Shandy (p. 53) and English muffin pizza (p. 182)

Oh, the Shandy (p. 53). Something about the shandy just doesn't sound delicious to me. I mixed lager (I choose delicious Miller High Life, the Champagne of Beers) with ginger beer:



Josh had to drink several of these, since it seemed like a waste to throw the extra ginger beer and MHL away. He actually rather liked the shandy. He thought the MHL leveled out the odd flavor of the ginger beer. I thought it was awful, which is likely due to my hatred of ginger beer. Apparently you can also use Sprite in a Shandy which sounds even more awful to me.

While Josh was enjoying his shandy, I made him an English muffin pizza (p. 182).

I took an English muffin, toasted it in the broiler, spread it with chili sauce (you can use catsup--CATSUP!), sprinkled oregano on it, topped it with grated cheddar, poured olive oil over it, and popped it back in the broiler:



Until it turned out like this:



Believe it or not, Josh said it was good and he'd happily eat it again. He thought it needed a little extra "punch" like a couple of pieces of pepperoni or bacon but he thought it was overall rather tasty. I will say it was certainly easy and made out of stuff we already had on hand, which was nice.

Random facts:

• Apparently, shandies can be made with lemonade or cider too (Wikipedia). I love cider, so maybe I would like a cider shandy more.
• Various versions of the shandy seem to be popular all over the world, especially in Germany (seriously paraphrasing Wikipedia)

So, readers, have you had a shandy before? What was the mixture?


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Bellini (p. 53) , Mimosa (p. 53), and Black velvet (p. 53)

I have no taste when it comes to wine. Josh and I very, very rarely buy wine and when we do, we tend make our selection based on which label we find the most attractive (usually tending towards funny names or labels with animals). I really like sparkling wine, although I am perfectly happy with the cheap stuff. I knew TJOC had a handful of wine and beer cocktails. I decided to pick up a bottle of cheap champagne and whipped up a few.

First, I made a Bellini (p. 53). I took a peach, processed it in my food processor, and pushed it through a sieve:



I mixed it with sparkling wine:



Delicious but too much trouble. I don't like working with peaches because I don't like peeling them, so I moved on to a simpler recipe--the Mimosa (p. 53). I mixed orange juice and sparkling wine:



I love mimosas. I think they are particularly perfect for breakfast, brunch, and/or sitting out by the pool. The sparkling wine is enhanced by the orange juice but not overwhelmed and the sweetness of the wine is cut by the acidity of the orange juice.

I've eyed the recipe for the Black velvet (p. 53) many times. You take three ounces stout (I used Guinness) and fill the glass with sparkling wine. Guinness and champagne?? It seemed incredibly bizarre.




I have to say, it was pretty good! Stout mixed with fruit lambic is amazing and this mixture was pretty similar. The sparkling wine lent a welcome sweetness to the stout and the Guinness stopped the sparkling wine from being too sweet. But the most obvious benefit to the black velvet is being able to say that you are drinking Guinness mixed with champagne.

Do you know of any other champagne cocktails? Have you had the "black velvet"? What were your thoughts?

Wine and beer index: 2006 Edition

The great indexing project! Because I can't think of any other better way to do this...I'm listing all of the recipes in a given chapter and linking them to the post where I cook it.  This is the index of the 2006 Edition, if you are looking for the 2019 index, I've done that, too.  

THIS LIST IS FROZEN AS OF THE END OF 2019.

Wine and Beer:
Number of recipes: 8
Number of recipes made:
(Sept 2008): 0. Fortunately, not many recipes in this chapter!
(May 2009): Still 0. On the bright side, I should be able to make them all quickly
(Mid-Jan 2010): Still 0. Uh oh!
(May 2010): Still 0. ::sigh::

(Mid-Jan 2011): 3 or 37.5% Hooray!
(Mid-May 11): 4 or 50%
(August 2012): 4 or 50%
End of 2019: Same


Kir
Mimosa
Black velvet
Champagne cocktail I
Champagne cocktail II
White wine spritzer
Bellini
Shandy