Cooking with alcohol has two aspects. The first involves adding alcohol to the recipe ingredients. The second, and much more fun, involves adding alcohol to the cook. Of course the ideal is to combine the two and I thoroughly recommend this. A well soused cook is a happy and relaxed cook.
I have some favourite dishes that all have alcohol as an ingredient. Most of them are based on fruit but not all. I firmly believe, and have experimented at some length to support my theory, that alcohol aids digestion. I do tend only to drink alcohol when cooking hot, savoury dishes as I like wine. I don't drink Rum, Cointreau, Drambuie or Port and so confine my cookery drinking to savoury recipes.
Here are my favourite alcohol based recipes.
Rum Bananas
Pears in Red Wine
Mandarins and Strawberries in Cointreau or Drambuie
Portly Trifle
Spaghetti Bolognaise with Red wine
The recipes follow but don't expect photos of these delights until I have time as one must make the dish look artful and place it on crystal or china. Frankly it's Sunday morning and that's all too hard. I suggest using your imagination.
Let's start with Rum Bananas. My father was an expert in these and they would be the finale to his Sunday afternoon barbeques. He would first barbeque fillet steak for guests and this would be served with whole potatoes in foil with sour cream and Ratatouille that my mother had prepared earlier. There would also be a mixed bean or green salad and often bread rolls. I don't know how we fitted it all in.
We would eat on the patio overlooking Pittwater at Church Point where I was fortunate enough to have grown up. No wonder we had a constant stream of guests. Our swimming pool formed part of the view over the beautiful bay. I don't expect Heaven to be more beautiful than this place where I grew up. Sadly my parents sold the place to retire and by doing so broke my heart. I have been a wandering soul cut off ever since.
The alcohol has helped a little but not nearly enough.
RUM BANANAS
Ingredients:
Ripe but still firm bananas, one per person, peeled and sliced lengthways in half.
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup dark Rum
Note: the sugar, butter and rum quantities above will cook about two or three bananas halved
Method:
In a frying pan, melt the butter.
Add brown sugar until it melts and bubbles slightly
Put in bananas and coat both sides and cook until tender about two minutes turning carefully to coat both sides
TAKE CARE WITH NEXT TWO STEPS AND STAND BACK
Heat Rum separately in a small saucepan and light with a match
Pour over banana mixture cook another minute to burn off alcohol
Serve with ice cream and/or cream if desire
MANDARINS AND STRAWBERRIES IN COINTREAU OR DRAMBUIE
I was once heavily pregnant and my husband and I drove South from Perth, W.A. to have a picnic. I had taken all the usual picnic ingredients as well as Mandarins and Strawberries in Drambuie.
The car broke down a short way out of a country town. My husband waved down a passing tractor and headed back to the town. It was hot and I decided to cool off by eating the Mandarins and Strawberries. I was so happily eating them I was unperturbed about how long it would take my husband to return. I was almost disappointed when he came back twenty minutes later and we managed to restart the car, so heavenly and cool was this lovely concoction.
Ingredients:
1 tin of Mandarin segments drained (these are better than natural and are always available)
1 punnet of strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered depending on size
2 tablespoons of preferred liqueur
icing sugar
Method:
Place fruits together in a bowl and cover with liqueur
Sprinkle with a little icing sugar or sugar
Chill in fridge
Serve plain or with cream or ice cream
Note: Lovely to take on a picnic
PEARS IN RED WINE
These are lovely warm or cold.
Basically they are pears in Gluhwein
Ingredients:
3 or 4 pears in season, not too firm
2 to 2 1/2 cups red wine
1/3 cup sugar
stick of cinnamon
lemon zest
Method:
Peel pears but leave in stalk
In a saucepan place the sugar, wine, cinnamon stick and one or two pieces of lemon zest
Bring to boil and lower to a medium heat
Place pears in saucepan upright and bring to boil again before turning heat to low to simmer
Turn pears every twenty minutes to ensure all parts are cooked
This should take an hour. When pears are tender carefully remove them with a slotted spoon one
at a time and place all upright in a bowl.
If the sauce isn't syrupy enough bring it to the boil again until syrupy enough.
Remove lemon zest and cinnamon sticks if desired.
Allow to cool and pour over the pears in the bowl.
Place in fridge.
Serve with cream and/or ice cream, yoghurt or sweetened Marscapone.
PORTLY TRIFLE
Trifle always reminds me of what the cooks at my boarding school could do with leftover afternoon tea buns and cakes and jelly desserts. It's enough to make my hair stand on end. But my mother thankfully left me with a much better memory of Trifle with her Portly Trifle. I haven't made this for years as my appetite has now waned to the point of being non-existent. I can only remember delicious dishes as one remembers happy holidays.
This is an easy dish and I'll write it from memory so it may need some tweaking of the Port amount by you.
Ingredients:
A bought French roll (a jam and sponge roll)
1 pint Custard ( I buy this)
Port
Blanched almonds
There is no jelly in this but do your own thing. After all Trifle was a dish created to use up leftovers.
Method:
Slice the roll into 1cm or 1/2 inch slices
In a large glass or crystal serving bowl place in the following order:
Line the base of the bowl with slices of French roll then sprinkle with Port.
The Port should soak up to almost a third or half way up each roll slice as I remember.
Don't make the cake sodden.
Cover with a layer of custard.
Repeat the process so there are three layers. Finish with custard.
Place blanched almonds all over the top.
Refrigerate and serve when cold.
I don't remember if almonds were placed among the layers but do it your way.
SPAGHETTI BOLOGNAISE WITH RED WINE
Well everyone has their own version of Spaghetti Bolognaise so I won't bother to give you mine.
My only addition to your own recipe is to tell you what I do.
I start by pouring myself a glass of red wine and making sure there is enough left in the bottle for the Bolognaise Sauce.
I sip the wine and start chopping and slicing garlic and onions. I continue sipping while I chop tomatoes and brown the mince. I set the mince aside in a bowl while I cook the onions, garlic and tomatoes. Sometimes I add sliced Kalamata olives, and sometimes, when daring, Jalapenos or bacon. I saute these then return the meat to the saucepan. I add some powered beef or chicken stock and water, tomato sauce and red wine. I may add mild chili sauce in winter. I sip some wine along the way. I add oregano, basil, salt and pepper as well. I simmer all of this and eventually may thicken with gravy flour (semolina powder).
I often think that Spaghetti Bolognaise sauce improves with age in the fridge and even after freezing so I always set some aside and freeze for later.
I serve with either spaghetti pasta or spiral pasta.
Naturally I sip red wine when eating my delicious Spaghetti with Bolognaise Sauce.
THE END.
It must puzzle good, decent men when women, particularly those in whom they are romantically interested, go for the bad guy.
The trouble, of course, is history. Humans were genetically programmed in early primitive times. Civilisation has only been around for a tiny fraction of our history. Before this a man's strength and courage were his greatest attributes as a potential mate.
In primitive times a woman needed to allow for the time during which she would be pregnant and vulnerable. After the birth she then had to care for her offspring which, unlike other species, didn't just get up and walk within a few hours of birth. Human children are cumbersome for at least five years. For this reason the woman must choose a reliable mate. He must stay around and protect and feed her during her pregnancy and also after the child is born.
You might argue that a woman in those times didn't get to choose her
mate. Maybe not but she would still have been attracted to the males
who were the best hunters and protectors.
A woman would also have to be protected from men from other tribes. Her mate needed to be a fighter. Basically he needed to be a killer. This attribute of his personality may have flowed over into his domestic life. This nature was probably the reason men began to suppress women and treat them as personal possessions. She was weaker and, to him, that meant she was inferior. The primitive world relied on strength and a woman's only real benefit was the continuation of the species. A man didn't need to be violent with his mate. If he was it was probably because it was his inherent nature to be so. It was an admirable quality to him after all and if she did something he didn't like he wasn't about to discuss it, was he? No he would do what he did to animals and that is to physically overcome her.
It may seem to be pushing the envelope a bit but another requirement of hunters is stealth and that includes silence. Do we wonder why the male is not the communicator a female is? Men would work as a team and probably with a plan. Their communication during the hunt would be nods and hand gestures. The men understood each other. Interesting isn't it that the way in which men enjoy verbal communication today is about sport? It must be the closest thing allied to the hunt. Post hunt the men might sit around and commend themselves verbally about their actions, but during it, there was silence.
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| What a girl wants! |
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Women talked. They talked as they gathered because the nuts and fruit weren't likely to run off at the sound of their voices. As they talked, the children learned to talk. It all worked pretty well except for the attitudes it bred into the sexes.
There is something about the bad boy. Firstly he rates himself highly and for some reason he exudes masculinity. I believe it is because, put him in a suit or not, he doesn't belong in it. He has what James Bond has; he's a killer in disguise. The hunter is well and truly still present and women sense it. They want him to hunt them. That's his effect. I think that women want to be attractive to such a man. If she manages to bed him even once she will feel better about herself. He is an image enhancer and most women are insecure about their looks, bodies or anything really. She may want to keep him but that is inadvisable to say the least. This type of man likes to conquer and once he has achieved that, to move on.
That's part of his appeal really. It is a challenge for any woman to retain this man. She might be able do so by feigning disinterest so that he thinks he hasn't really conquered her. He will never cease to be exciting to her but does she really want to live with him? He will never be entirely faithful either and, again, that keeps her interest. There is nothing so desirable as something you can't have.
Meanwhile Mr. Nice Guy is shaking his head in wonder. He is reliable. He loves this woman and will hang around for the rest of her life. Ah, but she knows this and she wants him too, when she's ready and hasn't managed to snare Bad Boy. But he can wait. It's not only men who want their cake and to keep it too. In relationships none of us is really trustworthy and I think it may be because they are still so closely linked to survival. One type of relationship may be for a stable and companionable life. A woman, growing old, will need a man who loves her for herself. The other type might stem from a desire to produce the best child and that will come from the Bad Boy. I'm sure that quite often Mr. Nice Guy acts as father to Bad Boy's offspring, at least earlier in history and often now. Bad Boy likes women young but he will also go for older if she is sexy, interesting and won't cling.
Bad Boy often marries but his wife will have to close her eyes to all sorts of things. It is the price for catching a wolf or a shark and she may complain but she knows she has the man all the other women want.
Some Bad Boys of history: Lord Byron, Rasputin, Casanova, Marc Antony, Dracula (fictional but the ultimate Bad Boy), Errol Flynn, Napoleon (who dumped Josephine to marry into the aristocracy and reproduce), Henry VIII, John F. Kennedy.
END
Well the New Year has rolled over again just as I did in bed this morning on the 22,639th day of my life. That's not a big number is it? It sure doesn't seem to be when looking back at how long I've lived. How can it only be that many days?
If I live to make one hundred years of age I will only live for 36,500 days. If you think of a person from infancy to great old age in this time span it makes time seem like fast forward photography.
I'll show you the full life photo album. Here I am as a newborn with plump skin and no resemblance to my adult self and it will take another fifteen to seventeen years to reach full maturity. And here I am at one hundred, my frame somewhat bent and shrunken, the fat under my skin all but gone, age spots all over my skin, teeth that have gone yellow and gums that have receded. The inner corners of my eyes will be slits at the rims have a reddish tinge. The skin on my body will be slack and dried up. I will have knobbly hands and my movements will be slower. I may be incontinent. I may still be able to walk but everyone is afraid I will fall, and if I do I will certainly break bones as they have become as brittle as dried up twigs.
Ah, but my mind, if I keep it intact that long, will be as sharp as a tack and replete with memories that go back so far that the early ones seem to belong to someone else.
At this stage everyone will be waiting for me to die. I have no future, only a past. I am now seen as less than human as I have no potential. I am as loved and as useful as an old couch, but I can't be tossed on the sidewalk. It is strange that a human's worth is in their potential and how much of it they have left.
I'm in a race with time now to publish my first novel written thirty years ago and almost accepted once by a literary agent who asked me to make some small changes and by the time I did, the company had been bought and wasn't taking new writers. I became tired of rejections following this and the cost of postage, of re-formatting the manuscript to every agent and publishers' directives. I had to make a living after all.
I want to still be young enough to enjoy the achievement when the novel is published. Note the 'when' not 'if' in the last sentence. No publisher wants a withered old prune on the back cover even if they had the brain of Einstein or Hawking. I want to revel in the signings, the talks at writers' events, the sense of pride I will have before my son who lost any use for me after he reached the age of twenty.
I've decided to run the gamut of potential publishers again. Time waits for no man after all. Then I have another two novels on the go, one that will be a sure fire seller. I know that in my gut but I'm not waiting to finish it before I give number one novel another try.
When I read it after all these years, I'm amazed I wrote it at all. That's when you know something is good. My star sign says that I am prone to self-doubt and this causes me to undermine myself. That is so true. I should have been pushing the manuscript with a vengeance all these years but I became tired and lost confidence, not in myself but in those to whom the manuscript was sent.
I once sent the manuscript to a publisher using all their guidelines. I included the stamped, self-addressed envelope for their reply. I swear it came back the same week I sent the manuscript. Attached was a "Dear Author" letter. My own name didn't appear and the letter, all three lines of it, was generic. I had the distinct feeling it had landed on a desk, the reply envelope taken out, stuffed with a rejection letter, stamped and sent. That's pretty demoralizing.
My father used to cut and and send me articles about writers who got published. He thought it would inspire me. It did the opposite. It upset me but God bless him for trying. He's passed away now so I'm in no danger of getting another newspaper cutting from him. If I could have him back again it would be the first time I'd enjoy getting one of them. I still, however, wouldn't read it.
Just last year European Space agency scientists landed a robotic probe on a comet. One scientist likened the difficulty of landing the probe on the comet to being like "Landing a washing machine on a speeding bullet."
I think that trying to get a manuscript published is just as hard but nothing's going to happen unless I make the effort. As Captain Kirk says in the new Star Trek, "Make it so." Well this little bulldozer is building up a head of steam and about to spend this year pushing and shoving with all her little might.
Wish me well and you just might get to read a bloody good novel.
END
