ooh pretty

Oh Crap! Completely forgot about Thanksgiving!

Read this blog and then come back to me....

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Ok, done yet?

Goodness.  I have to admit I used to make a killer cranberry salsa.  Ok, crash course - cranberries, jalapenos (or serranos), fresh lime juice, chopped shallots and ......  tequila!

Face forward to today, er two days ago.

Cranberry Margaritas (my way)

4oz FRESH cranberries, not frozen, ground or otherwise

1/2 of a tangerine or an entire clementine

1 jalapeno pepper

1 1/2 oz of agave nectar

1oz grand marnier (or cointreau noir)

2oz of tequila - lets go with platinum on this one, ok?

30 second prep:

muddle the clementine, jalapeno and cranberries

add nectar, tequila, the orange liqueur and 5oz of ice

shake like the dickens

and strain into a martini glass that's been 1/2 rimmed with sugar

Who knew?

Recently I had the opportunity to submit a recipe for a "low-calorie" cocktail reminiscent of the beach.  Immediately I started throwing a margarita to end all margaritas.  But, was told that they wanted, shudder, a pina colada.

Uh, low fat coconut milk? Let me just pull that one out .....  oh yeah, its over here, next to the Neverending Story book...  Whatever!  So, needless to say, I pulled it out and this is what I came up with:

Coconut water - 30 calories but fat free and we're only using 4oz.  The best way it to create ice cubes out of the coconut water but who wants to give all the secrets away, right?

Fat free vanilla yogurt -  4oz as well.  I like yoplait source but anything will work. - 17 calories and fat free.

Some fresh pineapple - 1/3 cup.  20 calories

Some rum - roughly 80 calories.....

Some agave nectar (60 calories) or stevia (0 calories)

And, voila - not too bad and its less than 150 calories and virtually fat free!

So, here's the "who knew" part.  Agave Nectar has quite a bit of calories considering how little is actually being used in a cocktail.  Regardless, stick with me and make the drinks properly and you'll cut calories and fat.  No matter how many calories found in Agave Nectar, its still less than in that pre-mixed crap...

Margarita Orbs

This was fun, I have to admit.

Here's the premise.... fresh fruit, great tequila, no sour mix and make it taste great!

As you should know, we recently purchased chemicals to keep up with the chefs.  And, while we're not quite on their level (or even close to be honest), we've been able to tinker enough to make some really cool "drinks".  Our focus on the drinks has been to use sodium alginate to a mixture, and then dropping it into a calcium chloride bath.  It started out horribly, but after getting used to quantities and such, we were able to create "orbs".  First one was just orange juice, to see if we could get it right.  Then we started actually making margaritas and straining them into a container, adding the sodium alginate, creating a "goo" and then dropping it into the calcium chloride bath and making margarita orbs!  

We found out a few things.  Gotta make them drinks strong, because some of the potency is lost in translation.  And, you need more sodium alginate than any recipe may call for since you've got the citrus and the alcohol working against it.  If you want to try this at home, here's where we got the chemicals.  Takes about a week or so, but the quantities are small enough so that you aren't buying 60 gallon drums of the stuff!

So, this is what we did:

Ingredients

3 oz of Don Julio Tequila (still gotta plug my friend from Diageo, especially with the economy the way it is).

1 lime and 1/2 lemon

2oz of agave nectar

1oz Cointreau Noir (great new stuff to play with!)

Method

Drop the fruit into a mixing cup and muddle with the agave nectar.  Add the tequila and the cointreau noir and for this, we're not using ice.  Want to keep it at room temperature.  So, then you still shake it vigorously, making sure to get all the flavor from the fruit.  Strain into a small mixing bowl.  Take 5 grams of the calcium chloride and add to 500 ml of cold water and stir.

Now add 4ml of sodium alginate to the tequila mixture and stir.  While continuing to stir, add an additional 2ml of sodium alginate.  

Take a small amount and test by dropping it into the calcium chloride bath.  If a small pearl is formed, you can remove it, drop it into a bath of plain water, and then onto a paper towel.  It should keep its form and you can eat it!  

If it doesn't work, then adjust the quantities as needed.

But, to do the orbs, you'll need a spoon.  What you do is take a spoonful of the tequila mixture and roll it into the calcium chloride bath.  This should create an orb about the size of your spoon.  Be careful and quick, so that your orbs don't have tails!

And, don't forget to "rinse" your orbs in the water bath.  Otherwise you'll impart too much of the calcium chloride into your system and you may get sick.

For service, I like putting the orbs onto a porcelain spoon and adding a dollop of my salt cloud. (for that recipe, see here).