I dunno about you, Chitlins, but I lurve me some bourbon. However, being a girl, I have a hard time drinking it straight (or on the rocks, or neat or whatever the proper terminology is), so I like to mix it with things. My favorite mixer of all time is ginger ale. But that can get old pretty quickly. And then I stumbled upon a marvelous discovery that only took me a year to recreate.
So, I hope you’re riding that pistachio gravy train Chitlins because I’m bringing you another recipe. But I promise, it’ll be the last one for awhile (mostly because I can’t think of anything else to make with pistachios, except for pudding. BRB jotting that down). Okay, anyway. I adore pistachio ice cream. I wasn’t always this way, I really didn’t like anything with nuts when I was growing up. My idea of a wild ice cream flavor was “crazy vanilla,” which I only learned was different colored vanillas when I was about, oh…16.
The BF and I were having one of those late night I-can’t-sleep-so-I’m-going-to-bother-you discussions this week wherein he was complaining about how he feels he’s gotten so out of shape because of his job. If you can audibly roll your eyes, I did. He’s a man. If someone says the word “gym” within a 20 mile radius of him he’ll lose 5 pounds; 10 if he thinks of the gym. It’s a blessing. I, on the other hand, think of the word “cookie” and suddenly my ass doesn’t fit in my jeans any more. I’m pretty sure that’s not a blessing.
In my last post right before Christmas I had mentioned the severe anxiety I get the week before Christmas actually arrives because I’m concerned I haven’t listened to enough holiday music. Well, right as the start of January rolls around I get a whole new anxiety: the fear of not having consumed enough eggnog before it is off the shelves again for another 11 miserable months.
For my birthday this summer my aunt got me a fantastic cookbook called The Boozy Baker. Clearly this book was made for me. Booze and baking? It’s like a dream come true. My friend Tessa had a cookbook called Cooking with Booze (or maybe it was Baking with Booze). The most hilarious thing about it was that hardly any of the recipes had actual hooch in them. Instead, they gave you a recipe and then told you what to drink while preparing it. I thought this was a riot, but I’m also easily amused.
Anyway, The Boozy Baker has recipes for both: baked goods with booze and for boozy drinks. In my mind that’s a win-win-win situation (“The Office” anyone?). Now while I have no problem baking with beer (just see my drunken banana bread) I know that not everyone is as adventurous as I am. I learned this the hard way with The BF (though he’ll gripe about the fact that I won’t eat anything that has ever lived part of it’s life in water, and he grew up on the ocean).
So I’ve had to learn to be creative – “I made this totally awesome ice cream guys, guess what flavor it is!” – just to get people to try it before they immediately turn their nose up. It’s sneaky and mean, I know. It’s like when my mom thought she was fooling me by making a grilled cheese sandwich with half whole-wheat bread and half white bread and put the whole-wheat side down on the plate. Pssh, woman. What kind of child did you think you raised that I wouldn’t look under my sandwich? I mean you’re talking to the kid who wouldn’t anything that wasn’t white until she was about 15 years old. You can bet your tuckus I wanted to know you hadn’t hidden some scary green vegetable (or red, or orange for that matter) in my unassuming Wonder bread and Kraft grilled cheese.
But I digress.
I remember when I started baking in earnest and was asking my mother for all sorts of crazy things (like a KitchenAid mixer, or a springform pan – I know, totally crazy), she was obviously quite confused. First, the woman can’t bake or cook to save her life. The first time she made my father a “home-cooked” dinner it was pea soup. Except that her soup turned out gray. My father, though not the most adventurous eater, ate it. This a true testament to how much my father loved my mother, despite her ineptitude in the kitchen, because I have tried to re-create gray pea soup, and am resolutely convinced it’s not possible. Bless his soul it didn’t kill him and I am here to tell the tale.
Second, my mother was convinced that all these items I was asking for are only found on a wedding registry. Perhaps she was confused because I was not (and am not) engaged, but still I was asking for a KitchenAid mixer. She would complain for hours, “But Aislinn, what are you going to put on your registry?” I told her not to worry, I still wanted a champagne saber and a kitchen blowtorch and those are surely things one finds on a registry. I also recently found out that REI has a wedding registry, and that’s pretty cool too, so I think I’ll probably just register there, since my kitchen will already be filled to the brim with equipment. Continue reading
