Big as Texas BBQ Bloody Mary

When I saw that Smithworks Vodka was hosting a Bloody Mary contest, I knew I had to enter! Part of the fun of a Bloody Mary is the garnishes and I loaded my Big as Texas BBQ Bloody Mary with a Chicken Fried Steak Slider, a Deviled Egg, Fried Chicken Wing, celery stick (can you even have a Bloody Mary without one?), jalapeno garlic stuffed olives, pickle and a marinated artichoke heart! 

Big as Texas BBQ Bloody Mary 

1 Tablespoon BBQ sauce

1 Tablespoon BBQ seasoning

 1 cup Zing Zang Bloody Mary Mix

3 ounces Smithworks Vodka

1 Tablespoon BBQ sauce

Juice of ½ a lime

Splash of EACH: Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, pickled jalapeno brine, soy sauce, olive juice

 Top with the best snack/skewer/toppers that ever did exist: Chicken Fried Steak Slider, Deviled Egg, Fried Chicken Wing, celery stick, jalapeno garlic stuffed olives, pickle, marinated artichoke heart

 Dip the rim of 2 glasses into the BBQ sauce, then the BBQ seasoning. Fill with ice.

 In a pitcher stir together the Bloody Mary Mix, Smithworks Vodka, BBQ sauce, lime juice, and a splash of EACH: Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, pickled jalapeno brine, soy sauce, olive juice. Pour the mixture into the glasses, top with snack/skewer/toppers and enjoy!

Watermelon Mai Tai

Remember that gorgeous yellow watermelon I made the Watermelon Wedge Salads with Mint Pesto with? I had some cubed watermelon leftover and decided to make a cocktail perfect for the weekend!
My Watermelon Mai Tais are absolute perfection and really make me wish I was still on vacation in Mexico and not gearing up for another school year! I can't believe my kids start on Tuesday and we will find out which teachers we get this afternoon.
What's your favorite tropical drink?

Watermelon Mai Tai

5 ounces spiced rum
3 ounces coconut-flavored rum
4 ounces pineapple juice
4 ounces orange juice
4 ounces watermelon juice
3 cups ice cubes
Mint sprigs, cherries and orange slices for garnish

Place the 4 ounces of the spiced rum, the coconut rum and juices in a pitcher and stir. Fill 2 cocktail glasses with ice and fill with the cocktail. Top each glass off with the remaining spiced rum, garnish the glasses and serve!
Makes 2 cocktails.

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Tea-quila Sunrise

I am taking part in the Stash Tea Blogger Recipe Challenge and  I am really excited to share my entries with you! I have had so much fun testing recipes and looking at tea in a new way. My first entry is a twist on a classic and perfect for entertaining. Tequila Sunrises are usually made with orange juice, tequila and grenadine. Instead of buying grenadine which is pretty much red food dye and syrup I made a delicious and easy homemade syrup using Stash Pomegranate Raspberry Tea Bags! The flavor of the tea really shines through in this syrup and I love how easy it is to make the components beforehand, even the night before if you want. You won't be stuck mixing individual cocktails all night and each guest gets to make their own beautiful sunrise effect!

"Since 1972, Stash has crafted hundreds of delicious and unique blends in addition to classic tea favorites. Made with the best all-natural ingredients from around the world, Stash’s premium line of bagged teas is Project Non-GMO Verified and certified Kosher."

Stash sent me a fabulous selection of their teas to work with AND they're offering a discount code to all of my friends and family! Here's the CODE to the discount if you'd like to order some for yourself! 

Tea-quila Sunrise

1 cup water

4 Stash Pomegranate Raspberry Tea Bags

1 cup sugar

2 cups tequila

7 cups orange juice

10 orange slices

10 maraschino cherries

Place water in a small saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and add in your tea bags. Allow to infuse for about 5-10 minutes. Once the tea has fully steeped, remove the tea bags and whisk in the sugar until dissolved. Let stand at room temperature until cool, about 1 hour, before refrigerating.

When ready to serve pour the tequila and orange juice in a pitcher. Pour the prepared tea syrup in a small pitcher. In highball glasses filled with ice, pour in the orange juice mixture. Slowly pour the tea syrup down the side of the glass, allowing it to settle at the bottom. Garnish with an orange slice and a cherry.

Serves 10

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#stashtea #stashtearecipechallenge #stashtearecipes

Bourbon and Bacon Birthday Bash

 This past weekend my friend and I threw a party for our husband's birthdays. We decided on a Bacon and Bourbon theme and it was so much fun I thought I'd share all the details of what we did. We found some cute quotes about Bourbon and an image of classic bourbon cocktails and framed them to decorate the bar area. We had about 12 different bourbons to taste, an assortment of bitters, mixers, fruit, mint, simple syrup....literally anything needed for everyone to make their favorite beverage.

My friend ordered these adorable cookies that were as delicious as they were cute!

 As per usual, right before the party I was running super late so I asked the birthday boys to take pictures for me. The bacon you see in the glass is "Bacon Man Candy" that Celena made- dangerously delicious!

Celena's daughter also made a decadent Chocolate Pecan Cake with Bourbon Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Maple Bacon Rice Krispie Treats 

 I had cheese stuffed mini peppers as one of the appetizers. All I did was mix goat cheese, Boursin cheese, thyme and bacon together and spooned that into halved mini sweet peppers. Roast them at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes and then drizzled them with a roasted garlic honey

 My bacon deviled eggs went fast! I couldn't believe we went through 48 of them!!

This Beer Cheese Spread is something I've made many times. It's so simple to make and can be made ahead of time. I served it with toasted baguette slices and mini soft pretzel bites.

 There's a small wine bar by my house that serves manchego stuffed bacon wrapped dates with a chimichurri dip that's to die for. I made my own version by stuffing pitted dates with a smoked goat cheese, wrapping them in bacon and roasting them until crisp. The chimichurri I made was actually a recipe my son and I came up with together while researching Argentinian food for his World Cultures class. It's delicious with grilled meats, as a dip, or as a salad dressing!

Chimichurri Sauce

2 cups packed fresh Italian parsley leaves

4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/4 cup packed fresh oregano leaves (or 4 teaspoons dried oregano)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Place all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth

 A veggie and cheese tray is always a hit and for the main dish, I had pulled pork in the crockpot. I had a variety of sauces to choose from along with slider buns and tortillas allowing people to make sandwiches or tacos!

Overall, the party was a huge success. We had so much fun celebrating our guys!

Cranberry Lava Flow

When I think of cranberries, I typically think of Fall and the holidays, not tropical, summery and bright flavors. My entries for the "Cape Cod Select Summer Breeze Recipe Blogger Challenge" have totally changed that for me! Cranberries pair so well with pineapple and creamy coconut that I think you'll agree when you taste it- cranberries are perfect year round! For my third entry, I created a Cranberry Lava Flow, perfect for your Labor Day weekend pool parties. They're so pretty, and they look way more labor intense than they really are.

Cheers!

Cranberry Lava Flow

5 oz CapeCod Select Premium Cranberries

¼ cup sugar
½ cup water
4 oz light (white) rum
2 cups ice cubes
4 oz coconut rum

1 cup frozen pineapple cubes

4 oz cream of coconut
Fresh pineapple, for garnish

In a small saucepot, combine the cranberries, sugar and water over high heat. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the cranberries have softened. Set aside and allow the mixture to fully cool. Once the mixture has cooled, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze until solid.

In a blender, combine the light rum, frozen cranberry and 1 cup of the ice. Blend until smooth and pour into 2 tall glasses.

Rinse out the blender and add the coconut rum, pineapple, cream of coconut and the remaining ice. Blend until smooth and slowly pour the pineapple coconut mixture into the glasses. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and serve immediately.

If you'd like to order their frozen cranberries for yourself, you can go HERE

To follow along for recipes and ideas you can find Cape Cod Select on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest

#capecodselect #frozencranberries #cranberriesforallseasons

I'm so excited to update and say that I WON the Drink Category and Grand Prize - $1500!! I am so thrilled that Cape Cod Select enjoyed my recipe as much as I did and I hope you like it too! Cheers!

The Ruby 75

If you're still stumped as to what to do or get for your mom for Mother's Day, I am here to help! Make her a cute basket filled with ingredients to make this gorgeous brunch cocktail. Throw in a few pretty champagne flutes and pre-chill the prosecco so there's no wait time and you're golden.

Have you ever had a French 75? 

Prosecco, lemon, gin and sugar is the typical line up for this classic cocktail but recently, I decided to give it a little twist. Grapefruit was never something I was into until I tried a Texas Ruby Red a few years ago. They are so naturally sweet, gorgeously pink and thankfully don't pack the bitterness I was used to dealing with when trying them in the past. When I swapped the lemon for a dash of Ruby Red grapefruit juice and added fresh basil leaves as a garnish I think I hit it out of the park!

The Ruby 75

6 basil leaves

3 ounces freshly squeezed Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice

1 ounce gin

1 ounce simple syrup

16 ounces champagne or prosecco, well chilled

Roughly tear apart 2 large basil leaves and place them in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add the grapefruit juice, gin and simple syrup and stir to combine.

Strain into 4 champagne flutes. 

Top with champagne, garnish with remaining basil leaves and serve immediately. 

Makes 4 cocktails.

 Cheers!

Founders Day BBQ Cookoff

 This past weekend was Dripping Spring's Founders Day Festival; a 3 day event complete with a parade, carnival, live music, tons of local vendors to shop from and BBQ cookoff right in the heart of town. Last year we had applied to be part of the cookoff but we never got a spot. We applied again and this year and were finally won a space!

We packed and shopped and prepped as much as we could early in the week and drove our gigantic rig out at noon on Friday to begin set up. It really is amazing to see the process of all the teams setting up on a small street in such a short amount of time. Louis built two bar sections to put in front of the pit area, we put some bar stools up and we started unpacking and organizing immediately.

After settling in, we started to chat with the teams on either side of us. Both of them had twice the space that we did and had been competing int his cookoff for 15 and 18 years. Also, each team had matching uniforms and at least 12 people (if not more) in their crew working the whole time. It was definitely intimidating to be sandwiched in between these two, but luckily one of the teams was super friendly, partied the whole time, was serving us drinks and gave me the nickname "NOLA girl"

Before we knew it, the parade was starting and friends were coming by to see the set up and say hi! The first entries to turn in were due at 7:30 for the Margarita round. I made 2 entries; a Pineapple Habanero Margarita with a Sweet and Spicy Sugar Rim (recipe at the bottom) and a Mango Serrano Margarita with a Smoked Salt Rim

After turn in we were able to relax and hang out with friends. It was a blast, but by 11 I was exhausted so we headed home to be ready for the next day 

Louis got back to our spot at 4 am on Saturday to begin the brisket and I met him later with the kids at 6 am. We knew Saturday would be the busiest day for us with Chicken, Ribs and Brisket due at different times of the day. All meat had to be served off the bone (even the ribs) which I thought was strange, but our ribs and chicken came out great!

Turn in time is always stressful!

Luckily, we had awesome friends taking pictures all weekend for us since we were too busy to do it ourselves. Thanks again DJ!!

Although the brisket had a great smoke ring and was seasoned perfectly, it stalled way too long for us to recover from, so it wasn't as tender as we would have liked.

Our other awesome neighbors gave us a huge batch of Smoked Venison Sausage and Cheese and Jalapeno Venison Sausage. We grilled batches of it all weekend long and set it out as samples. Brianna really loved helping with that part. Thanks again Derrick and Amber!

Apparently I make a ton of faces while cooking.... 

Smoke Ring

Ahhh the life of a competition kid

Gotta get a funnel cake at least once!

Sunday morning started bright and early again, this time for Chili and Salsa turn-ins. Me, my mom, Louis and a few friends judged the salsa round which was fun. We tasted and judged 16 salsas. Most of them were good, but some of them were pretty awful

After judging we started on Bloody Marys to share, and the chili

In the end, we made final table for our chicken and ribs and placed 7th overall out of 120 entries for ribs! For our first time, competing against teams that have been doing this for almost 20 years, I guess we didn't do too badly.

I'm sunburned, hoarse and everything we had out there smells like smoke now, but I learned a lot through the process and look forward to doing even better next year!

Pineapple Habanero Margarita with a Sweet and Spicy Sugar Rim

2 cups silver tequila

1 cup fresh pineapple chunks

1/4 - 1/2 habanero pepper 

1 Tablespoon tajin seasoning

1/3 cup turbinado sugar

In a high powered blender puree the tequila, pineapple chunks and depending on how spicy you want it, use 1/4 to 1/2 of the pepper habanero pepper. Strain through a fine mesh strainer. Combine the tajin seasoning and sugar in a shallow dish. Dampen the rim of your glass with some of the strained tequila and dip into the sugar mixture.

2 cups strained infused tequila

1/4 cup agave

1 cup fresh lime juice

1 cup passion fruit juice

In a pitcher stir together the tequila, agave, lime juice and passion fruit juice. Fill the rimmed glasses with ice and margarita mixture. Serve immediately.