With hot and humid days in the forecast, this Lemon Lemon Gin Fizz is the perfect refreshing drink for your holiday weekend. Trust us!
Why “lemon lemon”? Because the recipe contains lemongrass infused simple syrup in addition to the lemon juice typically found in a gin fizz.
Happy Wednesday! Making homemade lemonade is one of those super simple activities that I don’t do nearly enough. This past Sunday I reaaaaally wanted a treat, but I’m sure you remember that I’m saving up for a travel adventure, which means NO treats! At least no treats that I have to pay for. After gazing longingly into my freezer and still not seeing any ice cream, I spun around and spotted an enormous bowl of lemons on my countertop and that’s how this homemade lemonade recipe was born.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had Frangelico or any other hazelnut liqueur, but with nuts as our featured ingredient, it was high time that I tried making my own! While doing some research for this project, I came across a Serious Eats article that encourages anyone interested to make their own rather than buy, and I couldn’t agree more. The pure hazelnut flavor really shines through, and I really appreciate being able to taylor the sweetness to my liking, which is often less than store-bought liqueurs.
After liking what Serious Eats’ encouragement to make the liqueur, I clicked through to their recipe and also liked the simplicity of that, so I used it and that’s what you see reprinted below. Making this liqueur couldn’t be easier, it’s the waiting that’s hard. While I want to say it “only” involves three to four weeks of wait-time, that’s three (or four) too many, and I think you’ll agree once you see my new favorite treat below. I say four weeks, because I was supposed to go on to steps 2 and 3 while our family was in town, and I completely forgot! As a result, I had about an extra week of the hazelnuts steeping in the alcohol, but the flavor is that delicious and strong that I have no regrets… although I’m not sure if I’ll be able to wait that long the second time I make this.
I love, love, love gin & tonics! When I was pregnant with Luc, our friends in Boulder (a big brewery town) would ask me if I couldn’t wait to have a beer, and I would always so no, because all I wanted was a G&T. In fact, when I hit week 39 of my pregnancy, I stopped in a liquor store to pick up some gin… I’m sure it looked absurd that a hugely pregnant lady was buying gin with her two year old in the shopping cart, but other women get the urge to nest, and I got the urge for gin.
Meanwhile, waiting at home for me was an awesome homemade tonic water kit that Calder’s sister gave me last July for my birthday. That was days after I became pregnant with Luc, and it killed me to have to sit on it for all those months! While Sarah was in town last month, we finally made the tonic water and broke open some new-to-us gins.
I really didn’t know what to call this warm milk creation. I certainly don’t want to call it that. It is kind of a mix between horchata and Spanish rice pudding, but I wouldn’t want to offend anyone by calling it that because I made this recipe up. I don’t really know if it is anything like authentic Spanish rice pudding or Mexican horchata and that’s why we’ll refer to it as Sarah’s warm winter drink, a name that’s completely non-descriptive, whoops. It’s a pretty awesome drink though and you can make it several different ways so don’t let its disappointing name discourage you. Vegan? We got you covered too. Like most recipes and projects on Seasoned, we try to give you the gist of the recipe, but encourage you to make it your own. Katie and I cook depending on seasonal ingredients and what’s in our cupboards, which means lots of these recipes are adaptable.
We want to break down these internet barriers and invite you into our lives and we’re hoping you’ll do the same. You are welcome to share your a bit of your week or day in the comments, or if they’re better represented by a photo, tag us on instagram @liveseasoned
We like to share a photo and thoughts from our week, but I confess, that the above photo was taken two weeks ago while we were on the East Coast. It shows little A in his element – surrounded by kitties! That guy loves a cat like I would have never expected. He now has 4 stuffed kitties of varying sizes, and while I tried to capture him holding all of them at once (he’s been walking around the house with them), the photo escaped me! Maybe it’s because I spent the week feeling sleep deprived. I stopped drinking coffee while we were traveling for the holidays, but this week proved that I had to start up again (just a half cup in the morning), if I want to survive Alex’s early mornings! The coffee has also given me the power to start a few new knitting projects, finish others (more soon!) and straighten up this house, particularly my craft room/office, in an attempt to get our year off to an organized and creative start!
I can’t believe January is nearly over! I feel like 2015 is moving way too fast already. To slow it down, I’ve been taking longer dog walks and drinking bigger smoothies. That makes sense, right? This week I came up with a new way of holding Ca$h’s leash. It’s basically a way to pit my entire body weight against his strength. That sounds complicated, but it’s really not. I’ll post a pic to IG tomorrow so you know what I’m talkin’ about. Yesterday I made an enormous creamy cashew smoothie and it was SO tasty!
Here’s a smoothie sippin’ outtake. This is why I don’t allow myself to appear in photos. See my smoothie ‘stache? Cashew smoothies are so creamy and delicious. Yum, yum, yum!
Ingredients
Instructions
I talked to the orange today and he said he is totalllllly cool with featuring his cousin, the blood orange, in today’s recipe. I’m partial to the blood orange margarita, but since I’m getting over a bug I’ll settle for a blood orange shrub soda. Have you ever had shrub? It’s described as drinking vinegar, but I like to think of it as flavoring syrup. It’s the perfect concoction to have on hand while you’re mixing cocktails or looking to spice up your seltzer water.
I’ve been on a shrub kick! I was gifted a whole bunch of shrubs from Tait Farm and I’ve been sucking them down all January. I love having a bubbly seltzer drink to break up the monotony of my normal coffee, tea and water rotation. You may also remember that shrub is one of my bedside necessities so when Katie gave me Quench by Ashley English for Christmas, I headed right to the shrub recipes. I spotted this blood orange recipe by guest contributor Marisa from the Food In Jars blog. I actually modified the recipe by cutting the vinegar by a third. I thought the apple cider vinegar was a tad overpowering in my first batch. It could have been that my blood oranges were a different type than those used by Marisa or maybe our oranges were at different ripenesses, whatever it was I hated knowing the apple cider vinegar was trampling all over the tangy blood orange juice. So here it is shrub sippers, an easy way make your own blood orange shrub syrup.
My favorite way to use this blood orange shrub (and all shrubs) is to mix up a little shrub soda. Simply combine a tablespoon or two of shrub with a glass of icy club soda. You can also use this blood orange shrub to flavor other favorite drinks like iced tea or lemonade. Shrubs are also delightful cocktail mixers, but I’m getting over a little cold so no suggestions at the moment. I’ll get back to you on that one 😉
Cheers to citrus season! Growing up, my mom would order a half dozen boxes of oranges from the marching band fundraiser, which meant orangeade all winter long. I miss those big boxes and that orangeade so today I made something a little reminiscent of my childhood + alcohol 🙂 This citrus champagne spritzer has fresh squeeze oranges and lemons, but don’t fool yourself, it is still winter.
This bubbly and fresh drink turned my cheeks pink! It was the perfect pal for present wrapping today. Do I sound like the loneliest person on the planet?! Wrapping presents with a drink that I’m calling pal? Don’t answer that. But hey, if your holidays are hectic and you need a mocktail, try this recipe sans champagne and cointreau. Replace the alcohol with sparkling lemonade or use the sparkling orange and lemon soda as the base, but whatever you do, ENJOY IT!
These sparkling citrus champagne spritzers are perfect for a holiday party *ahem champagne toast ahem* or in my case a preholiday wrapping party. Mix up a whole batch or put on Mixed Nuts and drink one by yourself 😉
Today we wanted to share an amazingly simple way to turn your average bloody mary into something extraordinary: rosemary vodka!
Making the vodka is so easy, and when paired with our bloody mary recipe below, you’ll be the star of your next brunch (honestly, the bloody mary will be the star, you’ll be drunk). We’ve dressed up the bloody mary with some fresh herbs and cheese stuffed olives, nothing too crazy, but just fun enough to make these bloody marys memorable.
First the vodka ~ I’m going to provide basic instructions, but fom my experience, the process is flexible and can be adjusted based upon how strongly flavored you want your vodka to be.
Place the rosemary and vodka in a clean jar to steep. After a few days, give your vodka a taste. You should be able to taste a hint (or more) of the rosemary flavor. I wanted an intense flavor (and I may have forgotten about this project for a moment), so I let my rosemary steep for over a week. After that amount of time, the rosemary flavor was perfectly present in my bloody mary, but not overwhelming.
Whenever you are happy with the rosemary flavor of your vodka, remove the rosemary sprigs. Be prepared for your vodka to turn a greenish-brown color as the rosemary’s tannins are released ~ while slightly unnerving, the color change really makes it seem like you’ve made a potion!
Now, you could take your vodka and make a basic bloody mary, but why not dress it up a bit? The recipe below simplifies things by using bloody mary mix, but then we splurge on the goat cheese-stuffed olives and the fragrance from the additional fresh herbs.
Stuff your olives with the goat cheese. I used a knife to push the goat cheese into the open end of the olive. It wasn’t pretty, but it was relatively easy.
In a glass filled with ice, add the vodka, bloody mary mix, worchestershire, and horseradish. Stir it well. Arrange the celery stalk and herb sprigs in the glass. Add the lime wedge and skewered olives to the glass’s edge.
Enjoy!
Have you tried your hand at infused vodkas? Have any favorite flavors?
What about your bloody mary, what are your favorite garnishes?
