green salad with mixed in dried cranberries, black olives, and anchovies. Or you could serve with a hot vegetable, such as asparagus spears.