Mystery Ingredient Monday: Mint!

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alternately titled, Blue Laws and Green Liquors

The original plan had been to make the very lovely and delicious looking Grasshopper Pie from Cook's Country. Recipe here But someone (me) didn't set about buying the creme de menthe until yesterday afternoon. 

Photo from cookscountry.com

Now, unlike Dallas and the surrounding area, Houston doesn't have any dry counties, but it's still subject to the state's blue laws. Beer and wine can be purchased on Sunday after noon, but no hard liquor or spirits (is there a difference?) Anyway, I was thwarted, and decided to look into these laws that had foiled my plans. Surprisingly, some of the biggest blue law supporters are the liquor stores themselves. Spec's, the major liquor store chain in Houston, argues that they like to give their employees guaranteed time off with their families. Also, from an economic stand point, liquor stores in states that have changed their blue laws away from the no-liquor on Sunday model, haven't seen a lasting bump in profits; rather, their weekly take spreads out across 7 days instead of 6--more overhead for the same amount of profit.

Really, I'm just telling you all this because I think Spec's is an awesome company. From their charitable giving page, "In our continued effort to support our employees and their families, Spec's has partnered with the Catholic Diocese of Galveston & Houston to provide for the education of our employee's children. We provide for the Catholic School education of the children of our employees." Isn't that just awesome? In the past, I've taught students who would not have been able to attend Catholic school if it hadn't been for the Spec's scholarship. Almost makes you want to buy more alcohol because of how phenomenal a company they are. 

Long story short, with no creme de menthe, and no way of getting any: this isn't a post about grasshopper pie...or mojitos for that matter.

What to make when you're at the grocery store for the second time that day, this time after the late evening Spanish Mass because you so totally have your act together? Oh! and you almost gave up and bought the box of Andes mints to eat straight through because the produce section was out of fresh mint but then a nice grocery store clerk found some in the back for you? We went with a made-up summer spritzer.

Ingredients: 

2 of the smallest peaches known to man, peeled and sliced

Juice from 2 limes

Handful of mint

muddle mint and lime juice together, add peaches, let sit until next commercial break

fill two glasses with ice, divide peach mixture evenly between the two glasses, add 6 oz of ginger ale to each. Give it a quick stir and there you have it!

Given the challenges surmounted, these weren't half bad. Mark liked them and he doesn't even like fresh mint, so I guess that counts as a resounding endorsement, right? Oh, and I am willing to share tips on late-night camera-phone food photography. I'm expecting a call from Food & Wine any day now.

Take homes from this week: When will she stop leaving things until the last possible minute? Response: Goonies never say die! Also, why is she always having trouble finding what she wants at grocery stores? Response: No comment

Next up on MIM: jalapeños! Fresh or jarred, with the seeds or without, use serranos if that's all the grocery store is selling that week. Wait, that's never happened to you? I'll be hosting the link-up next week, so I'm looking forward to seeing you all back here with what spiciness you've cooked up!

Be sure to visit Jessica and Tasha to see what they've made this week. Tasha's hosting the rehash so be sure to comment so we can see all the yumminess. If you want to play along but don't have a blog, instagram or tweet it #mysteryingredient, or tag us in a facebook post about your dish so we can marvel your creativity! 

P.S. Thanks for all the prayers for my mom. The surgery was successful and she should be coming home from the hospital today or tomorrow, but with such an extensive procedure, it'll be quite a while before she's back to her old self. 

Mystery Ingredient Monday: Cherries

Cherry Almond Scones

I was so very excited when Jessica picked cherries for our inaugural {MIM}, mostly because these have been my favorite breakfast food lately:

At least they were until my husband cam back in town and now they're all gone....

They're made from greek yogurt, does it get any healthier? You can get yours at Safeway, Tom Thumb, Randalls, whatever they call it in your neck of the woods.

At first, I thought I'd just feature the greek yogurt bars and call it good, but I couldn't set the bar so low for myself on our first mystery ingredient, could I? Then I came across this recipe for Cherry Scones that used bing cherries and was based off an ATK recipe. Pretty legit. 

Later on, Adrienne and I were chatting about scones, the authentic type, like I had in the UK while there for her wedding. Over there, scones are lightly sweetened, buttery and flaky like biscuits almost, maybe with some dried fruit. Here, scones have as varied a texture as all the Irish Soda Bread recipes you've ever come across, sometimes come frosted and while usually still dense have a more crumb like texture. Her thoughts were that Americans put so much stuff in our scones, because we don't have clotted cream here. I'm pretty sure she could be right. Clotted cream is hard to describe, but I'd say it's like spreadable whipping cream, which you might think is the same thing as butter, but it's not.

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Sometimes called Devonshire Cream, the source link above has a recipe for the making your own, but I decided to try my luck at the fancy-pants version of my regular grocery store, and this was the closest thing I could find.

"Product of England" Don't ever plan on this being your regular butter, you'll go bankrupt!

With the closest approximation of clotted cream I could find, I started to wonder if maybe I could do better recipe-wise. Behold The English Kitchen Blog, written by an excellent cook in the UK who often talks about when she was a cook "at the Manor, down South" which makes me think of Downton. Having just discovered her blog this weekend, I already have quite a long list of things I want to try. But first, I decided to give her "Cherry Almond Scones" a go. The authentic-ness was the primary appeal, but also the fact that it uses candied cherries, aka dried maraschinos in all their Red 40 artificial glory, which awoke the rebel in me. (Hi Mom!)

Here's where things get complicated, as if I haven't rambled on long enough! Candied cherries, at least here in TX, seem to only be sold around Christmas, because really, when else will you be baking a fruit cake? Never fear, more cooking blogs to the rescue. A quick google of "How to Make Candied Cherries" while in the baking aisle at the grocery store gave me the answer. In case you haven't caught on by now, sometimes, I too "choose the wrench."

Me, choosing the wrench

Once the cherries had been candied and the leftover maraschino juice stored for a rainy day Shirley Temple, the actual making of the scones was pretty straight forward.

And delicious.

Even if the bottoms were a little well done

Even though I definitely made it more complicated than it needed to be, I'm glad I went this route. Because really, this kind of cherry is perfect for eating just the way it is!

No instafilter necessary

Now go forth and check out the delicious-ness that Jessica and Tasha cooked up. Clafoutis (that's fun to say) was very popular this week! Friends had us over for dessert yesterday, and guess what they served for dessert? If you want to play along, the link-up is at Jessica's, and at the end of Tasha's post, you'll also discover next week's challenge. I already peeked, and I'm excited! 

If you want to participate but don't have a blog, you could instagram it, #mysteryingredient or use the same hashtag on twitter with a link to your picture. The other option is to post it on facebook and tag one of us, so we can see it! 

Still cooking up ideas for a graphic. (See what I did there?) Now that the master-genius behind my blog header is back in town, maybe we can get something underway. And just this morning, I learned that he has a subscription to a stock graphics and photos site, score!

MIM aka Mystery Ingredient Monday

No, I don't mean mystery ingredient like that mystery meat the college cafeteria served on Thursdays, but a fun new link-up co-sponsored by my my lovely sister, sister-in-law and yours truly.

Much like Iron Chef, each Monday a Mystery Ingredient will be announced by one of us. The following Monday we will blog about our creative endeavor, so, make sure you're following these blogs: Housewifespice, The Bazin Chronicles, and A Clan's Tale. At the end of our post, the next lucky contestant will announce the following week's Mystery Ingredient. We will take turns and invite you to play along with us. No rules. Seriously! We would just break them. You can be as creative and innovative as you wish. Or, keep it simple and fun. 

Jessica was the brave soul who stepped up first, so go see what she's planning on cooking up.

I'm thinking we're gonna need some kind of cool MIM graphic, don't you?

Happy Mother's Day from Mr. T and Me!

Happy Mother's Day to all the crazy fabulous mothers I know especially my mom, mother-in-law, sisters, and sisters-in-law and all my dear friends.

In the midst of all the celebrating, please send up a prayer for all the women struggling with infertility, miscarriage and infant loss. Thanks!

And now I'm going to let Mr. T take over since I really couldn't say it better myself!

{Five Favorites} vol. 2

Linking up again with the lovely Hallie today. As every good workout video goes, "let's get started!"

1. I'm a tiny bit star-struck because not only did Cari try my pizza combo, she loved it, and blogged about it. You should take her advice (and mine) and make yourself a caramelized onion, balsamic reduction, goat cheese pizza. And if you like it, and feel like you can trust me, you should also try kalamata olive tapenade and parmesan as another combo, if olives are your thing of course. I'm sure you can buy pre-made tapenade, but really if you take pitted kalamata olives, capers, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil and give them a whirl in a food processor, you're good to go.

Full disclosure: both of these pizza combinations comes from this cookbook which was very thoughtfully given to me by friends who knew this midwestern carnivore was marrying a vegetarian. Now that Mark has seen the error of his ways, I don't use the cookbook as much any more, but these pizza combos and Mollie's corncakes have earned it a permanent place on the shelf. 

2.

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Onto more favorite food items, someone on Pinterest did me a solid and pinned Gwenyth Paltrow's No Fry Fries. They are delicious and only 175 calories a serving. I hate myself a little bit for including nutritional facts, but when you love potatoes as much as I do, and are working with a nutritionist who recommends between 1200-1400 calories per day, this is vital information. Make them today. You'll be happy you did!

3. 

My brother is finishing up an 8 week training course in Houston this week, and to celebrate we are taking him here. It's one of our favorite restaurants in Houston. The building is one of the oldest in the city, and no one in the city makes classic mixed drinks better than they do. I've spent my day trying to decide if I should order a Gin Gin Mule, a Sazerac or the smoothest Manhattan you've ever sipped. Did I mention it's a school night?



4.

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Our projection alarm clock. Hear me out on this one. It projects the time and temperature on the ceiling. Maybe not a necessity, but it does mean no fumbling for your phone in the dark when you are trying to decide if you really do need to get up and go to the bathroom. Because, honestly, why would you when you only have 15 minutes left of precious time in bed? Now, if there's enough time for you to fall back asleep, that changes the story. And so you see why I think this clock is amazing. It also tells you the temp of your room which is helpful when debating with your husband who refuses to believe that the room is actually cold.

5.

Teacher catalogs! Next year, I'm returning to full time teaching and will have my own kindergarten classroom, which means that between now and the end of the year, I'll be choosing supplies to order and designing bulletin boards and all the fun parts of teaching (mostly kidding). Construction paper, glue sticks, crayons, oh my!

{Five Favorites}

Joining Hallie (and Jen) this week for the first time ever. Hallie, by the time you read this, I hope you have a baby in your arms! And Many Happy Returns!

1. Lockitron- Lock and unlock your door using your phone? Get notifications if someone else has unlocked your door? Where are we, the Starship Enterprise? Having a recent heightened interest in home security, this really caught my eye. Of course, it could make losing your phone that much more of a hassle, and you could probably buy an alarm system for the cost of buying one for each door in your home, but this is still really cool. And if you watch the video, know that the guy in the blue shirt makes me smile.

2. Rienzi House, Houston- I went here with a friend today. Houston is a very young city with pockets of old money. This house, which was donated to the Museum of Fine Art, is one such pocket. the original family designed it in the 1950's with displaying their art collection in mind. The museum now maintains that collection and has added to it. Fun fact, the daughter of the family married in the Catholic church and had eight kids, seven of home live on the same street in Houston. Cousin heaven!

Visiting this home made me simultaneously appreciate the beauty of the home and its art, realize the impracticality of living in a home that doubles as a museum to your art collection, and recognize how far I am from ever rubbing elbows with "old money." But I'm ok with that.  Doesn't it look a tiny bit like Longbourne? You know the Bennett family home in the only Pride and Prejudice film whose existence I acknowledge.

3. Old Navy Denim Jacket- How did I live so long without this staple. Houston, please hold onto spring a little bit longer because I love wearing it! But why oh why don't you have pockets?

4. Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Suede Lipstick- After reading this review of it on The Small Things Blog, I decided to give this long wear color a try. It goes on smooth, then goes through a sticky phase where I don't recommend smooshing your lips together, and then sets to a matte shade of the original glossy color. While the color does last for hours, but I made the mistake of thinking that since I have similar coloring to Kate of Small Things, I got the  two lighter colors she reviewed. They didn't really work for me, but if my grocery still has the $2 off Revlon products coupon, I think I'll give it a try in the color pictured about, "It Girl."

5. Smoothie King- Some people join gyms for New Year's. Mark and I joined one the day after Easter. And signed up for a personal trainer to boot. Hopefully, that price tag will keep us motivated the whole year through. Our first session was today and the anxiety I experienced beforehand was eerily similar to pre-confession anxiety. But it went great. Our trainer wasn't too peppy, did nothing to make us feel terrible about our past choices, but did work us hard. I wanted to die after the first 5 minutes. But now, I'm basking in that post work-out glow that only a smoothie can make better. Don't worry, it was dinner. We didn't just undo all that good work. In other news, it had been so long since I last pushed myself that hard that I completely forgot I have exercise-induced asthma. I know that sounds made up but it's a real thing! Time to find that inhaler.

Happy Easter and Housekeeping

Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!

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