The Tom Collins hoax of 1874 is infamous. A friend would greet you and ask “Have you seen Tom Collins?” and then begin to relate all the horrible things that this gossiping Tom had been telling people about you. “He’s been trash-talking you all week! But wait a second, there’s a bar just around the corner that he likes to frequent! Let’s confront him!” As newspapers of the time chronicled, this lead to many young men frantically running around town, seeking to confront the slanderous Tom Collins as a matter of honour, and seeming to act foolish in the process.

The original Tom Collins recipe dates from 1876, just two years later. Bartenders have been christening their creations after inside-jokes ever since. The Collins is  made with old fashioned lemonade mixed with gin and is usually served in a Collins glass. I like mine in a high-ball with a straw. Divine on a hot day.

Tradition calls for the juice from one ripe lemon. You can use less if like. I like to chop my lemons into quarters and muddle them in glass, but squeezing them with a citrus squeezer is perfectly alright.

Aha! Remember this? Add 15ml or more of simple syrup. Change your ratio of lemon to syrup to taste. Lemon cordial is also a delicious substitute.

Add the gin of your choosing. This time, it’s good old Tanqueray Ten which is ripe with citrus and blends with the lemon to make something truly heavenly.

Top up with soda water (or tonic if your feeling sour and sassy). The 1876 recipe calls for only two cubes of ice. I say bah humbug. If you want lots of ice, add lots of ice. Garnish with a maraschino cherry if you like. I find they’re too sweet for my tastes and prefer a lively cocktail umbrella instead. These things cost $2 for a pack of 12 and they make life amazing. I promise.

So, have you seen Tom Collins?

simple syrup

There are one or two amazing little liquor shops in my town that sell wondrous bottles of hand-crafted liqueurs and boutique wines. All of them also stock Gomme. Also known as sugar-syrup, or simple syrup, it’s a water and sugar mixture used to sweeten up cocktails. Whenever I pop in to one of these fanciful stores for something tasty, I always seem to briefly consider paying $8 for what is essentailly a bottle of sugar and water. Albeit, all natural organic hand-crafted traditional sugar-syrup. All the same, I am struck by the notion that for less that $2 I could make it at home.

But the thought of labouring over a stove melting sugar and water together and waiting for it to cool just seemed fraught with alchemical difficulties. Not to mention effort and time. Besides, you can get almost the same result with cordial – lemon, raspberry and elderflower have become some of my staples. If you don’t fancy making your own, Monin produce some positively delicious syrups; Kiwi, Cucumber, Green Apple and Lavender for instance!

Then in 2008 I went to a tequila tasting hosted by Brown-Forman where our guide showed us how to make sugar-syrup. It was so fricking simple! People, this is how the professionals do it. You don’t need a stove, or even hot water. For those of you, who like me, had no idea – here’s how:

Now go forth and enjoy all those sweet cocktails your soul has been yearning for!

I thought I’d post some of the photos from the rest of our NYE feast!

We started with mini tarts containing caramelised onion and heirloom baby tomatoes. The lovley Elle gave me the hint about using puff pastry with caramelised onions. These cute lil’ tarts went down a treat. (I’ve always wanted to say that!!)

The first course was battered zucchini florets. I stuffed these suckers with roast pumpkin and ricotta. Mmm.

Mr K decided to have lamb and bacon-wrapped tomatoes and mashed potato. He’s a big fan of roast meat of some kind with bacon-wrapped tomatoes and mashed potato. Especially if there’s gravy involved. The boccolini is just a garnish…

I opted to have potato gnocchi in sage butter. Sage leaves fried crispy in butter is the most amazing thing you will ever put in your mouth. I promise. I mashed up some roast pumpkin and added flour till it was workable. But these dumplings ended up being way to chewy. Gnocchi definitely needs potato to work. The sage was lovely though.

Dessert is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. Vegetarians don’t get to have jelly very often and so I thought I’d have a go at making the vegetarian-friendly kind. But it needed to be adult jelly. Not that cheap-tasting raspberry stuff. I mixed a bottle of sparkling white wine with half a cup of sugar, 80ml of Saint Germain, a quarter of a cup of raspberries and one large tablespoon of agar agar powder. The jelly was served chilled with lychees, raspberries and a Saint Germain, vanilla and ginger syrup. Oh yes.

What could be a better finish to our meal than a whisky tasting flight out of Mr K’s quaich? I was giddy by the time midnight rocked around. I wouldn’t spend my New Years Eve any other way!

We celebrated New Years with a fancy dinner party for two. I knew that I wanted to serve an Amuse-Bouche that had something to do with cucumber and thought that cute cucumber cups (like the ones made by Monika at Vegetarian Surprises)  would do the job. But what would I fill them with? I made a simple chilled cucumber and dill soup that I thought I could serve in the cups. Maybe I could add some honeydew melon somewhere? But then we went to the bottle shop and I saw the miniature bottles of Hendrick’s Gin. I was more excited than any person has a right to be in public. A light bulb went off in my head. Why didn’t I see it before?!

Hendrick’s Martinis in Cucumber Cups

1 Lebanese cucumber

50ml Hendrick’s Gin

Honeydew melon to garnish

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Cut the cucumber into 4cm rounds. Peel skin and scoop out flesh leaving a 1cm layer at the bottom. These keep in the refrigerator for a few hours if you want to make them ahead of time. If you’re using the 50ml Hendrick’s botttles, chill them in the fridge or freezer beforehand.  Otherwise, shake or stir the Hendrick’s Gin with ice and pour into the cucumber cups. Add any aromatics, such as cocktail bitters or a dash of rosewater. To garnish, use a melon baller (I used a tiny measuring spoon) to scoop out little globes of honeydew melon and style on a toothpick, like you would with a martini olive. Enjoy!

They ended up being delicious! I served the chilled cucumber soup alongside the martinis. It made for a refreshing start to the meal.

Chilled Cucumber Soup

1 Lebanese cucumber

8 springs of dill

1 cup vegetable stock

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Place everything in a food processor and blend till smooth. Strain through a muslin and serve chilled. Also makes a great base for savoury cocktails!

My Grandfather used to work on a cruise ship. He said that when they made fancy Champagne cocktails for the first class passengers in the ship’s bar they would use cider instead of Champagne and no one could tell the difference! The traditional Champagne cocktail was garnished with a cherry or twist of lemon, but the orange works well, especially if you want to be fancy and add a dash of Cointreau or Grand Marnier.

I love Champagne cocktails, they’re the perfect way to spice up a bottle of cheap sparkling white wine. Here’s my no fuss four step recipe.

Mmm. Chai tea. What’s not to love? On cold rainy days I get the urge to brew a big pot of chai tea and wear fluffy socks. Ya know? There are some amazing chai blends out there, but making your own can be really fun. It’s also easy, and you probably have one or two of the spices in your cupboard right now.

Traditionally, masala chai is made with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, pepper and black tea blended with milk and honey. I like to add a bit more spice with nutmeg, star anise and sweeten it all with a touch of vanilla. It’s also traditionally brewed over a stove, but this blend is just perfect for a tea pot or press.

There isn’t any hard or fast rule when it comes to the proportion in which you use your spices, or even which ones you choose to use. If you’re not a big fan of cardamom, leave it out. I will say that with spices, the fresher, the better. But if you can’t find cinnamon quills or fresh ginger, use cinnamon powder or dried ginger powder. Add dried apple, orange peel or cranberries to make Christmas tea. Mmmm.

Masala Chai Blend

2 tablespoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons black tea

1 tablespoon ginger

2 teaspoons cardamom

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cloves

the tiniest amount of star anise possible!

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Mix it all up and add to a pot of freshy boiled water. Let steep for three to four minutes. Serve with warm milk and honey. You can scale up this recipe and keep it in an airtight jar, away form direct sunlight. If your willpower is strong enough, it should last for several months.

I like to start by breaking up a couple of cinnamon quills. You could use a mortar and pestle for this, but I’m tough and macho and like splitting them open with my fingers.

Add ginger. I’m making this masala mix to use later, so I decided to opt for dried ginger chips. You can use fresh ginger, or the powdered kind. Or, you know, whatever.

Cardamom smells lovely. You can use the whole pods, or the tiny black seeds inside. Grocery stores will sometimes sell both kinds. I like the pods because they’re a pretty shade of pistachio green.

Cloves can be overpowering, so beware of using too much.

Like cloves, star anise can be really overpowering. Break off bits of the star a piece at a time. A little goes a long way!

Grate your nutmeg using a microplane, or just use the powdered kind. It has such a spicy sweet smell.

I used a black tea that had bits of vanilla through it. Then I mixed up a big bowl and scooped it into cute paper bags to give away as gifts. Now my friends can have something warm to drink the next time it’s cold and rainy!

Are you a fan of masala chai?

Inspired by Luxirare, I thought I would try my hand at making my own vanilla extract. It’s very easy and works out to be so much cheaper than the stuff you buy in the supermarket. Even imitation vanilla extract is expensive these days.

I used 42 below vodka and Tahitian vanilla beans from the Natural Vanilla Store. Before you begin, make sure that you’re using clean utensils and that the jar for your extract is sterile. Elaine shares three very easy ways to sterilise your containers here.

The vanilla beans were sooo fragrant! After I opened the bag our whole apartment smelled amazing. I slit them open lengthways to allow the seeds to infuse more readily. I felt like a lecherous old lady with sticky and delicoius vanilla innards all over my hands. Yesss.

I used one vanilla bean for every 50ml of vodka and then added one more for good luck. Pour the vodka in, seal the jar and leave in a cupboard somewhere for four weeks.

 Wait a bit…

 …Four weeks later and you’re all done! Decant the extract into cute little bottles. It also makes a lovely gift!

Giuseppe Cipriani, founder of the famous Harry’s Bar in Venice, invented the Bellini roughly sixty years ago. Cipriani was inspired by the beautiful glow that seemed to emanate from  the paintings by Giovanni Bellini and decided to name his latest drink after the artist. The original cocktail was made with white peaches macerted in white wine and then puréed. It’s a delightful drink in summer and works best with firm ripe white-flesh peaches and chilled prosecco.

Remove the stones from three ripe peaches. Chop roughly and add to a blender with 30ml of peach liqueur or for a floral touch, 30ml of Saint Germain elderflower liqueur. Purée till smooth and velvety. Your peach nectar can be kept refrigerated for up to  four days.

Pour 50ml of the nectar into a champagne flute. Add more peach liqueur or Saint Germain if you’re feeling saucy.

Top with chilled prosecco and enjoy immediately!

For a lovely non-alcoholic version, substitute the prosecco for soda water and the liqueur for elderflower cordial. It’s sublime at the end of a hot day.

Rosemary Salt is super easy to make and is sooo delicious. It is wonderful sprinkled over baked potatoes, popcorn, and I’m told, rubbed into roast meats.

Packed into small jars, it also makes a lovely gift that’s cheap and useful.

Rosemary Salt

1 cup fresh rosemary leaves

3 cups course rock salt

In a blender or food processor, blend the rosemary first, add the salt and blend briefly a second time. That’s it!

It is important to wash the dust and dirt off the rosemary before you begin. You don’t want any surprises ending up in your finished product! Give your bunches of rosemary a good rinse and leave to dry overnight.

When dry, strip the leaves off the twigs. To do this quickly and easily, hold the tip of twig and rub your thumb and forefinger downwards. Remove any woody pieces and any discoloured or dead leaves. Put the fresh leaves in a blender and blend for thirty seconds or so till ground to a workable powder.

You can keep the twigs; they make excellent skewers for vegetables or bits of lamb. You can also put them in a jar of apple cider vinegar and leave to macerate for a fortnight. Rosemary infused apple cider vinegar makes a lovely rinse for oily hair. It’s also amazing over hot chips ;-)

Add the salt to the blender and blend very briefly. Ten seconds or so should do it. Any longer and you will end up with salty rosemary flavoured dust. I like to stir in one cup of sea salt flakes after blending for a bit of texture. Decant into jars and enjoy. It’s that easy!

Can you believe I made it to the ripe old age of twenty three without knowing how to make popcorn!?

When I was little we had a machine that did all the work. But this last year I’ve discovered that making popcorn the old fashioned way is easy. It’s also lots of fun if you have a saucepan with a glass lid. I could stand there and watch corn pop all day.

Popcorn

1 tablespoon light vegetable oil

1/3 cup popping corn

Flavour of your choice

Put the oil in a heavy saucepan over a medium heat. Add three or four kernels of corn while the oil heats up. When all of your test kernels have popped it’s time to throw in the rest of of the corn and put on the lid. Once the corn starts popping, give the saucepan a gentle shake. You know it’s done when you can only here one or two pops per second. Take the saucepan off the heat and let it rest for half a minute or so. Pour out into a bowl and add your favourite flavour. Enjoy!

Flavours

• My personal favourite, sea salt flakes and tuffle oil
• Try finely grated parmesan and powdered paprika
• Drizzle your popcorn with sweet stuff: honey, maple syrup, salted caramel
• You know those chai latte sachets? That’s right. Makes an awesome popcorn flavour
• Sprinkle with vinegar and salt
• Use a microplane to zest a lime and add chilli flakes
• Shave 85% coco chocolate and nutmeg over the top
• Mix up some wasabi and sesame oil
• Dust with vanilla sugar
• Sprinkle with cinnamon and soft brown sugar and the tiniest bit of butter
• Use crushed dried sage and cracked black pepper
• Mix in pumkin seeds and pine nuts

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